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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
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    Negev Desert, Israel
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    Default 1 Line weather file intermittently disappears.

    Hello Bob.
    I have an odd problem. I have scheduler and ACP working together fine. Then intermittently, scheduler will show the error that the 1-Line weather file does not exist.
    At that exact moment, I can see that ACP shows the weather as "Green". But scheduler somehow thinks the fie does not exist.
    I am using the 1 line file from the AAG Solo. This is a new installation, after my last PC was fried in a thunderstorm.
    I am wondering if you would have seen this problem before?. Please see attached Log.

    Regards
    Adrien
    Attached Files Attached Files

  2. #2
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    Default

    Actually Scheduler does not see this file at all, and neither does ACP (directly). It is accessed via the ACP.BoltwoodFile weather interface driver. It is telling you that the AAG data file has disappeared.

    22:35:32 Weather Unsafe! data-file acquisition error:
    The 1-line data file doesn't exist!

    Note that there may be more detail available in the log file for the weather server itself, which you can find in My Documents\ACP Astronomy\Logs\BoltwoodFileTrace.log. Right after this happens, go grab that log and save it, maybe attach it here if you can't understand the problem that's being reported there.
    -- Bob

  3. #3
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    Default

    Hello Bob,

    Just to let you know that after replacing the ethernet hub, and cable to the Solo, the solution was to reboot the Solo !!.

    Thank you
    Adrien

  4. #4
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    Default

    Ahhhh excellent. And thanks for letting us know what the solution was. It is very helpful!!
    -- Bob

  5. #5
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    Default

    Hello Bob
    Sorry, but this problem has re-occurred. I now get a 'RPC Server unavailable'.
    I have replaced the Ethernet cable to the Lunatico Solo, replaced the Ethernet switch, rebooted/restarted the Solo.
    Is there a possibility it could be a setting in ACP/Scheduler?
    I attach a screen shot, and log.

    Thank you
    Adrien
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Attached Files Attached Files

  6. #6
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    It is definitely not a setting.

    This is the Scheduler's response when ACP simply disappears. Scheduler is 100% dependent on ACP, it checks with it periodically (in this case it is checking the Dispatcher Enabled control in the Web UI but it checks other things too). I am working right now on making this failure easier to understand with a popup "ACP has become frozen due to a device or USB failure, or ACP has completely disappeared. Scheduler will now enter Operator Intervention state. Please look at ACP and your devices. See if you can gather info.

    In your case, this is probably a fatal error in the weather server. The BoltwoodFile weather server and the others like it are designed to be resilient to various problems reading the data from the 1-line data file. As you saw before, it gracefully handled the fact that the 1-line file was simply gone, disappeared. It also handles problems with lock contention between the weather system writing the file and ACP reading it. The ACP weather server will try over and over to read it and then finally give up, again producing unsafe weather.

    GUESS: In your case, it looks like something happened during the attempt to read the 1-line file that the ACP BoltwoodFile weather server was not prepared for. For some unknown reason, the BoltwoodFile weather server raised a fatal error into ACP. This will cause ACP to exit with a fatal error. This is not good. I also have a task queued to make fatal errors from the weather server caught inside ACP itself and pop up an error box. If this happens, and I am successful with the above change to Scheduler, what you will see is a popup error from ACP from trying to get the 1-line data info, and you'll see Scheduler in Operator Intervention because ACP is stuck displaying that error. At least it won't be so ugly.

    The BoltwoodFile (and friends) weather servers write log files to My Documents\ACP Astronomy\ServerNameTrace.log. I need this log to have any hope of finding out what happened. Even then if this is an unexpected file access error I may not be able to tell. But I might be able to see how I can add more tracing info to tell.
    -- Bob

  7. #7
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    Default

    Hello Bob,

    Thank you for your detailed reply. In Parallel, I am working with a very helpful Jaimie from Lunatico, but so far, after most of the day continually polling the Solo it has not shown any communication errors.

    I attach the requested AAGWeatherTrace.log

    Thank you
    Adrien
    Attached Files Attached Files

  8. #8
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    OK, the log starts at

    22:09:40 Log opened, server 8.1.0


    and ends with

    22:23:27 ERROR: The 1-line data file doesn't exist!
    22:23:27 Weather Unsafe! data-file acquisition error:
    The 1-line data file doesn't exist!

    So it only took 14 minutes for the file to become inaccessible. The code that is executing at the time is

    Code:
        If Not FSO.FileExists(c_sLogFileName) Then              ' Catch vaporized data file
            c_dtLastPollTime = Now                              ' Keep poll interval for possible long delay (NetBIOS)
            PollFail &H80040407, "The 1-line data file doesn't exist!"
        End If
    Note that this code has executed 143 times before this, successfully, so the name of the file being sought (which is established when setting up the weather server) is valid and the file was found there 143 times before it disappeared.

    I am most concerned, though, with ACP's potential reaction to this condition. The other times you reported it, the weather was declared unsafe as a result of the data file disappearing. But the last time you reported, the Scheduler died as though ACP died. I really need to know what is going on with ACP when you see the scheduler give up like this. Please see (a) is ACP running? (b) if so does it look alive? and (c) are there any popup boxes showing maybe underneath ACP. The file disappearing should definitely not be fatal to the weather server and ACP so I need more info. I'm sorry, I'm flying blind.

    Again I plan to make Scheduler's reaction more palatable, but that won't help the basic problem. I should also note that there are plenty of others using the AAG CloudWatcher successfully and reliably.

    While I'm thinking about this, are you have it write the file to maybe a network drive or cloud drive where a syncing process may make the file invisible briefly. If there is a non-zero chance the file could be invisible, however briefly, then we will absolutely see this eventually.
    -- Bob

  9. #9
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    Default

    I have been running the system for over two hours with no failure.
    Your last statement made me think. The files are being saved to a (USB) external hard drive.
    I noticed that the D: drive had become "unavailable" in Windows the other day. I needed to reboot the PC for it to become visible again.
    I now point the ImageFileConfig to C:\Images, not D:\Images.
    Since then, there have been no failures. I will advise tomorrow if it was ok overnight. Lets hope....

    Regards
    Adrien

  10. #10
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    Ah... that makes sense!! it's possible that the USB drive suffered a USB or controller lockup, and that bubbled up into ACP and took it out?
    -- Bob

 

 

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