Weather Routing

[jean_pfoumf]

In fact, the Preferences button stay greyed because I think it's not used. Mine is also greyed but WR works perfectly.

[sparticle]

Originally Posted by jean_pfoumf

In fact, the Preferences button stay greyed because I think it's not used. Mine is also greyed but WR works perfectly.

Wasn't greyed out on first install, then was greyed out on re-install. Is there supposed to be a button on the toolbar to access it or a menu option. On my system I can see neither.

Cheers
Spart

[sparticle]

Anyone?

Cheers
Spart

[jean_pfoumf]

What says opencpn.log about loading of WR plugin ?

[sparticle]

Originally Posted by jean_pfoumf

What says opencpn.log about loading of WR plugin ?

09:00:27.082 MESSAGE pluginmanager.cpp:1104 Loading plugins from dir: /home/myhome/.local/lib/opencpn
09:00:27.082 MESSAGE pluginmanager.cpp:1130 PlugInManager searching for PlugIns in location /home/myhome/.local/lib/opencpn
09:00:27.082 MESSAGE pluginmanager.cpp:1167 Found 2 candidates
09:00:27.082 MESSAGE pluginmanager.cpp:1174 Checking plugin candidate: /home/myhome/.local/lib/opencpn/libweather_routing_pi.so
09:00:27.085 MESSAGE pluginmanager.cpp:2169 Plugin is compatible: true
09:00:27.085 MESSAGE pluginmanager.cpp:2232 PlugInManager: Loading PlugIn: /home/myhome/.local/lib/opencpn/libweather_routing_pi.so
09:00:27.103   ERROR dlunix.cpp:162 /home/myhome/.local/lib/opencpn/libweather_routing_pi.so: undefined symbol: _ZN9wxControl7SetFontERK6wxFont
09:00:27.103 MESSAGE pluginmanager.cpp:2291    PlugInManager: Cannot load library: /home/myhome/.local/lib/opencpn/libweather_routing_pi.so

No idea why this would be the case as it was installed from the plugin manager just fine.

Cheers
Spart

[jean_pfoumf]

Did you try to install plugin old fashion ?

- uninstall WR
- delete all files regarding WR
- sudo apt install ...

[rgleason]

You will find packages as well as tarballs and metadata here


https://cloudsmith.io/~opencpn/repos...prod/packages/

[SoggyPaws]

Weather Routing 1.13.28.1 Crashes on First Use After Clean Install (W10)

In March 2021, it was working. I did a number of routings on my Windows OpenCPN 5.2, presumably with 1.13.19 version. At some point I must have upgraded to 1.13.20.
Today, I was trying to do a routing. I am running O 5.2.4+6b314e6
My Weather Routing version WAS 1.13.20, but when I had problems (couldn't find a file), I upgraded to the latest version suggested by the plugin manager 1.13.28.1.

It appeared to upgrade OK but when I tried to run it, I still had problems. So I followed the suggestion above about uninstalling, deleting all copies of WR data in ProgramData and Program Files, and then re-installed. Now nothing works.

I re-did the "clean install" again, more carefully and saved that log file.

What appears to be happening, is in the initial run of WR after a clean install, while copying files from the AppData folder, it crashes in the middle of copying the "A" polar files. The last polar in my folder ProgramData plugins\weather_routing\Polars folder is Arcona_340.pol

The last 2 lines in the log file after the crash are:
16:43:38.168 MESSAGE WeatherRouting.cpp:428 WeatherRouting copy file: C:\Users\sherr\AppData\Local\opencpn\plugins\weath er_routing_pi/data/polars\Amel_Sharki.pol to C:\ProgramData\opencpn\\plugins\weather_routing\\p olars\Amel_Sharki.pol
16:43:38.170 MESSAGE WeatherRouting.cpp:428 WeatherRouting copy file: C:\Users\sherr\AppData\Local\opencpn\plugins\weath

In the Boats folder, I see 4 boats, including Boat.xml, which references a Polar that is not in the Polars folder in the plugins data folder in ProgramData.

The WeatherRoutingConfiguration.xml is not there either (in ProgramData\plugins\weather_routing\) so when you start up, you don't get the sample file that helps you get started.

So, there's a repeatable bug in the "initialize from a clean install" logic in the current version of WR. It probably has not been noticed as long as people are upgrading and not clean installing. I have saved the log files (though, there's not much in it from WR). They are attached, just remove the .doc off the end. If someone needs more info and can tell me how to expose more logged data, I'd be happy to recreate (in the next day or so).

