Feedback on Mac version 10.37i (June 24th)

[jmar]

Hello,

Here are my observations on the June 24 release of 10.37i. I will try to limit them as best I can to the most important issues (imho) as I know this is a work in progress and I don’t want to slow your progress on the app.

First let me say that I spent a considerable amount of time getting the app functioning with my mac mini intel 2.0 2g machine,but once I got into it, things seem to be coming along quite well. I have a Keyspan adapter, and also, whenever I got stuck, dropped into VMware Fusion running XP to check the app against its Windows counterpart when I got stuck (more for a control comparison than anything) I want to run the software not only in the main screen (client) but also serve pages on my web server, just so you will know my set up.

Starting the app:

Having challenges with having the program serving the web pages on start up consistently. At first I went to Setup/Web Creation Wizard in order to start the web page serving, but today I found that if I executed Action/Update Internet Now I got the program to start updating the web server regularly, bypassing the wizard. I don’t see a preference to do so therefore I would suggest that the program start the web server, if set up of course, upon program start, with no user intervention. This would allow me to have the program run automatically on start up in the morning. Maybe a separate instance as a background app for the web server… much like my Indigo server might be a suggestion.

Main Screen Presentation:

When I start the program, the readouts have not been appearing alongside the labels in the main screen, in particular the Av Wind Speed, outside Tem. Temp rate, Inside Temp, among others. At first I thought it was a setting that I had not selected. But then I opened the file in the webserver labelled “myweatherstation.jpg” and there were all the conditions clearly labelled and all information contained. (I tried to attached screen dumps for you but size limitations on the forum prevented this) Finally, after an extensive search I found that if Setup/Advanced -Misc Setings/ LCD/LED boxes were all unchecked, the screen displays perfectly. When I check any one of them however I lose the digits on the main screen, or some portion of them.

CPU cycles

Activity monitor shows that at certain times the program goes into high cpu usage (96% or more) . I know that around the update times (1 minute in my case) I expect increased usage in Activity Monitor, but if I am in the control panels adjusting settings, it seems to start high cpu cycles and no end to it, eventually requiring a restart as it slows down the mini.

Log File Entries
This is more of a nag than anything but I just wanted to note it while I was thinking about it. The program writes to the system log, and there are hundreds of entries when I open Console. Suggestion would be to create the log files in Wdisplay’s own log file or limit entries in the system log to errors only (right now they are listed as notices) Just a thought.

These seem to be the show stoppers for now. The program seems to be getting more solid, although I see the cpu cycles are going up again as I write this. I will just restart for now.

I hope this contributed, and keep up the great work!

Jim

[jmar]

One more thing guys, It seems that once every second there is a disk access whenever WD is active. I notice that looking at the digital clock in the main screen that the disk accesses are in sync with the second digits, may be coincidence, but when I quit WD the accesses go away. Don’t want to burn out the hard disk over a clock if the cause is indeed that. Is there a way to disable the digital clock in the main display to test?

Thanks
Jim

[nikoshepherd]

What weather station do you have?

[jmar]

oops sorry, it’s a WMR-968.

[nikoshepherd]

I was just thinking that the update frequency might drive the disk access issue. Great summary, I’m sure Brian will appreciate it.

[jmar]

My pleasure. Glad to help out. I just wanted to outline the key things here. I am having the flashing window issue and other things as well but I see they are being covered in other posts.

The mac really needs this software, given the lack of focus from the other developers, and you guys are really giving this a great effort! I think it’s been version updated a couple times in the past week alone… kudos! … so anything I can do to help let me know. I will log on a couple times a day when I can as long as I can be of assistance.

Jim

[dcrooks]

Just a couple things…i

Reference to starting the app, you should have cron jobs that startup to ftp the pages to your webserver. They should start on their own when an event is scheduled to happen. Make sure you have the latest version of WD as some changes were made recently to fix a problem.

For the main screen presentation, I have not had any issue with that. Could you do a screen grab that shows the problem and put it on your webserver and link back from the forum so we could see what your seeing?

[jmar]

Hi Dan,

The web server is still in testing and I won’t be using it until I get this all sorted out. I don’t ftp the files into the webserver because it’s also on theMini. I just have the program deposit the webfiles into the /Library/Webserver/Documents/Weather folder via Weather Display’s “Control Panel/Web Files/Set Web files location” function so shouldn’t need a cron job. (This is the location I got the second file mentioned above - “myweatherstation.jpg” to compare with the main screen.

Edit: I should have said in my article about program startup - “I don’t see a preference to do so therefore I would suggest that the program start updating files to the web server, if set up of course, upon program start, with no user intervention” as the web server is obviously on at startup it’s just that the files are not placed there automatically until I go through the steps mentioned earlier. Sorry about the bad semantic there.

Then I turn on Web sharing in the preferences and it serves to the internet.

Just to be clear, I am seeing that screen presentation issue in the program’s main screen, the web jpg file is normal.

I can email you the pics if you like

Jim

[dcrooks]

Yes, email would be fine. I just wanted to see the problem you mentioned on the console display. It could be something that affects me and I just haven’t noticed it yet…I tend to just glance at my console so when someone mentions a problem it makes me look at mine to see if I have the same issue.

[windy2]

re the screen updating, with the wmr968 station, it sends weather data in separate lots…and so only those parts of the screen are updated with that data as that arrives…so once all the data has arrived (i.e after a minute or 2) all the data on the screen will have updated
the screen grab jpg image though draws in the current data stored from the last time wd was running for each weather parameter, regardless of it was running or not

as for the internet updating, on restart, wd will not start doing the updates until all the data has arrived from the station (for your station thats a couple of minutes), and then also there is a 2 minute delay before it then starts again, to make sure extra sensor data has arrived ok…this is so that old data is not shown on the internet, etc

i.e I think you are not waiting long enough after start up

also, 1 minute updating will cause a hit on the cpu
if you have set to update the clientraw.txt file then that will cause a write to disk every second
its not going to worry the HD, they are better than you think

why not use WDL to show real time updates?

[jmar]

Thanks Brian,

“re the screen updating” and “…you are not waiting long enough after start up” :

I started WD and waited 22 minutes. As you can see by the modified times in the first file attached, the text files in the folder were updated, but the web pages were not. Then I went in and selected the Update Internet Now command as mentioned previously and all the files updated as seen by the modified times in the second attachment. So it seems that WD Mac is not updating the web pages automatically on startup as I would expect/ like to do.

My comment about the screen with missing data is easily demonstrated by waiting until all the data is in the screen, then checking Setup/Advanced -Misc Setings/ LCD/LED - LCD Digits on main screen. The digits on the main screen disappear on the console but are updated normally in the web copy of the main screen. This can be duplicated by allowing the next update to occur, and then trying the check box, same result.

re “why not use WDL to show real time updates?” :

I didn’t think WDL was available on the Mac. I would prefer to use it than update the clientraw.txt every second, which is probably the disk accesses I am hearing. Where can I get the Mac version of WDL? I will give it a try. Also, How do I set the web folder version of clientraw.txt not to update to that folder?

Hope this is helping

Jim

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[nikoshepherd]

Good news/bad news. WDL is a .swf flash app that works on just about any webserver, linux/iis/etc. but you can only extract the files from the download “installer” on a PC #-o

[jmar]

Thanks, I guess until WDL is installable on a Mac then I guess I can’t try it lol. bummer.

[windy2]

if its available as a .zip download, then you can download that to a mac ok and use it
the clientraw.txt is going to be updated on the HD with WDL in use too

I still am not sure what you are refering to the on the main screen problem
can you post a screen shot?

[jmar]

Sorry, I edited my last post to rwhile you were posting to me.

Here are the screen dumps showing the LCD/button check problem. I think I can compress them enough now. (Learning on the fly here) I emailed them to Dan earlier.

The first one shows the Main Screen on the console with that button checked. The second shows the screen dump to the web server of that same screen. Of course as I said earlier, uncheck the button “Setup/Advanced -Misc Setings/ LCD/LED - LCD Digits on main screen” and all seems to go back to normal.

