Since SysMetrix hasn't received an update is a couple of years this may well be the end of it.  It was a nice program.

lol...I tried Alice, TX and mine works too...man that ain't right...I'd rather none of them work, that just pisses me off...weird problem, why would that site work and non of the others.  This has become an obsession now...I am hooked, gotta find out whats going on here..lol

I emailed NOAA and sent the metardata.txt file as well as attached a text file with the parse error.  You're like me, I won't quit until it's fixed! 

Same trouble with sysmetrix here under XP SP3

Ya I thought of that, but it's not likely to happen, but worth a try.  I am hanging my hat on the URL option he programmed in, gonna research maybe an alternate site for the weather info.  He said for advanced  users see if I can get it to work that way.  Will keep you'll posted.

LMAO...I put in Oak Harbor and my weather display for weather age says 834 days old....lol...maybe someone needs to look out a window or some thing and update that thing...lol

Well guys it is diffinately a format change on the part of NOAA.  I dig up my old METAR reports here is the last four days, I went back about 20 reports. now my sysmetrix weather worked a few days ago and you can clearly see a difference in the reports with the inclusion a few days ago  of the CIG tag in the report and the inclusion of the runway info, which I think is what is giving the sysmetrix grief, because it doesn't know what to do with that new info.

KLRF 030155Z AUTO 06006KT 10SM CLR M03/M10 A3040 RMK AO2 CIG 140 RWY07 SLP299 T10301099

KLRF 030055Z AUTO 07007KT 10SM CLR M03/M09 A3040 RMK AO2 CIG 180 RWY07 SLP299 T10251093

KLRF 022355Z AUTO 07006KT 10SM BKN180 M02/M09 A3040 RMK AO2 CIG 160 RWY07 SLP299 T10181092 10016 21018 50001

KLRF 012255Z AUTO 06007KT 10SM FEW160 M01/M09 A3040 RMK AO2 SLP300 T10111093

You can goto the NOAA site and check out the FAQ, there is alo going to be a new HTTP site to get this info, the HTTP that sysmetrix uses as a default is going away soon.  Which would not be a big deal since we can change the URL but we can't change how sysmetrix reads the data...which SUCKS.

The reports we use are the observation reports, not the full reports, as you can see they were never part of the reports we got at the old http site, I went back a good ways looking at old reports, didn't see any rwy stuff, which is probably why sysmetrix doesn't work now.  The new report system is called ADDS from what I can see.

ADDS isn't a report format, it's a digital web service for pilots: http://adds.aviationweather.gov/metars/.  The METAR teletype (yes teletype) format has remained the same since the FAA switched to mostly international standards (see section 3 for code explanations): Aviation Weather Services.  I'm not aware of any txt file issuance that was ever without the RMK block (and it would be irresponsible to disseminate it to pilots without the remarks block since it carries local thunderstorm activity and runway visibility amongst others).  There may have been an aggregator distribution that stripped the RMK section, but as I said I'm not aware.

Still no reply from N. Decker through the email link on the SysMetrix home page.  I seriously doubt we will hear anything.  As with all good things, they were good while they lasted.  I enjoyed the ability to skin the widget instead of a single weather module taking up valuable real estate on the desktop.

Actually when the METAR text file is opened there is clearly a permissions clause from Winstep.  But the pointer to the METAR data comes from within the SysMetrix executable pointing to the PERL script on NOAA's web site,  Unfortunately not from within the metar data text file.    The line can be changed but I'm not sure if it can be saved.

os1smith: Ok keep us posted.

Thanks,

Citizen Machinehd

I apologize for not helping you.  I thought the link would be helpful in sussing things out.

OK here is where the advanced guys will come in handy.  Someone needs to write a new script.  I got to wondering WHERE was sysmetrix doing all this parsing stuff and where was it maintaining the info.  Because there were no files being changed in the directory, except the ini file, and the wether info wasn't in there..then bingo ..THE REGISTRY...sure enough, sysmetrix does everything in there, that is where he put the script too. 

HKEY_USERS>Software>VB and VB Program settings>Sysmetrix>Program configurations

or you can find it like I did, put my METAR code (KLRF) in (you'll need to put yours in) and did a find under edit in the registry. Had to hit it a few times to get there, mostly just poking around.   Under the group METARStringBuffer he put the script to grab the info from the website.  Thinking if someone makes a new script, we can cut and paste that sucker in there...lol...Might work.