RWC Version

[kentwerickson]

Quick question: How can I verify which version of RWC I have installed? For there appears to be no version information in my RWC plugins folder. Also, whether I run the v1.0 installer versus the v1.1 installer, the user's manual that gets downloaded in my RWC folder is always the same -- it says v1.0. I know there is an online version of the v1.1 manual. But without some sort of independent verification it just seems like a leap of faith that the v1.1 installer actually installed version 1.1 of the plugin. Seems to me that there should be some way to check the current version number within the sim, but I don't know how to do this???

Note: I am still on XP10.

Thanks.

Edited February 26, 2019 by kentwerickson

[Cameron]

The installer only grabs the very latest. All old versions are removed/deleted from the server, and the installer would stall if the wrong version were attempted.

You have the latest.

[kentwerickson]

Thanks Cameron. This is somewhat of a nit, but it would be helpful to add a version note along with an update to the manual as part of the installation.

One other question while I have your ear. I've been running SMP v4.7.0 + RWC v1.1 + NOAA Weather v2.4.2 for what seems to be ages now, without issue -- wonderful, largely accurate multi-layer cloud representations (same goes for previous versions). But just recently I noticed a problem with the cloud rendering -- namely that clouds, when present, are now always visually represented as basically a uniformly grey-ish high overcast layer -- I never see ordinary cumulus ("puffy") clouds like I used to in conditions where they would be expected. Yet I've changed nothing recently in the respective configurations of these three plugins: The NOAA Weather plugin is enabled and seems to be working fine (its METAR reporting tool returns current and accurate METAR data, and also seems to work fine by itself; i.e., with RWC and/or SMP disabled). Also, I have the RWC "METAR data" option selected to "Always," which I believe is the correct setting in combination with the NOAA Weather plugin. However if I instead check either "Automatic" or "Never" the puffy clouds return (but then are presumably not sync'd to the NOAA Weather data as desired).

I've repeated this experiment by moving around to different airports where, for example, I know there are thunderstorms or a variety of cumulus cloud layers, and the result is always the same wherever I go -- SMP again draws a kind of uniformly grey-ish high overcast layer. So my question is this: Which of these three plugins do you think is most likely the culprit, and what is the most likely fix for this problem? In particular, is it possible that RWC (when set to "Always") is not receiving correct METAR data from wherever it is looking for that data (say because the source of that data is experiencing problems of some sort)? Or is it possible, for example, that Gizmo is causing the problem (it too seems to be running fine)? Btw, I have repeated this experiment with all other third-party plugins/addons disabled, and using only the default C172. And to repeat, I am still on XP 10.51.

Update 1: I don't know if this has anything to do with the problem reported above, but I just noticed the following: With all third-party addons disabled, including SMP, RWC, and NOAA, I notice that when I force real-world weather updates in XP (under Environment/Weather/Grab real-world weather), it's consistently reporting that the weather downloads are failing (I have no idea why; e.g., my Internet connection is up and working fine). However, if RWC, when set to "Always,", is not using XP's real-world weather data, this should not matter for the correct rendering of SMP+RWC+NOAA clouds, right?

Update 2: Did a quick search on the .org forum and lots of people seem to be reporting a similar issue regarding failed weather downloads. Not sure yet what's up with this. But again, if RWC is not using XP's weather data should it not be immune to such problems?

Edited February 26, 2019 by kentwerickson

[sundog]

There is a known issue with RWC in "Always" mode, due to NOAA changing its download protocol to https without warning. RWC relies on the Gizmo plugin to download this data, so we're dependent on a Gizmo update to fix this. I don't know when that is planned for.

The other solution would be to update to some other weather setup, such as using X-Plane 11.32 and RWC in "automatic" mode, or using FSGRW or ASXP with RWC in "FSGRW / External Injector" mode.

 

[kentwerickson]

10 hours ago, sundog said:

due to NOAA changing its download protocol to https without warning.

Thanks Frank. This would explain why it otherwise mysteriously went from working to broken given no changes to my XP installation. As mentioned, I am still running XP10. And so unfortunately any XP11-specific alternatives won't help me. Kinda' sucks. But I suppose, as they say, it is what it is.