Jim

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[windy2]

the mac/linux version does not support the data as LCD digits that the windows vesion has available
do I need to remove that option
(i.e do not use that option, as that means the data is not displayed…i.e the lcd data is not displayed)

note that the jpg screen image is not actualy a screen grab of what you see on the mac screen, its a redraw of that same data

now, for WDL, you can download the needed files here:
http://www.weather-display.com/downloadfiles/wdlfiles.zip

[jmar]

Brian,

re: “if its available as a .zip download, then you can download that to a mac ok and use it”

got the file… sorry we were walking over each other here. Will install and give it a try

re: "the mac/linux version does not support the data as LCD digits that the windows vesion has available
do I need to remove that option
(i.e do not use that option, as that means the data is not displayed…i.e the lcd data is not displayed)

Thanks. Noted as confirmation of unsupported (in Mac) feature.

Jim

[dcrooks]

Brian, Re: the LCD digits, I never tried that here so didn’t know it wasn’t working. I would say if you don’t have plans to get it working on the Mac then yes, remove that option from the code. No sense in having it there if it doesn’t work.

Jim, WDL uses the clientraw files for it’s data. Not sure you understood that from your earleir post about thrashing the HD with the constant writing of the clientraw files.

[jmar]

Dan, got that. The LCD digit resolution takes care of the 2nd feedback item (Screen Pesentation).

I now understand the HD thrashing issue (it wasn’t the clock, but updates to the Clientraw.txt and other file occuring often). That resolves my second post in this thread. BTW, I downloaded WDL and got it working within minutes after finding the config file, and renaming it. Works great!

The only issues outstanding from my feedback at this time are:

• the web update issue at startup. That is the web page updates that need to be kick started with a selection of the “Update Inernet now” command. BTW only web page items are affected. WDL updates right from the get go.

• CPU usage issue, I understand how the app can use cpu cycles as it updates files, communicates with the station etc, so no problem there… but I turned on Activity Monitor last night and just watched for a couple hours after having gone in to check settings in the cntrol panel, and views, then just to idle. No question that over time, possibly a memory leak or something above my tech skills, is developing, that takes CPU usage from the 1 - 5 % WD typically uses at idle along with all other Mac apps at idle… to well up into the 90% range until it gets so sluggish by the end of the period that an app restart is needed. As an FYI, I used the inspector in Activity Monitor to watch the app as it idled , although the CPU usage was indicating over 90%. Witness testing indicted that memory usage from time to time shot sky high, about every 15 second (the memory usage indicated 16T lol, which is not realistic I know) but may have something to do with the CPU usage growing to be so high over time. This is the only show stopper for me due to the other apps that I run on the Mini (Indigo, mailserver, ftp, etc), so it needs to play nice with cpu usage.

• The system log file issue, once again this is just a nag more than anything, but it makes looking at the system log to confirm other functions of the system a huge chore, as there are hundreds of entries (notices) from WD that have to be scrolled through just to confirm my daily backup occurred (for example.

Thanks guys for the quick responses on my feedback. It shows your commitment to the platform. Appreciated.

EDIT - Wow, guys! I just checked and see that there is another update to the program dated 24 Jun at 22:40? That’s 2 in 24 hours! You rock!

Can someone let me know what’s changed in this version, there is no read me or release note. It may take care of some of my issues.

Thanks,
Jim

PS - I have attached a pic of the CPU usage from Activity Monitor to demonstrate the issue above. I started about 7 or 8 apps and let them all idle for about an hour, then snapped the pic. As you can see, WD is there on the top of the page at 99%. (btw - the mini is dual processor the total numbers will exceed 100%) Hope this helps.
Jim

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[windy2]

do you have that same run away cpu problem Dan?
Jmar, maybe try as a test, turning off internet file creations until you can (maybe) find the cause of that?

but also, any errors under view, program error log, or under view, ws2010/w2500 data setup (i.e anything being logged in that latter one too)