OK, one more time with feeling :-).Pertaining to my last post about "...NOAA, not AS", it would seem I have actually uncovered a bug in the process. I did some digging into the METAR files to see if I could manually change the METAR within, and something really strange appeared. There was no listing for CWAU or CWMS in any METAR file anywhere (I searched the metar17z.MET file which is what I had downloaded, and then the expmetar15z.met file which I was using as online live). So, I closed AS, then restarted FS2002 and cleared all it's weather, then recalled AS. I had the "Offline" option selected, and redownloaded the 17Z report. I did a "Save" and went to the main screen and hit "REFRESH". AS then listed CWMS as being the closest station, but never pulled up a METAR. Here is what the screen showed:http://www3.sympatico.ca/g.davy/WXRE/Set3a.jpgNote the top line says that offline processing is complete, while in the METAR window a station is listed, but no METAR is present. I waited about 5 minutes before I figured this wasn't going any further.So, I closed down FS and AS, then restarted AS only. I asked for the 17Z weather again, and downloaded all without FS present. This time of course, it was looking for the default station, but I ended up with the same message, as you can see below:http://www3.sympatico.ca/g.davy/WXRE/Set3b.jpgIt would appear that for some reason, sometimes the METAR isn't loading at all, no matter where it might be for. However, taking it one step further, I then closed AS, reloaded FS2002 and went to an airport with a station on field, then loaded FS and the offline 17Z files I had used above. This time it all came up just fine with the correct weather.The bottom line is, it would appear that if you are on a field that doesn't have a METAR reporting station on it, sometimes you get nothing at all, and it seems to confuse AS. Also, for some reason, AS seems to recognize the NOAA station that IS nearby (in the case of Bella Bella), but won't pull up a METAR for it because it doesn't appear in the metxxZ.met report. That part I don't understand at all (how it can list a station as being close to it, when it doesn't have a listing in the metarxxz.met report. Sounds like it is being confused by this (it isn't the only one :-) ).Anyway, I hope I've been clear enough in this to make my case. It's a bit of a weird situation to be sure. Now, I loathe doing this as I'm not trying to make comparisons between programs on a "better or worse" issue, but instead just to see what happens in the alternative, but when I closed AS again and re-cleared the FS wx, then fired up FSMeteo, (this is while at Bella Bella), it came up with CYBD as the nearest wx station, and with the correct weather. As I said, AS had the right wx for CYBD, but couldn't seem to plug it into FS from where I was sitting, yet it had no weather for CWMS or CWAU, so it was left not knowing what to do, from what I could tell. Pretty weird anyway, but this is something that will have to be looked at at some point, from the looks of things.Lastly, I tried a custom write for the YBD wx into the CWMS line, and I got a report of conflicting cloud layers and the transition would be skipped. So it must have been seeing something at the station I was at (YBD is 60 miles from Bella Bella), but with the bug in the 1.1 version, I had zero vis so it was hard to tell what was happening.If you need any further info, just shout here. Hopefully I can be of some assistance in troubleshooting this for you Damian. Thanks for your time, and my apologies for the long post.Glenn

Hi Glenn,exp*.wxd files should not be selected when flying offline.. these contain only METAR entries (not TAF or WINDS) and are strictly for FSFlightMax export. The easy way to avoid confusion is to make a new folder for FSFlightMax export and configure ASwxRE to use that one.. this way the exp*.* files won't be written to your normal offline folder. Let me know if this clears things up.. thanks!-Damian[table border=0" cellspacing="30" cellpadding="0][tr][td align = "left"]Damian ClarkHiFi Simulation SoftwareDeveloper of ActiveSkyThe next-generation weather environment simulation for FS2002!http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky[/td][td]http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg][/td][/tr][/table://http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/ima...][/tr][/table

Hi Damian,Nope, only used the exp*.wxd for the online part.I repeated the test today and came up with the same thing. Here is a screenshot of the results and I'll explain below,http://www3.sympatico.ca/g.davy/WXRE/Set4a.jpgOK, exactly what I did:1) went online withOUT FS running and loaded wxRE. 2) Dowloaded the 19Z Wx with the OFFline option selected. 3) After the wx was fully in, I clicked on the SAVE button and went back to the main screen.4) Exited wxRE.5) Loaded FS2002 and set myself at CAF2 (Bella Bella, Campbell Island).6) Cleared all weather using the "Clear All Weather" button7) Started wxRE.8) It came up with the station CWAU as the nearest at 2 nm away, but no METAR came up.9) I went into the Options page and doublechecked the "cycle19z.wxd" file was highlighted. It was, but just in case I clicked on it anyway.10) I hit the SAVE button and went back to the main screen and waited. After about 3 to 4 minutes, I took the screenshot you see above.Hopefully you can reproduce this problem so you are able to see for yourself what is happening, but what seems to be the case is that there are 2 light stations nearby that NOAA has in their database, but which don't always have METAR's associated with them. This causes wxRE to read these stations rather than going to the next nearest valid station, which is CYBD (Bella Coola). As a result, you end up with a "non-weather" issue, which right now means you have no weather except for the zero vis part (which you have already identified).Now I can bypass this by setting the force distance to 70 miles, but that's a very large force distance which will really throw things when going south to Vancouver or some other heavily populated area. Could you have a look at this for me and see if there is another solution of some sort?Thanks very much for your help Damian, much appreciated.Glenn

OK, let me troubleshoot this a bit more Damian. I just rechecked this after writing the post (AS & FS2002 were running in the background while I wrote the post) and it finally found CYBD. Let me play with this for a bit as it might just be a case of it taking quite a long time to find this particular setup (this time it seemed to take about 10 to 20 minutes or so, instead of the usual 1 to 3). No point in both of us troubleshooting the same thing, so I'll get back to you with my findings.Thanks Damian,Glenn

Glenn,I think I know what is going on... There are apparently quite a few airports that aren't getting in the cycle for whatever reason.. when ASwxRE encounters this in offline mode, it will reprocess a new closest-station every 5 minutes until it finds something in the offline file.As to why the stations aren't going into the cycle, it could be that the stations are simply having temporary problems on NOAA delivery, or the station could be closed or invalid on NOAA now (do these stations work online?). If you watch wxRE cycle through these airports (watch the closest airport info), it will give you an indication of how many airports it is not finding. The best solution would probably be to identify which stations are not going in the cycle, see that they are also not available online (confirming they are not available) and then delete them from the icao.txt database. Could you try this out and let me know your findings? Your help is much appreciated Glenn!-Damian[table border=0" cellspacing="30" cellpadding="0][tr][td align = "left"]Damian ClarkHiFi Simulation SoftwareDeveloper of ActiveSkyThe next-generation weather environment simulation for FS2002!http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky[/td][td]http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg][/td][/tr][/table://http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/ima...][/tr][/table

Hi Damian,Thanks very much for this. I've sort of done part of what you asked before reading this last post, so let me send you the update I have now, and I'll complete the test tomorrow night.Yes, it finally does find the right station, and it appears to do just as you suggested. It took almost 12 minutes for the system to find a valid station and to input the METAR for it. Now, it started with the CWAU station (about 1 or 2 miles away), then after about 5 minutes (I didn't know the connection here regarding the time until you mentioned it above) it switched to CWMS, about 21 miles away. During those "checks", the window just said as my earlier screenshot, that it was still initializing the METAR (or something similar - but it's exactly what is in my screenshot above). OK, so then it finally clued in and found CYDB which is a valid station and uploaded that weather in about 1.5 minutes.Now, I do remember yesterday when I tried it online, that it was giving me a METAR, but it was several days outdated (132100Z was the last update for it). When I checked it against the NOAA website, it did list both CWAU and CWMS. Both are light stations (lighthouses), and both METAR's were for the time period that wxRE said they were for, and the weather was correct for what was on the website. It's just that the website was several days out of date.So, I guess the next question is, since the stations are present online, what happens if I delete those stations from the ICAO database anyway? Will I cause myself grief in the process, such as having the system hang? If not, I'd really like to give this a try as the stations aren't reliable anyway.In the end, it looks like wxRE is once again doing exactly what it's been told to do, and that the problem isn't with wxRE so much as the NOAA setup. However, it might be worth trying to eliminate those 2 stations from the database as you suggested, and if that works and others run into a similar problem, then we have a ready-made, instant fix for it. I doubt very much this is something you can "just fix" from within wxRE itself since it does seem to be doing its job here. Like any program, "garbage in, garbage out", and in this case the "garbage" is coming from NOAA.Let me know on this Damian (if I can safely delete the 2 stations from the ICAO database in wxRE), as I'd be very willing to experiment a bit here.Thanks again for the help :-).Glenn

Yes Glenn, go ahead and delete those stations and let me know the results.. I think it will fix it. I will then delete them from the database for the next update. Thanks a bunch! -Damian[table border=0" cellspacing="30" cellpadding="0][tr][td align = "left"]Damian ClarkHiFi Simulation SoftwareDeveloper of ActiveSkyThe next-generation weather environment simulation for FS2002!http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky[/td][td]http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg][/td][/tr][/table://http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/ima...][/tr][/table

Hi Damian,Yup, it works fantastically! I deleted the 2 stations and when I nexted booted AS up (V1.15 - THANKS!!) it came up like INSTANTLY to CYBD. Works terrifically! I'll send you the full lowdown this evening on it, but I thought I'd get this out to you right away for your perusal.Thanks!Glenn