Need Help or Suggestions for Sharing .jpg Image to Wunderground

A

alphawave7

Getting the hang of it
Mar 22, 2014
571
94
Okay...I want to share my updated .jpg (every 5 minutes) to Wunderground Webcams. They require either of two methods to grab the image: FTP and URL.
They also need the URL in the clear with no ID/Password. Is this easily attainable in BI (or any other software for that matter). The claim on WU is that they already obscure the IP/port in their presentation, so perhaps a totally secure https type url isn't needed? I noticed Don's super-looking secure tool requires a web server for the php scripts, and that seems a bit overkill for what I want to accomplish. I'd prefer URL over FTP, if possible. Suggestions welcome! :) Cheers!

Oh..another stumbling block...my pics generated every 5 minutes are averaging 1.8MB, when their limit is 150k.../sigh
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Go with the FTP option. I'm uploading pictures from two of my webcams to wunderground using ftp every 60 secs. The reason FTP is better is you control how often the picture is updated, and you do not need to upload your picture to your website. In fact I've embedded both my webcams into my webpage and the source is the uploaded picture from wunderground. So they are actually hosting the webcam pictures for me! Also Blue Iris can control the name of the file and also the Quality %. This means that you can name it image.jpg (as recommended by wunderground) and keep the file size under 150kb. If you need to find out first what is the right percentage for your picture, just post to folder first and adjust the Quality so that it does not exceed the limit. Be aware that it seems like wunderground are struggling with some performance issues as I've had some problems uploading/updating recently.
 
Excellent! I'll fiddle some more this evening...and might require a wee it of hand-holding. :) Cheers!
 
Okay, first hurdle is in FTP..I'm connecting, and WU 'test'.txt file cannot locate /BlueIris, error reads
"Connecting to webcam.wunderground.comConnected
Uploading to C:/BlueIris/ftptest.txt
FTP: 550 Can't change directory to C:/BlueIris: No such file or directory"

Of course the directory exists...can anyone post a screenie of their setup? Cheers!
 
Okay..nevermind..I removed any entry for directory, and PASSED the test. Then in Post, I added WUndergroundFTP, and removed again any folder, and an image successfully uploaded. :) Not intuitive, but it works.
 
Glad you got it working. I'm getting error messages in my log-file FTP: 226-Error during write to file
226-Transfer aborted. Any one else seen this? Upload is working but seems to be a problem.
 
dalepa said:
I also use the FTP method. There was a FTP problem with BI in the last release, but Ken fixed it. I had to rename the file to image.jpg as toonwolf suggested... http://www.wunderground.com/webcams/dalepa/1/show.html


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


Looks like I need to fiddle more...they killed my approval overnight, so I need to shrink my size. dalepa I opened yours in a new tab and you show 1920x1080, so I'll give that a try..but my cam is set to 3MP so I think that may generate a filesize too large, but we'll see. Your cam's link is approved and working on the search page, and that's what I'm after. :)

When opened in New Tab, my pic comes out 308k, and yours dalepa comes out 188k...both are over their 150k threshold, but I bet mine gets killed sometime today.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
LOL! That didn't take long! They killed me for 300k...trying again.

Knocked down Quality setting 50%, and now getting 186k, a full 2k smaller than dalepa's. We'll see if I last...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
toonwolf said:
Go with the FTP option. I'm uploading pictures from two of my webcams to wunderground using ftp every 60 secs. The reason FTP is better is you control how often the picture is updated, and you do not need to upload your picture to your website. In fact I've embedded both my webcams into my webpage and the source is the uploaded picture from wunderground. So they are actually hosting the webcam pictures for me! Also Blue Iris can control the name of the file and also the Quality %. This means that you can name it image.jpg (as recommended by wunderground) and keep the file size under 150kb. If you need to find out first what is the right percentage for your picture, just post to folder first and adjust the Quality so that it does not exceed the limit. Be aware that it seems like wunderground are struggling with some performance issues as I've had some problems uploading/updating recently.
Click to expand...

