[kde-linux] LCD weather widget not finding noaa stations

[Duncan]

Dale posted on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 16:47:33 -0600 as excerpted:

> Duncan wrote:
>> Dale posted on Tue, 18 Dec 2012 04:32:06 -0600 as excerpted:
>>
>>> When I type in the name of my city, the only thing that comes up is
>>> wettercom.  There is NO NOAH stations at all.  While wettercom does
>>> report some info, it doesn't report it all and I might add, it is not
>>> accurate at times.  When I could use NOAH, which I think was last
>>> available here in KDE3, it worked great.
>>>
>>> I don't know what happened to the NOAH settings but I sure wish I
>>> could get it back.
>>>
>>> I'm on 4.9.4 which is the latest in the tree.  No overlays here.
>> 
>> I assume you left the name of your city vague on purpose (sensitive
>> personal information posted on the net and all that), or I'd check the
>> results I get here for it.
>>
>> I don't have time to investigate ATM as I'm headed for work in a few,
>> but I'd suggest you try with a clean user config

>> FWIW, I believe all the weather plasmoids use a common kde backend
>> weather service [so] all weather plasmoids should have the same city
>> listings, and if it's screwed for one it's probably screwed for all.  

> I can get you close enough tho.  Try Tupelo, MS.  It's a little ways off
> but it doesn't work at all, just like where I live.  lol  I tried a
> couple other towns in other states, some of them have NOAH and wettercom
> settings.  So, it appears that cities close to me are just not on some
> sort of list.  Hmmmmm, may be a whole new problem here.

That's definitely some sort of issue at your end, as I get all sorts of 
Tupelo, MS listings here (using yawp).

* accuweather has two, tupelo MS and tupelo regional MS.  HOWEVER, only 
tupelo is giving me a report at this point, tupelo regional doesn't 
appear to be working from accuweather.

* noaa has one, tupelo regional airport USA (MS), and THAT one works 
(while accuweather's for the airport doesn't).

* bbcukmet has one, tupelo, mississippi, works.  (I'd guess they're 
getting the data from noaa's airport station as well, tho I didn't 
compare actual readings to see, but one might work for you if the other 
doesn't).

* wettercom has one, tupelo, US (missisippi), works.

* Debian weather, environment canada and google weather say no hits for 
tupelo at all.

* The REAL interesting one is Wunderground weather service, which lists a 
whole slew.  I didn't actually count them and some are from tupelos in 
other states, but I did see several listings.  I /think/ wunderground is 
a bunch of home weather enthusiasts, running their own reporting stations 
explaining both the name and the whole slew of hits.  The listings give 
such info as the highway they're on and how far from tupelo they are, etc.


So obviously, if you're not getting any good tupelo hits, either your 
config or your kde is messed up.  The thing to do would be to try a clean 
user config (as a different user who had no kde config yet, or with kde 
not running, temporarily move/rename your $KDEHOME dir (normally ~/.kde) 
elsewhere so you're trying with a clean kde user config) and see if you 
still don't get these listings.  If you get them with a clean config, 
then you know the problem's in your user config.  If not, then the 
problem's in the system.

> Where is the config file?  I'll delete that thing and give it a fresh
> start.  It's not like it is going to hurt anything since it doesn't work
> now anyway.

This of course assumes you've tested with a fresh user config as 
suggested above, and found that it's a user config problem, not a system 
kde problem...

Looks like for yawp, anyway, and /probably/ for lcd weather tho I'm not 
sure, the plasmoid config is stored in the same place plasma stores 
nearly ALL its plasmoid config info, for all panels and all activities
(!!), $KDEHOME/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc.

Unfortunately, nuking this will nuke pretty much all customized plasma 
config, including all panels and the plasmoids they contain, all 
activities, their desktop types, and the config and plasmoids they 
contain.

Also unfortunately, while the file is in theory kde's standard "ini file" 
format, the shear amount of data stored in the single file and the way 
the sections are organized makes it a TERRIBLY complicated thing to edit 
manually (by text editor), even for people used to editing text-based 
config files manually (as most gentooers certainly should be).  It CAN be 
done, but it takes quite a bit of patience and time, and a bit of trial 
and error, to unravel the way the sections are organized and to find the 
sections you wish to edit/delete in ordered to clean them up.

So unless you think you're upto the challenge, I'd recommend backing up 
the file just in case, then deleting it and starting your plasma 
customization from the defaults once again.

