Local PC losing connection to Davis VP2 ethernet logger

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1

I recently upgraded to the latest version of WD build 152. This was a result of a humidity problem I was seeing on the graphs. Outdoor humidity was wildly swinging all over the place. Thinking it was maybe the data logger, I sent my Davis VP2 in for service. I got it back with latest Davis firmware for both the Ethernet data logger as well as the console. My weather station has been totally local on a dedicated Win7 cheap PC for years now as I have uploaded to the net in the past.

But here’s what I’m experiencing after all this. First off, it was not my data logger or my console causing the issue. It was a bad outdoor humidity sensor which I have since replaced and it’s now reporting good numbers now.

My dedicated Win7 pc runs 24/7 pulling in data and displaying it on a dedicated screen.

However, I’m seeing a couple of things after all this updating and replacing parts.

First, when I start the WD software, I get an error screen that says “Could not initialize Edge Chromium…check version number” When I click ok, I get the same message a second time. When I click OK, the program finally starts.

But what I’m also finding besides those errors, is that randomly I will look at my WD screen, the temperature will show blank and and data received is not flashing green.

It seems that WD stops talking with my Davis data logger. This causes me to have to restart that computer, and then restart WD.

This has happened before, but it was few and far between. It’s now happenning every couple of days as the machine runs 24/7 as I stated.

I’m not sure where to look in the software but it appears my ethernet data logger is losing connection.

To further isolate the problem when it enters this condition, I go out to my Weatherlink account on the web and my data logger is reporting current conditions

So the data is getting through my router

But why do I keep losing connection between my datalogger and my local PC? Any ideas?

2

Short bump here. But I’m wondering if this is posted in the right place. Let it be known is that I’m losing connection to my local PC but I’m using WD on that PC.

3

This is the best place, so I suspect that no-one has any thoughts on what is causing this.

To clarify a couple of things:

  1. When you say the “Ethernet logger” do you mean a WeatherLink Live (WLL) box? I’m not aware of any official Davis Ethernet loggers, but I may be wrong. If it is a WLL box have you connected anything else locally to download data from the WLL box?

  2. Have you changed anything on your local network recently? New router, new ISP, added any devices or removed devices, etc?

4

Ok…I have an older Davis VP-2. I had a choice between a wired logger or wireless. I went for the wired. According to Davis, they no longer make this wired logger. But they were able to update the firmware in the logger. So that’s one of the changes to my setup. The other change was the firmware of the Davis console. And I also updated the WD software to just try to get everything current. That’s when I noticed the errors on startup talking about “Edge Chromium” Not even sure what that means because it’s all on a local machine not connected to the internet.

As I stated I sent these both into Davis due to a humidty issue I was having. It turned out to be the outdoor humidty sensor. That sensor was all over the place which had my WD graphs completely screwed up. So my hunch was that the logger was bad. Turns out it checked ok at Davis. But for 80 bucks they updated these and tested them so that’s kinda why I agreed to do it after all this time of running it.

The other thing I just now checked was do I have the WD pc still set on static IP. Had to look up how to do it but I got it. It’s still set on static ip. My router has a DHCP reservation for both the logger and the WD pc. The only thing I’m wondering (I’m not a network wizard by any means) is the 2 DNS servers on the screenshot below. Could they be outdated possibly? I guess all I’m asking is there a setting(s) in WD that could help stabilize the connection>

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As I said before, I had this happen but usually after a loss of power due to storms whatever. I would have to do the Davis reset procedure by removing batteries/power and reseating the data logger. But it was few and far between and I always noticed a clock difference on my pc and the davis console. When it happens now, I tend to suspect the clocks being off but they are always the same between my pc and the Davis console.

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5

Re Edge, see New Version of WD REQUIRES Edge? - #9 by jaltman. Later in the thread a Win 7 user went back to build 131. . .

6

Edge is no longer supported on win7 so suggest an older version of WD for win7, the error is caused by WD trying to install the Microsoft webviewer which will not work on win7
The dns is for the pc to access the internet ie the web browser
As you have an ip data logger have you tried replacing the Ethernet cable between the pc and logger which may be more than 1 cable if via router

7

According to version history build 146 was the first to use Edge, so anything before that is probably OK.

8

It would be useful to try to figure out what aspect of the connection is breaking. For example, is it a physical network issue, an IP addressing issue with the logger or WD PC, or something else.

If you ping the data logger when it’s working does it respond? Some devices don’t respond to pings. If it does respond then when you lose the connection can you still ping the logger from the WD PC. If you have another PC on the network you could try pinging both the logger and the WD PC from it.

Further to what @hcorrin said about DNS - DNS is almost certainly working. WD is unlikely to be using DNS - it just connects by IP address. The data logger will almost certainly use DNS to look up the address of the Davis WeatherLink server.

9

For starters, I will try to roll back to WD 145. One thing I did try, was to check my Davis WeatherLink page when the WD connection breaks. I’m still getting data out to the web. Which sort of concludes my cable is good to the router. and the router is ok. It seems to poiint to WD. So let me roll back. Is it possible to roll back versions without needing to uninstall older version?

10

AFAIK you just install the older version on top without uninstalling anything. . . I can’t find FAQs at the moment :confused:

11

Yeah and I can’t find older windows versions of WD. The WD dowloads page only shows the latest version.

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Thank you sir. Got it.

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14

Ok…I successfully rolled back to build 145. I’ll let this cook for a couple of days to see what happens. I’ll check back with an update. It’s been failing like every 2 or 3 days. So let’s how far I can make it. Thanks.

15

I’d still suggest doing the ping tests. The console will still talk to WLL if it has a valid IP address for your network, so if the address changed for any reason that link wouldn’t break. The console IP address being fixed is very important to WD - if it changed then WD would lose the connection.

I’m not saying this is definitely the problem, but it’s something I’d want to rule out.

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16

If you mean ping test from within the WD, I have done that and it works. I also have the logger with a DHCP reservation in the router so the ip address is fixed.

17

The ping still works when WD has stopped downloading data? That suggests it’s probably a WD problem rather than any network problems

Static DHCP addressing should work, but relatively simple devices like the logger don’t always implement all the protocols perfectly due to lack of memory/processing power.

18

Ok…I can’t remember if I tested it when WD was disconnected. I did it several times. Either way, if it drops again, I test it then. I just didn’t want to introduce multiple ‘tries’ all at once.

19

I let this thing run for a week or so with 145 and it did it got disconnected again. So I rolled it back to my previous version that worked 101. It seemed to help but then we had an extended power outage the connection broke again. Not knowing if the power outage caused it, I had to reset the logger and start over. The next day (today), the connection broke. So I did a ping from inside the WD app and it pinged the logger. This time just restarting WD was not good enough. I had to reset the logger again. The reset procedure is recommended by Davis when you lose connection and involves powering down, removing backup batteries, and reseating the logger in the back of the console. It’s working right now. Any idea which settings to look at in WD that I may have screwed up?

20

so what was the timings in the ping result should be like this

Screen Shot 04-17-25 001
Screen Shot 04-17-25 0011074×641 65.3 KB

this is for my ip logger

I have not seen how the pc is connected to the router wired or WIFI
I assume the data from the logger is still getting to your weatherlink account ok even when the pc loses connection which you said is wired to the router