ActiveSky wxRE: offline METAR download doesn't work

[Guest LSangiovanni LIML]

Hi folks,anyone out there has the same trouble? Since i bought this new weather program haven't been able to download a single METAR file for flying offline!!!I have a good 56K modem connection and never had such trouble in downloading METARS with other programs.I tried some workarounds suggested by author but without luck (i'm not a programmer).I have to say that the online feature works just fine.Come on, let's see if we can solve our trouble!cheersLuigi ;-)

[JSkorna 137]

OK lets try this. Offline mode means that you are going to use a METAR that has been downloaded in the past. In the Options box you check the Offline/preset line at the top. You then select the .wxd file you wish to use from the "Select Your Offline Definition File:" box. Click save and you should be all set.

[brucek 38]

In "Options", enable the "Offline / Preset' mode, if not already enabled (the button will be selected if enabled). In the "UTC Hour for Download" box, enter your Zulu time for download, then press the "Auto Download or Create New" button. This will download a file with an extension .wxd, in turn which will reference that METAR and the TAF files associated with the time.Note that the .wxd file refers to the hour prior to the time you specified. This is so that you can always be assured of the METAR cycle being completed, even if the hour you specify (or FS specifies, if you don't enter a specific hour) is current time.Bruce.

[Guest LSangiovanni LIML]

>In "Options", enable the "Offline / Preset' mode, if not >already enabled (the button will be selected if enabled). In >the "UTC Hour for Download" box, enter your Zulu time for >download, then press the "Auto Download or Create New" >button.Right but...at that point i usually get my error message: ERROR OR TIMEOUT DOWNLOADING CYCLE :-(I really do not know what do do! I'm the only one?Thanks a lot for answeringLuigi ;-)

[Damian Clark 1,126]

Hi Luigi,Sorry for the problems you are experiencing. I think there has been 1 or 2 other reports of this..First, does online mode work OK?Second, have you tried changing the UTC hour for download manually to see if perhaps there was a NOAA server problem with THAT cycle set?Third, there was one report of a proxy server user who had related problems (slightly different)... are you behind a proxy server too? (perhaps this will help me troubleshoot).Thanks Luigi.,.. again, sorry for the trouble.. feel free to email me at support@hifisim.com for further help with this.-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

[Guest]

Luigi, I have the same problem with downloading off-line WX. When I use my desktop PC with AOL I get the error you mentioned. However when I use my laptop with juno and IE v6.0 I am able to download WX fine. All I do then is copy the files onto a floppy and transfer them to my other PC.I am curious if you're using AOL. I know that with FSMeteo there is a special box you have to check to download METARS if you're using AOL. This leads me to believe that AOL may be 'different' in the way that it downloads stuff (I'm guessing ...) and that the issue may extend to wxRE as well.If you have access to another PC try installing wxRE on it and downloading METARS via a different ISP. Hope this helps.Bill

[Guest]

AOL is not a "true connection" to the internet. Most other online services give you a direct connection to the Internet but AOL gives you a direct connection to their online service which in turn forwards Internet requests via a "pink SLIP" proxy whereas everyone else uses a SLIP/PPP direct connection.I would tend to belive that ActiveskyRE's TCP/IP stack implementation assumes that the IP requests destined for the Internet look for the next hop router which in all other cases is the gateway to the Internet instead of AOL's next hop which is a router to their service (servers) which forwards packets out another router to the Internet.To change this, Activesky will need to mimic AOLs "special" way to accessing the Internet like FSMETEO did.HTH,Mike T.

[Damian Clark 1,126]

Hi Mike,There is proxy detection and use routines in ASwxRE but I have to admit that not one issue came up at all during development and beta testing to require a further look into this (beta team was 75 users - ACTIVE users! :). Only after release did we see some folks having trouble. I have already signed up for an AOL account (ugh!!) so I can test this further and squish any bugs that remain...-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

[Guest]

I get that message too but all I have to do is hit the button again and it works fine.