• FTP Connect Timeout:
  
  • Cumulus on your weather station computer is griping that it had a problem doing the regular updates (typically every 10 or 15 mins, configured in Cumulus). This is probably just a poor internet communications channel. You can click the red flashing error indicator on the Cumulus screen to clear this.
  • If you're using wireless, you probably just have a marginal connection, perhaps you're right at the edge of the local wifi range. If possible, move the weather station computer closer to the wifi, or perhaps get a wifi extender.
  • If you cannot improve the connection, you can choose to not be notified. Log into PMI, go to "Preferences" screen, select "Ignore FTP Connect Timeout from Cumulus", and of course, hit Save.
  • Consequences:
    If you are on a marginal connection and get this error more than occasionally, you may be all right. Each time Cumulus writes it's data to the PMI server, it writes the entire month's data file. So as long as there was at least one update in any given hour, that's good enough - you really don't care that it had a problem a while ago. Additionally, if the problem persists so badly that no update is done within an hour, you'll get the "data is overdue" error (below).
  
  
• "data is overdue":
  
  This is the PMI program on the server telling you that the files it's working on have not changed since the last run (hourly). This means that your weather station has not communicated with the server for an hour. Your system could be crashed, Cumulus may not be running, power outage at the weather station computer, or simply a bad internet connection.
  • If you have Cumulus configured to write to WUnderground, WeatherBug, etc., you can go to those websites to see if they are showing "offline" as well. If they're Ok, but PMI is not, contact MikeL -- if everybody shows down, it's your problem...
  • These problems will probably require a manual intervention - you'll have to go to the Cumulus weather station, determine the problem and fix it.
  • You'll see this if you have Cumulus set up on a laptop or some computer that is not turned on 24/7. When you shut down, you'll start getting errors, hourly, until you start back up.
  • In this event, you can choose to surpress this message. Log into your PMI account, go to the "Preferences" screen, and check "Disable data is overdue from PMI", and of course, hit Save.
  • Consequences:
    You should be aware that on the last day of the month, the data file changes over to a new name at midnight, so you really want that last file written in order to have complete data -- so you'll want to leave the machine running overnight on the last day of the month.
  • If you're doing the not-turned-on-24/7, you must be willing to accept that the PMI page data for you is not always current. Most importantly, this means that alerts like low temperature will not be timely, and thus not useful.

  From: PV pmi
  Date: March 28, 2020 at 9:08:19 PM PDT
  To: 
  Subject: PV pmi: admin

  #LatestError: Data input appears to have stopped - check your station and connections
  #LatestErrorDate: 3/28/2020
  #LatestErrorTime: 9:00 PM

  Station: