McIDAS-XCD Administrator's Guide
Version 2021.1

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Chapter 4

Troubleshooting

This chapter lists problems that may occur with McIDAS-XCD. Under each symptom or error message, possible solutions are given. The problems discussed here are listed below.

• -XCD is not receiving real-time data - users report no real-time data, or the ingestor status display is red
• -XCD is not creating McIDAS Grid files
• -XCD is not writing GRIB files
• -XCD is not writing to the real-time GRIB MySQL/MariaDB database
• -XCD data is garbled or missing
• xcdadmin script is not working
• directory ***NEXRAD_PATH*** exists on the workstation

-XCD is not receiving real-time data - users report no real-time data, or the ingestor status display is red

• Verify with your LDM Administrator that the LDM is ingesting data. Verify that startxcd.k is running under the user oper. If it is not, see Starting and Stopping McIDAS-XCD for information on starting -XCD. If you are filing GRIB information into a real-time MySQL/MariaDB database, verify with your MySQL/MariaDB Administrator that mysql is running. Contact your System Administrator to add all three of these to your machine's start-up process.
• The file system may be full. You can use the McIDAS-XCD commands DELWXT, QRTMDG, and xcdscour to delete older text, point, grid, and grib files and to clean the real-time GRIB database. Do not delete any files for the current day. See Configuring Data Removal for information on configuring cron and the McIDAS-X Scheduler to remove McIDAS-XCD data files.
• If the file system is not full, check the LDM configuration file pqact.conf to make sure it is calling ingebin.k and ingetext.k. If this is OK, check the LDM configuration file ldmd.conf to see that it is making the proper requests.
• Check the /home/oper/xcd.log file for any useful information that may help to resolve the problem.
• Check for an obstruction in the antenna and verify that all receiving hardware is working properly.
• Contact your source provider to see if they are having a problem with the broadcast.
• If running MySQL/MariaDB 8.0 or later, check whether the writing of binary log files associated with the database is disabled. As noted in the gribadmin command, we recommend disabling it because it is not useful and it fills large amounts of disk (possibly an entire file system) due to it logging millions of INSERT into file_list entries per day.

-XCD is not creating McIDAS Grid files

The DMGRID GRIB decoder can't file grids if it can't find RTMODELS.CFG, which contains information about real-time grid file locations.

The file RTMODELS.CFG should reside in ~oper/mcidas/data when McIDAS-XCD is installed correctly. Either the decoder can't reach the file or it is missing. If it's missing, recreate the file or copy a new version of the default file from ~oper/mcidas/xcdversion/data/RTMODELS.CFG (where version is the version number, e.g., 2020.1).

-XCD is not writing GRIB files

Look for the *.gr* and *.bu* directory entries and verify that these directories exist on your workstation.  If these directories do not exist, create them. Once this is done, -XCD will automatically start writing GRIB1 and GRIB2 files to this directory, which in turn will allow for data to be written to the database. Then users should be able to access the GRIB data.

-XCD is not writing to the real-time GRIB MySQL/MariaDB database

• If MySQL/MariaDB is installed properly and the mcrtgrib database was created, the most recent record filed in the database will be listed. The modtime is the last line of the record. If the GRIB file information is being filed correctly, this should be today's date and a very recent time.
• If no record is returned, or if the modtime is not recent, this means that the mcrtgrib database exists, but no data is being written to it. Verify with your -X and -XCD Administrator that both packages were compiled with the -mysql flag.
• If an error message containing "Can't connect to local MySQL server" is displayed, this means that MySQL/MariaDB is installed on your machine, but that it was not started. Contact your MySQL/MariaDB Administrator to restart MySQL/MariaDB.
• If an error message from gribadmin containing "mysql: not found" is displayed, this means that the gribadmin command can not find the mysql executable. Confirm that mysql is in the PATH of the user oper.
• If an error message from gribadmin containing "Access denied for user ''@'localhost' to database 'mcrtgrib'" is displayed, this means that MySQL/MariaDB is running, but the mcrtgrib database was never created. See Configuring the GRIB Decoders for more information on creating the mcrtgrib database.

-XCD data is garbled or missing

When more than one ingestor is trying to read the same circuit, text data may be missing or text output garbled. If you are decoding grids, grids may be missing.

Only one ingetext.k process should be running for each text circuit, and only one ingebin.k process should be running for each binary circuit (e.g., one ingebin.k process running for GRIB data while another is running for NEXRAD data). Check the number of ingetext.k and ingebin.k processes and -XCD data monitors running. At a Unix shell prompt, as user oper,

If there are multiple processes running for one of the circuits or one of the data monitors, stop and restart -XCD and the LDM. Some data may be lost while the processes are stopped.

1. Stop -XCD and kill any remaining data monitors (DM*), if necessary. At a Unix shell prompt, as user oper,

Type: xcdadmin stop (you will need to wait for the data monitors to cleanly exit)

Type: ps -ef | grep DM

Type: kill -9 process_id (if necessary)


2. Stop the LDM and kill any remaining processes, if necessary. At a Unix shell prompt, as user oper,

Type: ldmadmin stop (stops the INGEBIN and INGETEXT processes)

Type: ps -ef | grep inge

Type: kill -9 process_id (if necessary)


3. Restart the LDM and -XCD by running the two commands below, in order.

Type: ldmadmin start

Type: xcdadmin start

If this process doesn't work, check for an obstruction in the receiving antenna.

xcdadmin script is not working

• Verify that you are logged in as user oper.
• Run command which xcdadmin to verify the location of the xcdadmin script.
• Verify that the oper account has a .profile file.
• Open the xcdadmin file and verify that its xcd_admin_profile variable is set to the oper account's .profile file.

directory ***NEXRAD_PATH*** exists on the workstation

The ***NEXRAD_PATH*** directory is created if the NEXRAD data monitor is enabled and the DIRFILE= value is not set in the file ~oper/mcidas/data/NEXRID.CFG. See Chapter 2's Configuring the NEXRAD Decoder section for instructions to set the DIRFILE= value and other NEXRAD options.

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