How to make NOAA Weather Plus work for me

[BruceP]

I am sure I missed this somewhere, but for the life of me I cannot find the answer.
I have installed and set up the plug-in, and the temperature is correct in the device window. All well and good.
However I have no idea how to obtain the other information that the plug-in reports. Currently in my variable window, when using the original plug-in I have many weather related items, but last updated months ago and data that is from that time period. So how does one populate these variables?
Searching weather did not seem to help.

Thanks

[kw123]

If you want to use that info in a variable:
- I guess you already have the plugin installed and a NOAA device defined
- first create variable(s) you would like to have populated
- create a new scheduled action
--- on schedule page: select time / every 5 minutes
--- on Action page: select variable action / insert device state into variable
----- pick the NOAA device
----- select the information you want to use
----- select the variable you would like to populate
-- add new Action, and repeat the "in Action" steps for the 2. 3. ... variable

then your variable(s) get updated every 5 minutes.

You could also create a trigger that fires if NOAA information has changed, other steps are the same

If you have many variables you would like to update I suggest to put the update actions into an action group and then call that action group from the schedule or trigger (Actions page: Server actions/ Action Group/ Select the action group you have created)

Hope that helps

Karl

[BruceP]

That is exactly what I was needing. I would have never started there, but it makes sense now.

Once again thanks so much.

[jltnol]

And it might be easier to create an Action Group that updates everything for you.... Then create a schedule, and/or a Trigger.... just a housekeeping tip...

[BruceP]

Thanks, I was using the variable for the temp, in a condition to decide if a pump runs or not.
Still getting occasional error messages stating "Unknown error get in weather for coordinates XXXX" so I am not sure the reliability that I need. Looking to run an outdoor water pump should temps dip past 32 degrees.

[nsheldon]

Hi BruceP.

I don't recognize that error, though the NOAA XML servers from which NOAA Weather Plus obtains its forecast data have never proven to be 100% reliable. If you get the error often (or at least too frequently for you), enable debug logging in the plugin configuration and wait for the error again. If/when it appears, post the debug logging information before and after the error into a response. That'll make it easier to track down the cause.

[BruceP]

Enabled the logging, but did not understand any of it. Additionally I did not see any errors, but not sure if the error statement would show with debugging.
I did install latest update and disabled debugging. No errors to report in 24 hours.

Thanks much

[nsheldon]

Glad to hear you haven't seen any errors lately. Yes, the error would appear even with debug logging enabled. Enabling it only adds log data and doesn't prevent normal logs. In any case, no need to enable it if you're not seeing any errors.

[BruceP]

Well, I spoke too soon. Just returned from a short weekend trip and found the errors again, about 50% of the time.
Reset to debug and will keep a close watch on the report.

[BruceP]

This is the error message, hope this helps

Updating weather for device: Weather
NOAA Weather Plus Debug Device Weather using URL http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.ph ... n=-76.0008
NOAA Weather Plus Debug Attempt # 1 at downloading and parsing weather data.
NOAA Weather Plus Error Unknown error getting weather for coordinates 36.8632, -76.0008: <urlopen error timed out>
NOAA Weather Plus Debug Attempt # 2 at downloading and parsing weather data.
NOAA Weather Plus Debug Attempt # 3 at downloading and parsing weather data.
NOAA Weather Plus Debug Attempt # 4 at downloading and parsing weather data.

[nsheldon]

Ah yes. That error. I do recognize that one. Unfortunately, the "urlopen error timed out" error is one I haven't been able to fix. It appears to either be intermittent NOAA server reliability issues or, more likely, a known issue with the urllib2 library that comes with Python 2.5. I'll continue to search for workarounds.