Lost Data! Help!!

lidar37 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 11:36 am

Cumulus seems to have quit recording my station's data as of 10:05 PM last night when I shut it down. However, it would not retrieve the data log from my station (Fine Offset) when I restarted this morning. This is the first time it has done that. I was running V. 1.92 Build 1008. I upgraded to Build 1009 this morning, hoping to fix the problem but with no success. Looking in the Diags folder, it seems that yesterday's data didn't get recorded. Is there a way to retrieve it from the station log again? I tried renaming the today.ini file but it still didn't poll the station log. I know the station log still exists because I shut down Cumulus and ran EasyWeather to confirm that it would poll and update. I have also checked that my computer and station clocks are correct.

I've attached the old and current today.ini files as well as the files from were the data appears to be missing from the diags folder. Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Milt

steve · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 11:47 am

Something happened on your PC just after 22:10 last night:

8/29/2011 22:09:01.015 : Writing today.ini, LastUpdateTime = 8/29/2011 10:09:00 PM raindaystart = 8.65748023986816 rain counter = 8.65748023986816
8/29/2011 22:10:00.423 : Writing today.ini, LastUpdateTime = 8/29/2011 10:10:00 PM raindaystart = 8.65748023986816 rain counter = 8.65748023986816
8/30/2011 05:12:29.169 : Writing today.ini, LastUpdateTime = 8/30/2011 5:12:23 AM raindaystart = 8.65748023986816 rain counter = 8.65748023986816
8/30/2011 05:13:00.212 : Writing today.ini, LastUpdateTime = 8/30/2011 5:13:00 AM raindaystart = 8.65748023986816 rain counter = 8.65748023986816
8/30/2011 05:14:00.370 : Writing today.ini, LastUpdateTime = 8/30/2011 5:14:00 AM raindaystart = 8.65748023986816 rain counter = 8.65748023986816

Did you allow it to suspend? In the previous file (cumulus.006) I notice that you did suspend, and you are relying on the 'close on suspend' option.

8/28/2011 22:42:00.745 : Writing today.ini, LastUpdateTime = 8/28/2011 10:42:00 PM raindaystart = 8.65748023986816 rain counter = 8.65748023986816
8/28/2011 22:42:29.494 : Windows SUSPEND broadcast received
8/28/2011 22:42:29.494 : Close on suspend set, attempting close down

It looks like last night, Cumulus did not receive the SUSPEND message from Windows so was unable to attempt to close itself down.

You can edit the files manually (with Cumulus stopped) to put them back in the state they were in at 22:10 last night (remove any entries since then and set the timestamp in today.ini) but it's easier to start again from the backup files that were created when you started Cumulus at 05:14 yesterday.

I recommend that you don't rely on the 'close on suspend' setting and instead close Cumulus down properly before allowing your PC to suspend.

lidar37 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 1:18 pm

Thanks Steve! How do I restore from the backup? Would I just copy the files from the backup folder to the data folder?

steve · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 1:25 pm

lidar37 wrote:

Thanks Steve! How do I restore from the backup? Would I just copy the files from the backup folder to the data folder?

Yes - make sure Cumulus is stopped when you do it.

lidar37 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 1:35 pm

I renamed the data folder, created a new data folder and then copied the files from the backup folder into the data folder. It still won't report anything from yesterday (08/29/2011). It also seems to not catch up anything from the time I shut it down until the present time. What am I missing?

steve · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 1:47 pm

Don't create a new data folder (take a backup of it if you wish) just copy the files. Copy the files from the appropriate backup folder into the existing data folder, overwriting the files that are there. Look for the backup folder which was created when you started Cumulus at 05:14 yesterday, the folder name will start 201108290514... and copy the files out from that folder. Then start Cumulus.

lidar37 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 2:46 pm

It was apparently too late for me to do as you suggested when I received your last post. The backup was deleted when it was restarted. I am running the Cumulus Toolbox software and it appears to have already updated the backup to today, eliminating the previous backup. Is there a way to setup the toolbox to save multiple backups?

Next, how do I manually reset my files to yesterday's time so that it will download the data log beginning from yesterday?