If you think you're upto the challenge of editing it manually, again, 
make sure it's backed up, and set aside several hours to work on it, as 
that's likely what it's going to take, at least the first time.  You'll 
note that it's organized in a hierarchy, with each panel or activity 
given a number (you have to figure out which one it is by the type, 
position, size, plasmoids it contains, etc), sections for its global 
config, then each plasmoid it contains has a number, with many plasmoids 
having several config sections of their own, etc.

So for instance, here's some excerpts from mine (uninteresting lines 
deleted):

[Containments][199]
activity=plasmoids
desktop=-1
geometry=1926,0,1920,1080
lastDesktop=-1
lastScreen=1
plugin=desktop
screen=1
wallpaperplugin=image

# a bunch of applet configs listed

[Containments][199][Applets][209]
plugin=yaWP

[Containments][199][Applets][209][Configuration][locations]
city01=noaa,Luke AFB/Phoenix\\, AZ,USA,us,,America/Phoenix

# a bunch more applet configs

[Containments][199][Wallpaper][image]
wallpaper=/usr/share/wallpapers/Evening/


OK, "containment 199" is an activity (activity line isn't blank) using 
the desktop plugin (plugin=desktop) with a size of 1920x1080 (the size of 
one of my monitors), so it must be a desktop.

In this case, I can identify it as the activity I've named "plasmoids", 
but because I have a dual monitor setup, each activity actually has two 
separate containments, one per monitor.  Which desktop containment is 
this one?

Well, down at the bottom of the config for this containment (right before 
the listing for the next containment, no longer 199, starts), I see it's 
the one with the "Evening" wallpaper set.  Since I have that on only one, 
I know which desktop in which activity is "containment 199" now.

Of course in between, there's a whole slew of applet configs listed, for 
all the plasmoids I have configured to run in this containment (on this 
desktop).  I've just shown parts of one, here.

The applet I've shown is applet #209 in containment #199.  I can see that 
it's a yawp plasmoid (plugin=yawp), but I have several yawp plasmoids 
configured for this containment.  Which one is it.

As it happens, it's the one that is configured with location Phoenix, 
Luke Air Force Base.

Keep in mind that I've deleted a bunch of lines from these selected 
sections, and only shown a couple of sections for one single yawp 
plasmoid of several on the single desktop containment of two, in a single 
activity of several, with that desktop containment being only one of a 
whole list of containments, since each panel and each activity has at 
least one containment.

Throw in the fact that if you've experimented a bit with different 
plasmoids and desktop types and activity types, and then deleted them, 
sometimes the deletion from this file isn't total, so you'll likely have 
scraps of old, no longer valid, configuration, mixed in with the valid 
ones, and you begin to see how complex this thing can be to edit manually.


OK, so whichever way you do it, either manual editing or deleting the 
file and starting from the defaults with a new config, once you get it 
setup the way you want (or even set it up in stages, taking a backup 
after you setup each panel or desktop, for instance), be *SURE* to save a 
backup of this file, as it's *NOT* easy to clean up, manually, and it 
*DOES* get crufty bits of nasty old config sticking around if you go 
experimenting, that *DO* trigger various problems.

So get in the habit, once you get it setup the way you want, every time 
before you make a serious change, take a backup of this file.  And after 
you've made your changes, take another backup.  That way, if something 
strange begins to happen, you can restore from a backup that you know was 
working correctly, and hopefully, you'll not have to hassle either 
manually editing this file, or blowing it away and starting from scratch, 
ever again.


(Hopefully, with kde5 aka kde frameworks, plasma is rewritten to use a 
directory hierarchy and at least individual files for each containment, 
if not individual files for each plasmoid as well.  That should make it 
much more robust, since if it's damaged only the one component will be 
damaged, and much easier to fix by blowing away or editing the much less 
complex single component files, as well.  I think they simply didn't 
realize how complex the thing would get, when they started with plasma 
and decided on a single config file for all containments and applets 
combined, and of course by the time they did, they were pretty much 
locked into that format for the duration of kde4, in ordered to maintain 
basic compatibility thru the entire kde4 series.  We'll see.  But I just 
can't see anybody sane actually /choosing/ this current super-complex 
single config file format, so given the compatibility break opportunity 
of kde5/frameworks, I really DO expect they'll take that opportunity, and 
kde frameworks' plasma will have a much saner config file setup.  Like I 
said, I think it just grew on them, and by the time they realized the 
monster they had created for kde4 plasma, they were pretty much locked in 
for the duration, for compatibility reasons.)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman