SkyMaxx - RWC - NOAA - Ventura Sky

[Denco]

I've been running the above combination for a few weeks now and I experienced no problems. RWC was set to "ALWAYS" as per manual. The last few days I noticed I'm not getting clouds in areas where bad weather is reported. The first thing I did was to check the METAR file if the upload failed, but the file was ok filled with proper information. Next thing I did was to disable the RWC by setting it to "NEVER" I get clouds immediately. I reenabled RWC by setting it to "ALWAYS" and disabled the NOAA plugin. To get the clouds showing I had to disable and reenable RWC using the above procedure because I have "Never change visible weather option" enabled.

 

So any idea on what could be happening here? I first noticed this when I update NOAA to v2.4, but considering that reverting it back to 2.3 didn't fix anything makes me completely and utterly lost. I uploaded the latest METAR. The latest test was done today on the LJMB airport with the following report:

2016/10/24 14:00
LJMB 241400Z 20012KT 180V240 9999 SCT033 BKN150 18/12 Q1019

MAXX_METAR.rwx

[sundog]

Could you also post your log.txt after experiencing this (together with the maxx_metar.rwx you had at the time?)

There's nothing unusual about that METAR report so I think something more complex is going on.

 

[Denco]

Here is the log Sundog that was used combined with the above METAR file. Maybe you can make some sense of it all

 

Log.txt

Edited October 24, 2016 by Denco

[crisk73]

The same is happening to me, already told the NOAA plugin and VS devs, but they replied that only RWC is responsible for drawing clouds. If it can help, starting from a US airport gives no problem, in Europe I get no clouds. And more, if you start the sim in whatever US airport then clouds get "unlocked" also for Europe. Again to make some more sense...

Using NOAA v2.4.0+VSv1.2+RWC on XP10.51r2.

Thanks.

Log.txt

GizmoLog.txt

MAXX_METAR.rwx

20161024_185235Zdump.txt

Edited October 24, 2016 by crisk73
Logs added

[sundog]

Apparently the new NOAA 2.4 release updates the METAR.rwx file every minute, and that seems to be the source of this problem.

Real Weather Connector is seeing that METAR.rwx is being refreshed more often than its own MAXX_METAR.rwx file, and so it is loading weather from METAR.rwx instead. Which apparently contains very little information (perhaps we're reading it while NOAA is still constructing it?). Even when RWC is in "always" mode, it will use whichever file is updated more recently (METAR.rwx or MAXX_METAR.rwx) for its weather source.

Both of your logs say the same thing - METAR.rwx is getting replaced while NOAA is running and so RWC is using it as the newer source of data.

What I can do on my end is to always use our own MAXX_METAR.rwx data even if METAR.rwx is newer when "always" mode is set in RWC, as part of the upcoming Skymaxx Pro 4 release. But I'd recommend going back to NOAA 2.3 for now.

If the author of the NOAA plugin reads this, it would be a good idea to make the refresh frequency of METAR.rwx configurable if it isn't already, and to make sure it is updated in an atomic manner (for example, writing it out to a temporary file and then renaming it when it's ready.)

 

Edited October 24, 2016 by sundog

[Denco]

What you just described makes perfect sense. Although I still can't explain why I wasn't able to correct the issue by reverting back to 2.3. I'll let Joan know of your findings. Thank you for looking into this Sundog.

 

Regards

Edited October 24, 2016 by Denco

[sundog]

Just now, Denco said:

What you just described makes perfect sense. Although I still can't explain why I wasn't able to correct the issue by reverting back to 2.3. I'll let Joan know of your findings. Thank you for looking into this Sundog.

 

Regards

I think when you reverted back to 2.3, you still had a newer file modification date on METAR.rwx than was on MAXX_METAR.rwx, and so we kept using the most recent METAR.rwx that 2.4 had placed there.

 

[Denco]

Could be it. I'm going to try and revert back to v 2.3 tomorrow and I'll also delete all of the METAR files inside the sim.

[Denco]

4 minutes ago, sundog said:

I think when you reverted back to 2.3, you still had a newer file modification date on METAR.rwx than was on MAXX_METAR.rwx, and so we kept using the most recent METAR.rwx that 2.4 had placed there.

 

 

 

I just remembered that that NOAA has it's own METAR file, I think. Can RWC still access that one?

Edited October 24, 2016 by Denco

[crisk73]

I can confirm that reverting back to NOAA v2.3 (and deleting the .rwx files) bring back clouds to normal. Thanks@sundog

[sundog]

5 minutes ago, Denco said:

I just remembered that that NOAA has it's own METAR file, I think. Can RWC still access that one?

I don't use NOAA myself so I'm not real sure how it works. I can tell you that RWC in "always" mode will periodically check to see if either METAR.rwx or MAXX_METAR.rwx has been updated, and use the newer of the two if so.

As crisk73 said, going back to NOAA 2.3 and deleting both of those files should get you back in business.

 

[Denco]

Just now, sundog said:

I don't use NOAA myself so I'm not real sure how it works. I can tell you that RWC in "always" mode will periodically check to see if either METAR.rwx or MAXX_METAR.rwx has been updated, and use the newer of the two if so.

As crisk73 said, going back to NOAA 2.3 and deleting both of those files should get you back in business.

 

 

Yup, I'll trust his word and yours. Also, I wouldn't mind being a guinea pig for that v4 of SkyMaxx

 

[crisk73]

For your info Joan's got a quick fix for NOAA plugin v2.4 (devel version you can download from his github or from the link at the .org) by setting the metar.rwx refresh to 5 mins. All working fine with RWC now. 👍

Edit: v2.4.1 already out with the fix.