Cumulus Realtime Gadget

TNETWeather · **Posted:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 6:09 pm

Looks like it is getting 404 File not found.

I loaded the current version and ran it last night without any issues ran all night without issues (checked the server weblogs).

However....

1) I use rename. Hard to believe servers that don't support that as it is really the only way to get data successfully every time.
2) I upload data to my server once a minute.
3) Set the gadget to use 60 seconds for updates.

sjukmidlands · **Posted:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 6:18 pm

Strange that it cannot find the file that is there on the server. I wonder if perhaps it cannot find it if its trying to find and extract the data from it when its being written to from Cumulus? Any ideas?

I'll speak to Fastohsts technical support to see if it is possible to use file rename on their servers of check if there's a setting in the Fasthosts control panel for it.

Steve

beteljuice · **Posted:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 6:36 pm

Quote:

I wonder if perhaps it cannot find it if its trying to find and extract the data from it when its being written to from Cumulus

That would seem to be the problem !

The prog is folding because of corrupted or incomplete data. It is 'covered' for if the file exists. Need to inspect the code and introduce one or two 'get out of jail free' cards

There will probably still be a delay before a successful attempt, but it won't 'die' !

... hopefully

sjukmidlands · **Posted:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 7:05 pm

See! although I'm not a software genius with regards to writing it, (infact totally novice with programming code) I can think quite logically and with common sense. Hopefully then someone can re-engineer the code so that if it cannot find the file it doesn't 'crash' and stop, but looks again, and again until it finds it....

Thanks Beteljuice for that!

Steve

TNETWeather · **Posted:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 8:01 pm

Looks like it is making multiple attempts (very fast ones which might be the problem)

Code:

January 2010 17:41:24: Enter readyStateHandler
January 2010 17:41:24: xmlHttpObj.readyState = 2
January 2010 17:41:24: xmlHttpObj.status = 404

January 2010 17:41:24: Enter readyStateHandler
January 2010 17:41:24: xmlHttpObj.readyState = 3
January 2010 17:41:24: xmlHttpObj.status = 404

January 2010 17:41:24: Enter readyStateHandler
January 2010 17:41:24: xmlHttpObj.readyState = 4
January 2010 17:41:24: xmlHttpObj.status = 404

3 attempts for the same file in the same second?

I would think that anyone decent with JavaScript would be able to figure it out. There is a lot of code out there that does the same type of function and its all plain text source.

dane · **Posted:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 8:45 pm

Have uploaded version 1.6IH to first post in this thread.
Changes:
- changed code to wait for the specified interval in case of errors, e.g. 404 file not found
- changed html slightly to allow for 2-digit wind speeds.

sjukmidlands · **Posted:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 9:23 pm

You're a star! Thank you I'm certain it will work fine now! Will download it in a minute.

Everyone I've shown the gadget to thinks it is brilliant!

Steve

dane · **Posted:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 9:29 pm

Steve, you're the one who can test it - you are the one having the problem

(I noticed you have changed the interval to 1 minute. Please change back to what you had when you had errors).

sjukmidlands · **Posted:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 9:40 pm

....and thanks to Kevin too for your input!

Steve :clap:

And I will change the interval back to 10 secs

sjukmidlands · **Posted:** Tue Jan 12, 2010 10:24 pm

Progress Report...

So far, all going well. The realtime text file is updating from cumulus every 5 secs, the update interval in the gadget is 10 secs. Occasionally I get the 'service unavailable' message, presumably when the gadget is trying to grab data whilst it is being written to the txt file, but a few seconds later it always updates ok, i.e. tries again and succeeds!

So am assuming the issue is fixed and it is now working all the time, but will post back here tomorrow to confirm this anyway.

Once again, thanks to everyone who has helped with this! :clap:

Steve

gemini06720 · **Posted:** Wed Jan 13, 2010 12:40 am

For the first time since version 1.2, the gadget is displaying both the background and the weather information...

Thank you...

sjukmidlands · **Posted:** Wed Jan 13, 2010 10:10 am

Just to update you all, the gadget is now running fine here too. it worked ok all yesterday evening since updating it to the newest version, and so far has done so all morning and am sure it will continue to do so.

In conclusion then, the gadget works and I'd like to thank all who contributed to helping sort out the issues with it! :clap:

Steve

dane · **Posted:** Wed Jan 13, 2010 10:53 am

Thanks for the feedback

sjukmidlands · **Posted:** Wed Jan 13, 2010 2:34 pm

Suggestion:

Firstly, a bit more feedback, its still working fine so the gadget is perfectly running now.

I have emailed the gadget to several friends to try out and also my mother.

They have provided feedback to say it is working OK too, but one small issue mentioned by my mother and two of my friends; the graphical look of the gadget is brilliant, however, on the daytime screens, could the text be made darker rather than white? The white text against the night screens is perfect but on the day screens, especially towards the lower edge where it grades even paler, the text for someone with poor eyesight or on a monitor with low contrast, can be slightly difficult to read.

I realise that the graphic images don't have the text on them, so I presume the text is generated and thus specified elsewhere.

Therefore, how difficult would it be to specify a dark blue or black colour for the text when it switches to using the daytime screens?

This is just passing on feedback I've received after asking those trying it out, so look forward to hearing what you think about this suggestion?

Steve

TNETWeather · **Posted:** Wed Jan 13, 2010 5:24 pm

Modifying the style is not very hard.

In reality, it is just a self-contained web page.

It just uses a normal CSS file though the html file has embeded CSS that would be better moved to the style sheet for easy of modification.

You just need to know how to modify the files, and repackage it up so it can be distributed.

Ideally, you would create something like this customized for your own site with the URL and retrieval times already set so that people could download it from your weather site, install it and see "your" website automatically with no configuration.

You would most likely set the interval to something larger like every 3-5 minutes to reduce the number of hits you would get.

Then you could change the graphic to include custom graphics for your site, perhaps using your sites logo etc...

I've already been playing with this for that very purpose. I've already got it preloaded with the URL, time set to 5 minutes and it doesn't ask for configuration any more. Will start reformatting the size (too large), backgrounds, changes to date/time formats etc... kind of a fun side project. Replaced the ?uid= rand with ?t= timestamp just for kicks.

A good project to piddle arond with JavaScript with.

	It is currently Wed Jun 19, 2013 11:32 am
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