WeatherAlert

[jay420]

Wow this a really cool thingy

:happy: :happy:

[darkmark327]

Hey Dark,

I got this error when I returned home from lunch today.

I have had the program running for at least 48 hours straight, but did not get this message until today.

It may have been because I left it in Radar mode.

Check out the attachment...

585274022[/snapback]

Yep, that's the divide by zero I mentioned earlier. You can see it is in "winmm.dll", that is what I use to play the sounds. But sounds have been around for a while without this problem. Argh!

Also, I have the CGI script working so that the error reports dont get cut off in the email, but rather they are sent to the webserver, but starting the email stopped working. The plan was to also have the user send what they were doing, and then there is a link to the error report. This also enabled me to reply to users that had crashes and let them know what's up. But I couldn't get it to work anymore.

I could call the exception handler manually in the program and sending the email would work, but if the exception handler was called to handle an exception I would get weird-ass error messages (all I was doing is basically running "mailto:...") such as file not found and one very odd one about finding an active process context. I did lots and lots of looking around but couldn't find help, but I did notice that if the program is not set to use the Single-Threaded Apartment model (STAThread) some things like drag and drop and process starting won't work. I really don't know anything about apartments but I know the Multithreaded one causes some issues. I looked at the debugger and saw that the exception handler, when called to handle an exception, wasn't running on the main program thread (which was STA) , but rather a new one. Sure enough, that thread was MTA. So now, to send the email, I have to manually start a new thread in the STA within the exception handler. Annoyingly, you can send parameters when starting threads so I have to make the text that I want to send a variable in the program. I spent many hours trying to figure out wtf was wrong there. :pinch:

Edited January 11, 2005 by darkmark327

[benz240]

I realize that this is in development still, but are you aware that WeathAlert.exe uses more than 20MB of memory? I opened up task manager today just to check something else and I was pretty surprised how much memory such a (seemingly) simple program like this uses....is this a glitch on my system or are there some leaks you are planning on patching up?

[darkmark327]

I realize that this is in development still, but are you aware that WeathAlert.exe uses more than 20MB of memory?? I opened up task manager today just to check something else and I was pretty surprised how much memory such a (seemingly) simple program like this uses....is this a glitch on my system or are there some leaks you are planning on patching up?

585277550[/snapback]

Please read this: http://www.dotnetmonster.com/Uwe/Forum.asp...ows-Service-Hog

[darkmark327]

Well here's an update:

Everything seems to work, except for the animated radar. I had changed the mechanism slightly to conform to "good practice", but now animated radar refuses to work. Static radar works fine, in fact they basically share the same mechanism and many of the same methods to function, but for some reason I get a null reference with the animated maps. I think it might be a bug in the framework. If I modify the static radar to, instead of returning one image, to return an array of 2 images, it fails (an array of one image works). If I modify the animated radar to return an array of one image, instead of more than one, it works. I won't bother going into detail but they use the same exact mechanism but if the array has > 1 element, I get a nullreference in one of the .net methods (debugging has assured me that nothing I've passed is null).

[darkmark327]

Alrighty, I fixed the above problem (I rearranged things a bit, and it showed me where the problem really was)...so, here's version 2.2.9.8 for testing.

If all goes well, this will become 2.3 (then I go back to adding more significant features).

Note: as I mentioned above, there may be new errors that occur because instead of blanketly catching everything, only expected errors are caught (otherwise problems may be masked) so if that occurs, please send the reports.

http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/stu/msowul/WeathAlert.zip

Enjoy.

[darkmark327]

Oops, I forgot to fix the large map animated radar. Fix is coming.

[j4020]

Wow, Very nice, Well done darkmark327! (Y)

[darkmark327]

Thanks. I've fixed largeradar.

http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/stu/msowul/WeathAlert.zip

This is version 2.2.9.81 (don't worry the convoluted versioning should be better once I have enough numbers to play with again in 2.3)

[j4020]

Can you add a feature so you can have it display Centigrade instead of fahrenheit? :)

[darkmark327]

Take a closer look at the settings.

Also: I received a very strange error report; researching it has pointed to McAfee / Nod32 screwing up .net framework sockets. Can anyone using McAfee confirm or deny any problems with the program?

Edited January 12, 2005 by darkmark327

[j4020]

Ah cool thanks (Y)

[zivan56]

Great little program. Thanks for making it free to download!

[darkmark327]

Weather.com has altered their map page, throwing in fake data that fools programs that try to scrape the page, e.g. this one. I will have it fixed soon. The upshot is that now there are a lot more maps.

Edited January 13, 2005 by darkmark327

[Netegra]

Hey Dark,

I think I might have found another issue.

