Problem:

Animations do not animate. When the 'Animate' link is clicked, the image remains motionless.

Discussion:

WeatherTAP uses animated .GIF files to provide animations for radar and satellite images. This format is supported by virtually all browsers on all platforms. Some third-party ad-blocking software such as ZoneAlarm and others often block the browser's ability to display animated GIF files. By far, this is the most common cause of animations not working.

Solution:

Turning off the third party software's animation-blocking feature will correct this issue. Most third party software will even allow the user to exclude only specified sites from the animation-blocking feature. As there are no ads on WeatherTAP at all, we recommend that you add weathertap.com to the list of excluded sites.

Problem:

The image displayed on the screen is not current, sometimes days or weeks old.

Solution:

There are several possible reasons that images may appear to not be updating. The most common reason is that an old image is being displayed from the browser's cache rather than a new image being retrieved from the servers. This can be easily remedied by pressing the browser's RELOAD or REFRESH button. Some browsers can be coaxed into loading a new image by holding down the CTRL or SHIFT keys (on the keyboard) when pressing the RELOAD or REFRESH button (within the browser window).

Another common cause of aging images is simply loss of data from a radar site. The WSR-88D radar system is very reliable, however, it IS an electromechanical device and it does sometimes require repair and/or maintenance. Indeed, at any given time it is not uncommon for 3 to 7% of the radar sites to be down for maintenance or repair. When a site is taken down it usually sends a Free Text Message (FTM) report to detail the problem. If a local radar image appears to not be updating, check the FTM message to see if there is an issue at the site. This can be done by clicking the "Free Text Message" link at the bottom of every local radar page. Also, the NEXRAD site status page summarizes the current status of all of the NEXRAD sites.

Finally, loss of a datastream or equipment failure may cause images not to be properly updated. WeatherTAP takes great pains to ensure maximum reliability and redundancy, however, unplanned loss of one or more images does ocasionally occur. If you notice an image that is not updating according to its normal schedule, then please email webmaster@weathertap.com and report the issue.

Problem:

When invoking RadarLab for a particular local radar site, no radar is displayed. Instead, only a gray box is displayed.

Discussion:

RadarLab is a powerful feature of WeatherTAP that allows local radar and other types of data to be displayed simulatenously on a single map. Features are included to zoom, pan, customize color scales, filter data, etc. RadarLab is implemented as a Java applet. Java is a very common (and free) runtime environment produced by Sun Microsystem Inc. Java enables sophisticated applications (called applets) to be executed within a browser window. Since Java is produced by Sun, rather than Microsoft, it is often not installed by default on most platforms. If Java is not properly installed, or if the installation is defective, then RadarLab will not run. Instead, only a gray box will be displayed.

Solution:

Java may or may not already be installed on your computer. If you are getting a gray window with no radar display when you invoke RadarLab, then it is likely that Java has not been properly installed on your computer, or that the existing installation is corrupted. Fortunately, Java is a free product which can easily be downloaded and installed on your computer.

To install Java, click the following button and follow the instructions

It may be necessary to restart your browser after Java is installed.

Problem:

When a local radar image is selected the image is not displayed, or if the image is displayed it appears to be several hours old.

Discussion:

First, ensure that you are viewing the most current image by holding down the CTRL key while pressing the browser's RELOAD or REFRESH button. See "Radar, Satellite, or Other image is not current" for more information. If this does not resolve the issue, continue on.

The WSR-88D radar facilities are very reliable and function under all types of adverse weather conditions. However, being at least partially mechanical in nature, the radar equipment is subject to wear and malfunction. Data outage due to maintenance and repair is quite common. The duration of these outages may be on the order of minutes, hours, or sometimes even days if parts have to be ordered for the radar units.

Solution:

When a site is down due to maintenance or repair, a Free Text Message (FTM) is usually (although not always) issued to communicate the nature and expected length of the outage. WeatherTAP provides access to the text of the FTM's related to a particular site via a link at the bottom of each local radar page. The link is labeled "Free Text Message" and is located immediately to the right of the "Advanced Products" label.

Alternatively, the status of all available NEXRAD sites is available on the NEXRAD Site Status Page. Clicking on one of the colored blocks will display any FTM's issued for the corresponding radar site. A link to the NEXRAD Site Status Page is available in the Radar dropdown menu.

Problem:

A log-in prompt is displayed but when the username and password are entered, a "Username/Password were not accepted" page is displayed.

Solution:

By far the most common cause of this issue is simply that an incorrect username and password were entered. Try re-entering the username/password combination. Make sure that the Caps Lock key is not activated and pay attention to capitalization. The log-in is case sensitive so "WeatherMan" is different than "WeatherMAN".