To help me limp by until this issue is resolved...

I notice that I have version
weather_routing_pi-1.13.19.0-msvc-x86_64-10.0.14393-MSVC.tar.gz
in my cache folder. Is there a way to encourage OpenCPN to install that version? I believe that to be the one that last worked correctly.

I do have Boats, Polars, and my most recent WeatherRoutingConfiguration.xml saved, which I could copy into the weather_routing plugin folder. Would that work with the new plugin?

I could also manually copy the stuff from AppData from the latest version's install.

What do you suggest for the best way forward (in the short term)?

[SoggyPaws]

Follow-up...
So I manually copied the files from Polars, Boats, and the WeatherRoutingConfiguration.xml file from the AppData folder to the UserData folder, and tried running one of the sample routes (St.Lucia to Provincetown). It says "Waiting".
Eventually I see an error popup that says:
Failed to start configuration. Boat polar failed. SailSetl-Genoa-TWS-0-10.pol Failed to open.

This is the last thing logged in the log file.
17:37:40.760 ERROR filefn.cpp:1183 Directory 'C:\ProgramData\opencpn\\plugins\weather_routing\\ boats' couldn't be created (error 183: Cannot create a file when that file already exists.)
17:37:40.760 ERROR filefn.cpp:1183 Directory 'C:\ProgramData\opencpn\\plugins\weather_routing\\ polars' couldn't be created (error 183: Cannot create a file when that file already exists.)

This is the same error I was getting with plugin v 1.13.20.

I'm also seeing some Climatology file missing errors in the log.

[rgleason]

Sherr
Sorry, we were trying to correct wr for flatpak I believe, it had been working fine but flatpak requires use of a private directory for user writable files.

Depending on the os used, you will want to copy your polars, boats and user edited files to that directory, including weatherroutingconfiguration.xml.Hope that helps.

I am on the boat now but will look atthis problem when back in 2 days.

Thankyou for the excellent reporting.

[rgleason]

Now i realize one thing that happened the names of sample files were changed, when we checked, normalized and added about 700 sample polars but the sample wrconfig file was not changed.

So I suggest you try yourown routing until I straighten this out.

[SoggyPaws]

Any way to easily revert to the .19 version that's still in the cache folder?
I can probably figure out how to manually do it, but if there's a simple way to get the plugin manager to do it...

[rgleason]

You can use "import plugin" in options / plugins to import the tarball found in the cache directory in programdata.

I do think what you have will run a route optimization that you configure.

[SoggyPaws]

Follow-up. Windows 10 v20H2 x64 8GB Memory

I did revert to the .19 version, and STILL GOT THE SAME ERROR. So quit trying til something got fixed.

Today, I checked and see that there is a .30 version. So I upgraded it via the Plug-in Manager. It seemed to go OK.

However, trying again, on opening the WR module in OpenCPN, I still get the same error:

11:03:50.186 ERROR filefn.cpp:1183 Directory 'C:\ProgramData\opencpn\\plugins\weather_routing\\ boats' couldn't be created (error 183: Cannot create a file when that file already exists.)
11:03:50.186 ERROR filefn.cpp:1183 Directory 'C:\ProgramData\opencpn\\plugins\weather_routing\\ polars' couldn't be created (error 183: Cannot create a file when that file already exists.)
11:03:51.430 ERROR filename.cpp:2666 Failed to retrieve file times for '' (error 3: The system cannot find the path specified.)

I tried a bunch of stuff (I saved both a summary of what I did and the log file, if anyone wants to look through it). The above error persisted (in the log file) no matter what I did. WR never complained about anything (nor logged ANY useful information).

I did FINALLY after 2 hrs of screwing around, get one very simple route to actually compute to the end. Mainly what I got was "failed".

On this attempt, what I saw on the screen in the "State" column was "Waiting..." for 4 minutes. OpenCPN seemed hung. I couldn't move any windows (Grib or WR). I finally clicked over to my desktop to do something else, and all of a sudden WR became responsive again, and it said "Finished".

Once computed, however, I got called away from my computer before I could look at it, leaving the WR and Grib windows open over top of the OpenCPN chart table. Coming back, everything was hung. Couldn't move any of the OpenCPN windows, couldn't X the Grib Window. I again clicked to my desktop, and clicked back, and we were un-hung again. There may have been a Pop up window that never actually popped up, which was what hung everything.