Thanks for all your help. :cry:

steve · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 2:53 pm

The Toolbox has nothing to do with the backups which Cumulus keeps. When Cumulus starts, it creates a backup of the current 'active' data files in a folder in the Cumulus installation folder called backups. It keeps up to ten of these, for the last ten times you started Cumulus. So, unless you have started Cumulus a further ten times since that start at 05:14 on the 29th, the backup will still be there.

daj · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 2:54 pm

lidar37 wrote:

... I am running the Cumulus Toolbox software and it appears to have already updated the backup to today, eliminating the previous backup. Is there a way to setup the toolbox to save multiple backups?

Toolbox never replaces/deletes a backup.

If you are not compressing the backup it will create backups of each file and add YYYY-MM-DD_00 to the filename, so today.ini would become today-2001-08-31_00.ini

If a second backup happened today the _00 would be incremented to _01, and so on.

If you are compressing them they will all zip into one file, again never over writing the previous backups using the same naming YY-MM-DD_00

lidar37 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 3:18 pm

It looks like I had a total of 17 yesterday.ini files created yesterday. Unsure why. I don't think the computer was restarted that many times, but I wasn't home either. Attached it the last file from yesterday. However, when I copied that into the data file and renamed it to yesterday.ini, it just updated from where it left off this morning. That said, how can I get the program to go back and download data from the station to the program from yesterday, or even 8/28/11? Also, would doing so corrupt or overwrite any data in other log files?
Thanks,
Milt

steve · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 3:24 pm

lidar37 wrote:

That said, how can I get the program to go back and download data from the station to the program from yesterday,

1. Stop Cumulus
2. If you haven't already, remove that spurious data folder that you created, and rename the one that you renamed, back to 'data'
3. Open the 'backups' folder in the Cumulus installation folder
4. Locate the folder that starts 201108290514 and open it
5. Copy all of the files from that folder into the data folder, overwriting any that are already there
6. Start Cumulus

Quote:

Also, would doing so corrupt or overwrite any data in other log files?

Not if you do it as above.

lidar37 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 3:30 pm

The folder 201108290514 doesn't exist in the backup folder. It is now called 20110830100214. There is no other folder or subfolder with that name in the main Cumulus or backup folders.

steve · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 3:54 pm

When you say "it is now named 20110830100214" do you mean that's the earliest folder in the backups folder? That folder is from just after 10 am your time, today. It's currently about 11 am there, yes? So you have restarted Cumulus ten times in the last hour?

lidar37 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 4:07 pm

That is the only folder in the backup folder. I haven't restarted that many times. Going back and checking the timestamps on the other files, it looks like they were recreated about every hour yesterday. Would suspending the computer keep the other subfolders from being created or overwrite them when Cumulus was restarted after the computer was suspended?

steve · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 4:22 pm

When it starts up, it gets a directory listing of the backups folder, sorts it by name, and deletes all but the latest 9 folders (this would normally result in one file - the oldest - being deleted). It then creates a new folder named using the current date and time, and copies alltime.ini, month.ini, year.ini, today.ini, yesterday.ini, dayfile.txt and the current log file into it.

I am afraid I have no idea why it is apparently deleting all of the folders in your backup folder instead of all but the latest 9 and I have never heard of anyone else having this problem - apart from a few people who used the Cumulus backup folder to keep their own files in, which of course causes problems.

So you will need to 'rewind' manually. You need to restore the files listed above (but in the data folder) to the approximate state they would have been in yesterday (you need to go back to about 10 pm, just before the PC suspended). The monthly log file (Aug11log.txt) and dayfile.txt are easy, you just remove the last lines in the monthly log file, and dayfile.txt presumably doesn't need any editing as it didn't get updated.

You need to set the 'timestamp' in today.ini to the same point in time that you edit the monthly log to. Ideally, you would also edit the other contents of today.ini, and also month.ini etc if they have changed - but that's quite difficult.

If you then start Cumulus it should download the data from the point that you set the timestamp in today.ini.

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Lost Data! Help!!

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