Chasbo Chasbo

Rainmeter Weather is broken

Rainmeter Weather is broken

All that work for nothing

Well the weather feed for Rainmeter appears to be broken. I haven't got any solution. It's very frustrating as I've been very active in creating Weather for Rainmeter lately. I hope either the feed is just temporarily down or someone comes up with a fix for the code.

140,540 views 47 replies
Reply #26 Top

Wow, Haven't seen you since forever!  Welcome back!

Reply #27 Top

Quoting RedneckDude, reply 24

This thing happens too often, I don't think I will do any more weather widgets/gadgets.

 

Funny how July Weather still works. Always has.

https://www.wincustomize.com/explore/desktop_gadgets/45/ 

 

 
Too bad we can't dissect a gadget :(  

 

Reply #28 Top

Glad to be back:grin:  

 

Reply #30 Top

As far as I know he is 'scrapping' the Yahoo website to get the information. The problem with this is that all it takes for the whole thing to stop working again is a small change on the format/presentation of the page - and those happen very often, turning these type of weather widgets into a support nightmare.

Reply #31 Top

Going forward it looks like I'll be uploading XWidget weather via the XWidget process and my DA page. So far Lightstar has given me permission to do this for his skins.

Stay tuned.

Reply #32 Top

Quoting JcRabbit, reply 30

As far as I know he is 'scrapping' the Yahoo website to get the information. The problem ............

To be fair,so is alternative way the Rainmeter's developer did on the its forum which 'scrapping' Weather.com. Because there are hardly any free,reliable and comprehensive weather providers out there. I believe XWidget's developer does pay for Accuweather.com the service.   

Reply #33 Top

Quoting Gaspershooters, reply 32
To be fair,so is alternative way the Rainmeter's developer did on the its forum which 'scrapping' Weather.com.

Sure, I was just pointing out the problem with this. It's a nightmarish headache for the developer.

Quoting Gaspershooters, reply 32
I believe XWidget's developer does pay for Accuweather.com the service.

Did you check Accuweather prices?! Also, isn't XWidget free? If so, how does the developer fund this?

I may be wrong now, but last time I checked the prices that the weather providers requested for queries, these were only suitable (or perhaps intended) for websites with not much traffic, not for free applications with tens of thousands of users, each making one weather query per hour.

For instance, I wouldn't mind paying for a reliable weather service (as I currently pay for IP Geo location services), but it would have to be a very reasonable amount with no query limitations. Don't forget the rate of free Nexus users to paying Nexus Ultimate/Winstep Xtreme users is HUGE and I am not in the business of selling weather applications - the weather widget in Winstep applications is just a very small part of a much bigger picture.

Reply #34 Top

XWidget is free, but there are a lot of skins that are not available unless you sign up and pay $9.99. I was just visiting their site and didn't realize all the programs they had. 

Reply #35 Top

Quoting JcRabbit, reply 33
Did you check Accuweather prices?! Also, isn't XWidget free? If so, how does the developer fund this?

Quoting ALMonty, reply 34

XWidget is free, but there are a lot of skins that are not available unless you sign up and pay $9.99.........

That's right,you have to pay to get some skins/theme. 

Quoting JcRabbit, reply 33

I may be wrong now, but last time I checked the prices that the weather providers requested for queries, these were only suitable (or perhaps intended) for websites with not much traffic......................................

For instance, I wouldn't mind paying for a reliable weather service (as I currently pay for IP Geo location services), but it would have to be a very reasonable amount with no query limitations.......................

I am not familiar with Accuweather,but I did check Darksky API,for free trial with unique key,a user would allow thousands calls a day;for pay/Enterprise that's another story. I have one Browser plugin which been using Darksky API a long time,must say it's very accurate and reliable as Weather.com

Reply #36 Top

Quoting Gaspershooters, reply 35
I am not familiar with Accuweather,but I did check Darksky API,for free trial with unique key,a user would allow thousands calls a day;

"Can I require my users to sign up for a developer's API key?No, your end-users should not sign up for Dark Sky API keys as a means for you to circumvent the daily cap of 1,000 free calls. The 1,000 free calls per day are intended for one developer or company to explore the API."