They keep bumping me off, so instead of futzing with size (last was 185k) I'm going to try the renaming to image.jpg, and see if that is my trigger. Thanks for your help on this! :)
 
alphawave7 said:
They keep bumping me off, so instead of futzing with size (last was 185k) I'm going to try the renaming to image.jpg, and see if that is my trigger. Thanks for your help on this! :)
Click to expand...
You need to make sure that your image size is below the limit of 150kb. As I understand it wunderground will not accept images above this. That's probably what I'm seeing in my logfile FTP: 226-Error during write to file 226-Transfer aborted. That's probably wunderground FTP server saying that my image is over the limit. Check your BI log-file for any ftp error messages like this.
 
toonwolf said:
You need to make sure that your image size is below the limit of 150kb. As I understand it wunderground will not accept images above this. That's probably what I'm seeing in my logfile FTP: 226-Error during write to file 226-Transfer aborted. That's probably wunderground FTP server saying that my image is over the limit. Check your BI log-file for any ftp error messages like this.
Click to expand...

I got bumped again. That's what's confusing...my ACTUAL image size on my harddrive is UNDER 150k...but when I upload to WU, nav to the image and re-download it, it suddenly has an extra 30-40k size in the download. YET dalepa's is averaging in the 180's pretty regular. Annoying to say the least.
 
You need to make sure that your image size never get's over the limit. I had to adjust my Quality all the way down to 55%. Keep in mind that the image size will vary depending on the time of day. Seems like the image size is bigger at night (I don't use IR). An easy way of finding the correct size is to temporarily post the file to a folder, then you can see for yourself the file size. Don't know about the extra size in the picture, but I have not experienced any problems like that myself. Are you using Passive transfer mode (default settings) in the FTP server settings?
 
toonwolf said:
You need to make sure that your image size never get's over the limit. I had to adjust my Quality all the way down to 55%. Keep in mind that the image size will vary depending on the time of day. Seems like the image size is bigger at night (I don't use IR). An easy way of finding the correct size is to temporarily post the file to a folder, then you can see for yourself the file size. Don't know about the extra size in the picture, but I have not experienced any problems like that myself. Are you using Passive transfer mode (default settings) in the FTP server settings?
Click to expand...

Affirm..passive. I'm all the way down to 35% already, and will dial it down further. Do your downloads from the WU site match yours from folder? Cheers!
 
Aha! Interesting new discovery...they will not post any image over 150k when it has finally passed and is Active, as suspected (regardless of what size it downloads from their site...another story) and it will only bump you off for that one errant post, successive uploads under 150k resume fine. I had a single image go to 151k and that is what made me 'inactive' but only for those few minutes. Another check later and I was back to 'Active'. I'm testing out the WU app on Android, and the map portion has my image showing when I'm Active, and is gone when I'm Inactive..as expected. Back to 40% and hopefully the occasional Inactive state for only an image or two. :)

edit: Nope...dead in the water again.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Current image is Active: my hard drive says image is 122k. Downloading image from their site shows 174k. Looks like I need to be around the 120's to meet thier 150k limit.
 
I can now confirm it's the same with my image(s) aswell. The filesize for the local posted file is 128 kB but when I download it from wunderground it's 161 kB. But don't you think the limit on 150 kB would be for the uploader, and whatever wunderground does with the image that makes it grow would be on their part? I mean my picture was 128 kB and it was accepted. Have you managed to upload pictures that was over 150 kB at all?
 
toonwolf said:
Have you managed to upload pictures that was over 150 kB at all?
Click to expand...

Yes..I get no error uploading a larger image...problem is the Cam goes 'No' on Active, and I don't show up in their directory nor on the WU Map in Android. It seems a few over-limit uploads continue, but eventually it stops updating entirely, which is why troubleshooting this has been so repetitive. :|
 
What would really fix this problem once and for all is if BI could add a new feature that can limit the file size in addition to the percentage. Should be easy to implement (I think) I'm going to send a feature request to them.
 
toonwolf said:
What would really fix this problem once and for all is if BI could add a new feature that can limit the file size in addition to the percentage. Should be easy to implement (I think) I'm going to send a feature request to them.
Click to expand...

Another thing I hadn't thought about...Tom Selleck looks AND a brain! You are amazing! :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom