20021017: McIDAS: Lost SFCHOURLY data

>From: Michael Keables <address@hidden>
>Organization: DU
>Keywords: 200210171934.g9HJYs110968 McIDAS-XCD 

Hi, Mike,

Long time no hear!

>I haven't been able to contour the SFCHOURLY dataset since arounc 12Z on
>10/6. I can plot the data, but when I try to contour using SFCPLOT, the
>dataset isn't found.

This is really weird!

>Suggestions? Feel free to login to cyclone.natnet.du.edu if you wish.

I logged onto cyclone and saw that a new version of McIDAS was built
today, but only the -X stuff got installed.  I installed the -XCD
stuff:

<as 'ldm'>
ldmadmin stop

<as 'mcidas'>
cd mcidas2002/src
make install.xcdall

I noticed that the file REDIRECTions for GRID data were not enough to
take care of all of the data that will be decoded by XCD, so I added
a REDIRECTion for GRID files GRID6*:

cd ~mcidas/workdata
redirect.k ADD GRID6\* \"/data/ldm/mcidas

I also noted a FRAMENH.001 file in ~mcidas/workdata; I removed it.

Lastly, I noticed that the DMAP comamnd is not returning anything for
some reason.  I found that this was failing because /var was full.
Since most things in /var are owned by root, I decided to delete
the only file I could: /var/mail/ldm.  This freed up enough disk
space for me to run the editor AND allowed DMAP to run in McIDAS.
I did some more snooping and see a /var/mail/ldm and see a /var/mail/:saved
directory and it contains two big files:

-rw-rw----   1 ldm      mail     28686707 Mar 26  2002 ldm
-rw-rw----   1 lp       mail     1385520 Feb 19  2002 lp

Since I don't have root access, I will leave it to you to delete
/var/mail/:saved/ldm.  I actually recommend that you blow away
the entire /var/mail:saved directory and all of its contents.

Now that the v2002a install is finished, I tried pointing at cyclone
from my machine and doing image loads, T plots, and T contours.
Everything worked OK for me, so your problem plotting contours must
have something to do with the surface contouring application on cyclone
(i.e., the data receipt and decoding is working on cyclone).

Finally, I tried plotting and contouring from the 'mcidas' account on
cyclone:

<login as 'mcidas'>
% cd workdata
% mcenv
% sfcplot.k T USA 12 2002290
Accessing Dataset Name = RTPTSRC/SFCHOURLY.ALL
SFCPLOT - Done
% sfccon.k  T OLAY FRAME
Accessing Dataset Name = RTPTSRC/SFCHOURLY.ALL
Number of data points input to objective analysis:  1848
PTCON:  Done
SFCCON - Done
% frmsave.k 1 test.gif
Frame saved in /home/mcidas/workdata/test.gif
% exit

This all worked OK.  I brought the GIF back to Unidata to look at and
it is OK:

http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/tom/gifs/du.gif

It looks like your problem was that /var filled up!  So, it would be a
very good idea for you to delete at a minimum /var/mail/:saved/ldm
or better yet the entire /var/mail/:saved directory.

>Thanks in advance.

No worries.

>P.S. Have also tried stopping/starting LDM, rebooting cyclone. Also upgraded
>to v2002a but no impact.

The problem was that /var was full.  Go figure!  Upgrading to v2002 was
a good thing to do anyway :-)

Tom

>From address@hidden Fri Oct 18 07:47:57 2002

Thanks, Tom. I'll take care of the /var/mail directory this morning.

Later,

Mike