Recently WD on an unattended computer has started locking up almost daily, and when this happens I can not use Team Viewer to control it remotely. I connected a monitor and mouse one day, and WD was visible but completely locked up and I could not even see a mouse cursor. The only way of restarting the machine is to switch it off and back on again - not ideal, I lost all the old graphs this morning.
Nothing in programerrorlog.txt and, of course, when one is forced to restart like this the event log is blank. . . is there any way of keeping the log - or any debug log - when this happens?
If you cannot access the machine WD is running on via Teamviewer, and you also don’t get a mouse cursor when you view the desktop through a directly connected monitor, I would suspect WD isn’t at fault, but this might be an operating system issue.
You could maybe check the system logs of the OS.
Also… You could use a tool like SyncThing or UrBackup to automatically and immediately copy all data to another computer, the moment that data is generated. This is what I do. In the event the machine WD runs dies completely all of a sudden, I have a copy of the WD directory on another (off site) computer, containing the last data before dying. But this of course does not solve your original problem.
I think you are probably right. . . but it started out of the blue just before the latest Win 10 update, and I don’t think I changed anything in WD either. Nothing in Win 10 event log after forced reboot except “The previous shutdown was unexpected.”
Big WD problem is that I can’t use the history data from the datalogger, so I’m losing maybe 8 hours of data overnight.
Why would the datalogger not contain the missed data? I assume your wx station console has no dependency on the computer. Even if your computer locks up the datalogger should be collecting data I would think…
Maybe check your power saving settings for the USB port and harddrive…make sure they are not being put to sleep.
The datalogger does contain the missed data and, on restart, WD will read all the raw missed data and write it to a text file. But my installation of WD will no longer decode the raw data and write it to the log or graph it. And the option to import data from the history.txt file is no longer available. I have a growing bank of text files that I hope to be able to decode one day.
Maybe check your power saving settings for the USB port and harddrive...make sure they are not being put to sleep.
And yet. . . after running OK all day, if I just restart WD (not the computer) before I go to bed everything will run OK through the night, which is the main thing. If things seize up during the day I have a good chance of catching it quickly.
Is WD no longer supporting the WMR200? I don’t understand why WD will not read in the history data. I’m guessing WD no longer supports the OS station you use?
Probably a long shot since the computer is locking up, but next time it happens, before you re-start WD, check the contents of the WD errorlog file and see if there is any clue as to what happened. It sounds like you may have a memory leak that halts your system. The “About” function in WD used to display the memory usage and allow you to reclaim the used memory.
Probably a long shot since the computer is locking up, but next time it happens, before you re-start WD, check the contents of the WD errorlog file and see if there is any clue as to what happened. It sounds like you may have a memory leak that halts your system. The "About" function in WD used to display the memory usage and allow you to reclaim the used memory.
I tried programerrorlog file but no joy. Help > About WD still displays the memory usage, but it never gets very high. I already have it set to free up memory twice a day, just in case
I’d had a similar issue (weather computer becoming unresponsive). It wasn’t WD (it was just a victim), it turned out to be fling grabbing and not releasing non-pageable memory until all was exhausted. You should use a tool like Microsoft system tools Process Explorer (Process Explorer - Sysinternals | Microsoft Learn) to find out the memory status of all the running programs.
I ended up writing a Perl script to watch NP memory for fling and kill the process if over 64Mb was grabbed … did that since at the time, no fix was available. Ultimately, a fixed version of fling arrived, and all’s been good on the weather station computer since.
I monitor memory with the usual Windows tools - Task Manager and Resource Monitor - as shown, but I’ve never seen anything untoward. Mind you, I’m probably asleep when the darn thing goes critical. . . which is why I’ve taken to restarting WD before I go to bed. The actual computer has now been up 37 hours with no problem, which has not happened for a while.
Fling is software from Fling Free FTP Automatic Sync and Upload Software . It allows you to scan directories for changed files and automatically upload them through one FTP (or FTPS) connection at intervals or when files are detected as updated. Since I run multiple weather software (for use with my Saratoga templates), it’s very handy to prune down the number of disparate connections to upload to a weather website. It, however, had a subtle memory leak, and over time would cripple a system due to lack of memory.
I personally find that Process Explorer much better able to dive into what is loaded and happening on the system… I’ve been running it on all systems for well over a decade.
You don’t say what RAM you have available on the weather station system … my CoreI5 system has 8GB ram and even with all the software running (including WD), it has about 3.5GB free at any time. WD (for me) runs with < 500Mb working set.
You don't say what RAM you have available on the weather station system .. my CoreI5 system has 8GB ram and even with all the software running (including WD), it has about 3.5GB free at any time. WD (for me) runs with < 500Mb working set.
As shown in Task Manager, top left of attachment, 4 GB. Only WD and TeamViewer (and a million Windows processes, it seems) run on the machine, which should not be in the least stressed.
I’d found 4GB was a bit anemic and went for 8GB … as windows gets updates, I find a creep in the number of windows things loaded in memory and consuming resources. It may be that 4GB just isn’t large enough to hold 'em all and run indefinitely.
True re updates. . . but machine has been running OK for a year and a half now and, as I said, the problem started just before the latest Win 10 update so it was OK for the “update month” before that. Wish I could remember if I changed anything. . .
After days of random locking up (at no particular time) I turned off WD and spent a while checking Win 10 (sfc, dism), reset winsock, removed the Speccy app (flagged by Microsoft as a possible problem) and allowed the machine to run 24/7 while uploading a webcam image every minute (using iSpy, not WD).
A couple of trouble-free days later I started WD again. Three hours later the machine locked up.
The machine regularly uploads files as follows:
clientraw*.txt and customclientraw.txt every 20 seconds, using Real Time FTP;
customtextout.txt every minute, using General FTP Functions;
testtags.php every hour, using Customise File Creation; and
WUnderground every 5 minutes.
I frequently find that FTP packs up for a few minutes, but it usually restarts: I have it set to restart every 10 minutes anyway. But is there any chance that all these uploads are conflicting and causing a lock-up?
My computer does this as well. I have made sure that all sleep settings except for the monitor are off (or the ones I can find).
Random lockups happen at any given time. It is a dedicated computer for WD, NexStorm and XAMPP as a web server. I send data to WU and Twitter and use it for Weather 34.
Win10 1909
12 GB memory
i5-3470 cpu
AMD Radeon R5 series 200 2GB graphics.
I’m sorry you have the same problem, but I’m glad I’m not alone - if that makes sense
Today I restarted WD and it took 80 minutes to read 11.125 days’ history data from the datalogger. (This was not decoded, logged or graphed, so the WMR200history.txt file was renamed and joined the growing number awaiting a solution to that separate problem.)
I saved my existing settings just in case, then turned off all FTP functions and now I’ll just let it run. . . If it runs for more than 24 hours I’ll restart the four different FTP functions one at a time until the problem recurs.
Watch this space
EDIT: Computer completely locked up at 1906. . . looks like this problem will have to wait until I can source another machine.
Thanks, Brian. The original USB cable provided with the WMR200 console has a large ferrite EMI-suppression toroid at each end, and has worked faultlessly for a couple of years on this machine. The problem started relatively recently (mid-January) and not immediately after a Win10 update, and so far there is no evidence that the Win10 installation is at fault.
I can’t access any logs because I have to power cycle the machine to restart it.
I may try to re-install Win10 but, in the meantime, I’m planning to run the same WD settings on my i3-3240 desktop using a USB-over-ethernet extender, just to see what happens. This machine is turned off overnight, so I’ll be saving a lot more WMR200history.txt files.
I really would like to be able to decode them. . .