Once I got un-hung, it seemed really laggy. I checked and OpenCPN was using 51% of the CPU time, doing nothing.

So... I decided I would do a complete clean install, to make sure there wasn't any "legacy" crap hanging around that was causing problems. I did have about 50 layers files (mostly disabled) and a few sets of charts.

I used Windows to Uninstall OpenCPN, and then copied off the opencpn folders from ProgramData, Program Files (x86), and AppData to save them.

Deleted (after backing up):
C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenCPN
C:\ProgramData\opencpn
C:\Users\sherr\Local\AppData\OpenCPN

Installed OpenCPN 5.2.4

Added new Plugins:
Weather Routing
Enabled Grib
Installed latest OCpn Draw (but did not enable)

Opened OpenCPN

Added a few layer files as Persistant
Added CM93 charts and 2 sets of Satellite Charts, both with mixed KAP and mbtiles, and verified that everything looked right.

Enabled Weather Routing in the Plugins Window

Opened Grib files and selected today's Grib file

Opened Weather Routing and OpenCPN crashed!!!
This looks nearly identical to what I saw a week or so ago when I first started trying to use WR again after a few months of not using it.

Last few lines in the log file are:
13:38:10.186 MESSAGE WeatherRouting.cpp:428 WeatherRouting copy file: C:\Users\sherr\AppData\Local\opencpn\plugins\weath er_routing_pi/data/polars\Amel_Fango.pol to C:\ProgramData\opencpn\\plugins\weather_routing\\p olars\Amel_Fango.pol
13:38:10.188 MESSAGE WeatherRouting.cpp:428 WeatherRouting copy file: C:\Users\sherr\AppData\Local\opencpn\plugins\weath er_routing_pi/data/polars\Amel_Kirk.pol to C:\ProgramData\opencpn\\plugins\weather_routing\\p olars\Amel_Kirk.pol
13:38:10.189 MESSAGE WeatherRouting.cpp:428 WeatherRouting copy file: C:\Users\sherr\AppData\Local

Because of this, only about 3/4 of the "A" polar files got installed in the plugins folder. Alphabetically, the last file in the Polars folder is "Arcona_340.pol"

And there is no WeatherRoutingConfiguration.xml file

I am now going to manually copy the files from the AppData folder to the WR plugin folder and try again. I will try to preserve all log files and keep a set of high level notes.

Sherry

Sherry

[SoggyPaws]

After starting from scratch, I did eventually get WR to work. But there are a lot of bugs in the current combination of OpenCPN 5.2.4 and WR 1.13.30

1. The initial copy of polar files from AppData to ProgramData fails after about 30 files, crashing OpenCPN, consistently (did it twice before I worked around the problem). Therefore, most of the polar files are missing, and the WeatherRoutingConfiguration.xml file is missing.

2. The Sample Routes in the WeatherRoutingConfiguration.xml file reference boat files who reference polar files that are not there (someone has tweaked them, but not updated the Boat folder to match the current setup of Example Polar files).

3. The initial population of Climatology data on first run appears to only populate half of the data. May be same kind of bug as in #1, or something different.
See time: 14:27:49.463 in Log File #2
Then it recovered on initial install by downloading from internet (Sean's Github), but subsequent startup of Climatology logs a bunch of errors every time. See and 15:16:41.461 in Log File #3
This should be fixed. The errors are apparently not real errors, they are red herrings.

4. Confusing: On starting a new configuration in WR, the Time field is populated with current LOCAL time. But the default time scheme is UTC. This is confusing. If the default scheme is UTC, the initial setting of this time in the New Configuration window should be UTC, not local.

5. Weather Routing load still results in this error, every time:
15:46:25.740 ERROR filefn.cpp:1183 Directory 'C:\ProgramData\opencpn\\plugins\weather_routing\\ boats' couldn't be created (error 183: Cannot create a file when that file already exists.)
15:46:25.740 ERROR filefn.cpp:1183 Directory 'C:\ProgramData\opencpn\\plugins\weather_routing\\ polars' couldn't be created (error 183: Cannot create a file when that file already exists.)
This does not appear to block the plugin from working correctly, but is a real red herring when trying to track down other problems.

Log files and summary of what I did attached. Rename .doc to .zip.
I hope this helps.

The sample configs are great and what really got me over the hump when I was trying to get Weather Routing to work a few years ago. They just need a little tweaking.

Thanks for all the work you do! If I can help in testing the next release, let me know.

Sherry