After awhile, if I right click on the temperature in the systray and highlight Location > ... nothing happens.

If I open up the program, I can switch the location normally.

Just thought I would let you know...

Also, I read through most of this thread, but is there a way yet to "force" current data? (i.e. not wait a 1/2 hour)?

Thanks!

[darkmark327]

Yes I have noticed that strange issue from time to time; it has defied my efforts to fix it (as you may have guessed, both menus are handled at the same time; why one works and the other does not is beyond me). I am trying another workaround; let me know whether it works or not.

As for your second question: you must navigate (in the registry) to HKCU\Software\Solsoft\WeathAlert\Program Options and create a new string value "EnableForcedUpdate" set to "true"...there will then be a menu entry under preferences; needless to say, don't screw up the registry and so forth (standard disclaimer :rolleyes:).

I have gone through each error report--every single one involved the radar in one form or another so I went through and rewrote/optimized each affected method. (A significant contributor to this is the fact that weather.com changed the radar lists at some point, which caused havoc as downloads were attempted on resources whose URLs had completely changed.)

Anyway, here is 2.2.9.9; weather.com's radar changes have merited it another bump, from .8 to .9.

2.3 will have to be released soon to the masses via autoupdate to fix weather.com's having broken the radar. Download and report any issues!

http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/stu/msowul/WeathAlert.zip

Edited January 14, 2005 by darkmark327

[SkyyPunk Veteran]

worked for me :) got mine to stop freezin alright! thanks :)

doh! crashed when i switched large radar to thunderstorm forecast

edit: either thunderstorm forcast, large or small radar

Crashed on:

100mile

Thunderstorm..

and now its not getting data again :(

[darkmark327]

worked for me :)? got mine to stop freezin alright!? thank:):)

doh! crashed when i switched large radar to thunderstorm forecast

edit: either thunderstorm forcast, large or small radar

Crashed on:

100mile

Thunderstorm..

and now its not getting data agai:(:(

585290129[/snapback]

What city? BTW they also seem to have broken NWS alerts by timing them out. That's why updating the data sometimes freezes.

[SkyyPunk Veteran]

48111 Belleville, MI

We have had alerts up the butt lately, snow, fog, flood, sleet, etc...

and its not just this version, an old version i still have freezes too any time i open it now

[darkmark327]

Radar is now also broken because of their timeouts. For both the NWS alerts and the radar, they used <meta http-equiv...> redirects to redirect through about 3 URLs. Now they seem to block the last one if you access it directly; on the first one there are two 1x1 images that I assume they use to validate that you are actually coming from a browser (these features are not supported from the xml feed so I scrape their pages). For this reason, NWS alerts are timing out and so are the radar pages, thus the problem when downloading the data and the broken radar. I suppose they're cracking down on me :o

Edited January 14, 2005 by darkmark327

[SkyyPunk Veteran]

:o Thats not good...i love this program :(

[SkyyPunk Veteran]

is it possible to get the zone of the image? like for example...my main radar for my area is here:

http://image.weather.com/looper/archive/us...rge_usen/6L.jpg

you could just have your program figure out the part past archive and i would assume the end would be the same for all (1L - 6L)

my small radar: http://image.weather.com/web/radar/us_dtw_...medium_usen.jpg

[darkmark327]

is it possible to get the zone of the image?? like for example...my main radar for my area is here:

http://image.weather.com/looper/archive/us...rge_usen/6L.jpg

you could just have your program figure out the part past archive and i would assume the end would be the same for all (1L - 6L)

my small radar: http://image.weather.com/web/radar/us_dtw_...medium_usen.jpg

585290705[/snapback]

That is precisely what I do. Now guess where the zone comes from.

Thankfully my hunch about those images has proven correct. If they change it again, I can't say whether I'll be able to handle it (who knows what they'll change), but for now everything works again. I have updated the download, so please redownload to regain functionality. My apologies for all the trouble.

(Now the part for those who simply read the end or things that stand out):WEATHER.COM CHANGED THEIR PAGES. PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF THE SOFTWARE NO LONGER WORK. PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE NEW ONE HERE. IT WILL BE RELEASED TO AUTOMATIC UPDATES ONCE IT HAS BEEN FURTHER TESTED>

http://www.ic.sunysb.edu/stu/msowul/WeathAlert.zip

Edited January 14, 2005 by darkmark327

[SkyyPunk Veteran]

ahh i see :) nuts...figured it wouldnt be that easy :(

[enigma-penguin Veteran]

Ahh cool I was wondering what was going on :D thanks for the quick update darkmark327 (Y)