The TOS of all weather service providers forbids you from asking your users to apply for a key of their own. So, 1000 free queries per day, divided by 24 hours would barely cover the needs of 41 different users.

This said, their $0.0001 rate per query actually seems very reasonable until you start doing the math. Assuming you do not want to spend more than a reasonable $100 per month for the feed, this would be enough for 100/0.0001 queries, or 1 million queries per month. Seems like a lot, doesn't it?

However, each user would perform 24 queries per day times 30 days per month. So each user would consume 720 queries per month. Dividing 1,000,000 queries per 720 queries, one hundred bucks per month would barely cover the needs of 1,388 users. Even assuming ONLY 14,000 users of your free app, you would be paying over $1,000 per month for the privilege of offering a weather feed to people who have never and will likely never invest a single cent in your company's revenue.

There is simply no ROI for that. Do you guys understand now why SD stopped paying for the Accuweather feed (assuming that is what happened) ? The problem with these things is that they do not scale up with applications used by many thousands of users.

Reply #37 Top

All that said, I still wonder why July Weather still works.  It is an old gadget.  AccuWeather.

 

Reply #38 Top

Quoting RedneckDude, reply 37

All that said, I still wonder why July Weather still works.  It is an old gadget.  AccuWeather.

I have no idea since I have never used DesktopX,but you're interested,maybe you should look for its URL or .dll for reference.

Quoting JcRabbit, reply 36

"Can I require my users to sign up for a developer's API key?No, your end-users should not sign up for Dark Sky API keys as a means for you to circumvent the daily cap of 1,000 free calls. The 1,000 free calls per day are intended for one developer or company to explore the API."

The TOS of all weather service providers forbids you from asking your users to apply for a key of their own. So, 1000 free queries per day, divided by 24 hours would barely cover the needs of 41 different users........

I mentioned Darksky API is that some of Rainmeter skins have implemented its service after wxdata.weather.com deprecated as of Jan 15,2020. For non-profit skins and one end-user, a thousand calls a day is definitely enough. The TOS did forbid that,then again we are talking Rainmeter skins though. 

I think your best bet would be pay the Darksky API enterprise service or Accuweather's,then implemented the key in your weather module,such as .dll or .exe,so the end users would just simply enter their location to get weather predictions which must be exactly what the XWidget and the Weather plugin did. To expect each end user to obtain an API key is really not practical in your case ( Winstep, a commercial software).  Tim Leland is the developer of Weather extension,you may email him for reference regarding Darksky API.

 

Reply #39 Top

Quoting Gaspershooters, reply 38

I have no idea since I have never used DesktopX,but you're interested,maybe you should look for its URL or .dll for reference.
Quoting RedBuzzard, reply 27

Too bad we can't dissect a gadget   

Reply #41 Top

Chuckoff   :rofl:  

Reply #42 Top

Quoting ALMonty, reply 41

Chuckoff   :rofl:  

Quick story behind that name: I had a boss, who I really liked, and she'd say "#uck off Chuckoff!" This was a form of endearment. If she called me Chuck or Charles I knew something was wrong. If she called me Chuckoff things were good!

Reply #43 Top

I noticed Adni18 updated his RM skins.

He also wrote: • Weather data source: The Weather Channel Website (NOT the "bad" Weather.com)

Reply #45 Top

Well I don't know anything about coding RM for weather but that's what he wrote.

https://www.deviantart.com/adni18/art/Today-Weather-II-828482107

I'm just trying to share ways people are getting around the wxdata.

Or here on WC https://www.wincustomize.com/explore/rainmeter/559/

Reply #47 Top

Well this really sucks.  Broken again!  Will the madness ever stop?   I have heard that Yahoo weather works still in rainmeter.  Foreca works well too.  Too bad you can not by Stardock anymore. Am I just being overly obsessed with the weather stuff?  I could be...but I feel at a loss without it.  I did find a rainmeter skin that works so am happy with that.  To bad the good stuff has to get busted some how.  🗯️😞