[McIDAS #TAL-270196]: Not getting MD data

Hi Heather,

re:
> Sorry Tom!  I did not mean to imply that you are old!  I honestly meant
> it as a compliment!

I thought you would have seen the smiley face that I included at the end of
my comment:

  "Well, I can feel good and bad about this comment: good since it is a real 
compliment
  (thanks!), and bad since this is making me feel old (very bad) :-)"

I don't feel _too_ old, just creaky ;-)

re:
> So, I am now ingesting and decoding the MD data with seemingly no problems
> with version 6.12.6
> 
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 ldm ldm  8870304 Jul 29 06:03 MDXX0060
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 ldm ldm  7100120 Jul 29 06:07 MDXX0111
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 ldm ldm 12976672 Jul 29 06:44 MDXX0040
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 ldm ldm  1630496 Jul 29 06:49 MDXX0021
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 ldm ldm  2376168 Jul 29 06:49 MDXX0011
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 ldm ldm  2862412 Jul 29 06:49 MDXX0061
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 ldm ldm 24971236 Jul 29 06:49 MDXX0001
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 ldm ldm  4503480 Jul 29 06:50 MDXX0051
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 ldm ldm 12438400 Jul 29 06:50 MDXX0031
> 
> [ldm@npxcd data]$ ps -eaf | grep DM | grep -v grep
> ldm      28948 11705  0 05:02 ?        00:00:00 DMRAOB
> ldm      28951 11705  0 05:03 ?        00:00:01 DMMISC
> ldm      28964 11705  0 05:05 ?        00:00:04 DMSFC
> ldm      30017 11705  2 05:49 ?        00:01:26 DMSYN
> ldm      31233 11705  3 06:33 ?        00:00:38 DMBIN
> [ldm@npxcd data]$  ps -eaf | grep inge | grep -v grep
> ldm      11680 11668  0 Jul28 ?        00:00:00 ingetext.k DDS
> ldm      11681 11668  0 Jul28 ?        00:00:00 ingebin.k HRS
> ldm      11703 11680  0 Jul28 ?        00:01:58 ingetext.k DDS
> ldm      11704 11681  1 Jul28 ?        00:11:46 ingebin.k HRS

OK, looks good.

re:
> I am not really sure what is going on, but I think I will keep my
> older version of the LDM up and running for the time being.

OK.  FYI: we now know how/why your McIDAS-XCD decoding was being "killed"
when running an LDM-6.13.x version of the LDM.  In order to support the
new logging package, a new script was included in the distribution, and
that script sends a SIGHUP to the LDM process group.  This means that
the McIDAS-XCD MONITORing action (the 'EXEC util/xcd_run MONITOR'
line in ~ldm/etc/ldmd.conf) is now getting a HUP signal, and the program
that the xcd_run script 'exec's, 'startxcd.k', is not instrumented to
ignore signals, so it is exiting.  'startxcd.k' is the McIDAS command
that runs and keeps running XCD data monitors, and the data monitors
run one or more decoding tasks.  So, the cause of the XCD decoding
exiting is the cron entry that is rotating the LDM log file, and
this is basically being done at 00:00 on your machine.

A fix for this situation is to modify the EXEC line in your LDM
configuration file, ~ldm/etc/ldmd.conf, from:

exec    "util/xcd_run MONITOR"

to:

exec    "nohup util/xcd_run MONITOR"

Putting the 'nohup' in front of 'util/xcd_run' (or wherever you have
your setup for) will insure that the script 'xcd_run' will ignore
the HUP signal, and 'startxcd.k' which is 'exec'ed in 'startxcd.k'
will inherit the signal ignore, so it won't react to the SIGHUP
that is sent by the LDM file rotation script.

Phew!  That was hard to (try to) explain, so I will totally understand
if it leaves you scratching your head!!

Again, what you need to do to use the latest version of the LDM
is modify the 'xcd_run' EXEC line in ~ldm/etc/ldmd.conf, and then
restart your LDM.

re:
> you see the ldm-users thread with the folks from TAMU?  It seems
> that they were having problems getting NEXRAD3 data and had to revert
> back to version 6.12.14.

Yes, we saw at least some of the messages that Donna Cote sent out (we
will not have seen any messages that she sent to individuals, of course).
We will need to work with her to find out what it is about her setup
that might have been/was causing the problem she reported.

re:
> Have you heard from anyone else having problems with the newest version of 
> the LDM?

No, but I saw Christian Page's comment that his McIDAS-XCD decoding would
stop working, so he reverted back to a pre-LDM-6.13.x version of the LDM.
I will contact Christian to let him know about the problem personally, and
I will be sending a note out to the address@hidden email list
(and probably to ldm-users) letting people know about the corrective action
that they can take if they want to move up to LDM-6.13.x (and this _is_ a
good idea!).

Please let me know if the above is too obscure.  Also, please keep me
informed about your experience when going back to use of LDM-6.13.3
(after making the change to the EXEC line in ~ldm/etc/ldmd.conf and
restarting your LDM).

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: TAL-270196
Department: Support McIDAS
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed
===================
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