If your username/password were still not accepted, you can attempt a username/password lookup by choosing that option from the "Service" drop-down menu. This feature will cause your username/password to be emailed to the email address associated with your account. Note that many ISPs implement spam filters which may prevent the message from being properly delivered, or deposit the message in a special "Spam" mailbox. Also, keep in mind that the email address on the account record must be correct. The lookup is case sensitive so the upper and lower case characters must match what is in your account record.

If you are still unable to log in, your account may have expired. Please call the customer support staff at 1-800-337-5263. They will be able lookup your account information and provide the correct username/password, or assist you with renewing your subscription if it has expired.

Problem:

When clicking on a link which requires a logiin, the logiin prompt is not displayed. Instead, the "Your Username/Password Were Not Accepted" page immediately pops up.

Discussion:

WeatherTAP uses HTTP Authentication as the mechanism by which uses provide username/password credentials. Some browsers have a feature that will "remember" usernames and passwords for the sites that you visit and will automatically present them to the site at every visit. This feature is useful because it allows the user to bypass the log-in box and proceed directly into a password protected site. Unfortunately it is sometimes possible for browsers to remember an incorrect  username and/or password. If this occurs and the user attempts to access a password-protected portion of the site, then the auto-login feauture (of the browser) will automatically provide the invalid username/password credentials to the website without prompting the user. The site responds with the "Username/Password Were Not Accepted" page because the information it was given was invalid.

Solution:

This problem is most commonly encountered with versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE). To correct the problem select "Tools->Internet Options->Security->Custom Level". Scroll to the bottom of the page and located the "User Authentication", "Logon" option. Set the option to "Automatic logon only in Intranet Zone". Exit the browser, reboot the computer, then try accessing WeatherTAP again. You should now receive a log-in dialog when accessing password-protected content.

The issue is rarely encountered using Mozilla-based browsers such as Firefox. However, if the problem does occur then old log-in credentials can be removed by selecting Tools->Options->Passwords->View Saved Passwords. Locate any passwords associated with weathertap.com, highlight them, then click the "Remove" button.

Problem:

After logging in, clicking on an image or another link brings up another log-in prompt.

Discussion:

The HTTP Authentication mechanism is implemented primarily by the browser. Once a successful authentication is made, the browser remembers the username and associates it with the website's URL. For this purpose "weathertap.com" is not the same as "www.weathertap.com". If the site is initially accessed as "weathertap.com" rather than "www.weathertap.com", then two login prompts will likely be generated as internal links point to "www.weathertap.com".

Solution:

If you are initially accessing WeatherTAP through a bookmark, try re-bookmarking the site, ensuring that the bookmark points to http://www.weathertap.com instead of simply "http://weathertap.com". If you initially access WeatherTAP by typing its address into your browser's address bar, then use "www.weathertap.com" instead of simply "weathertap.com". This should resolve the issue.

Problem:

Having issues with logging in or displaying graphics from a PDA, cell phone, or other portable device.

Discussion:

WeatherTAP uses standard HTTP protocols to transport standard HTML files and graphics in GIF and JPG format. WeatherTAP provides a special PDA page (at http://www.weathertap.com/pda) that contains more PDA-friendly menus and simplified HTML. Although these pages are meant to be more friendly toward PDA's, they are certainly viewable from a standard desktop computer as well.

PDAs that fully support HTTP authentication and GIF/JPG/PNG graphics should have no trouble using most features of WeatherTAP. Experience has shown, however, that many PDA browsers are buggy and do not fully support web standards. PDA browsers seem especially inconsistent when used with password protected sites. Since most sites on the internet are completely open and do not rely on HTTP authentication, PDA browser developers simply devote less time testing the authentication features of their browsers. Furthermore, features meant to make web surfing more practical on portable devices, such as aggressive caching schemes, also tend to cause problems on sites with very frequently updated content such as WeatherTAP.

All browsers, even on desktop computers, contain bugs. In many cases, we can identify bugs in a particular desktop browser, then devise a work-around to accommodate the bug. This approach is viable on desktop machines because there is generally good adherence to standards and a relatively small number of browsers. For PDAs, however, this approach is not viable. It simply isn't possible for us to identify every browser inconsistency in every PDA device, and to produce a workaround to accommodate it. There are simply too many devices and too much variation in the implementations.

For the reasons outlines above, we can make no guarantee as to whether WeatherTAP will work on any particular PDA device. For development purposes we have chosen Blackberry devices as our reference device. They seem to be the most popular platform in use by the majority of our PDA users. We have tested other devices as well with good results. Reports from users also indicate great success across many different PDA platforms. Although we can't guarantee it will work with any platform, experience has shown that it works well with most PDA platforms. To make sure that it works on your PDA, we encourage PDA users to request a trial subscription and to test the functions on their particular device before actually subscribing to WeatherTAP.

Also due to the great number of devices on the market and in common use, we are unable to offer support on any given PDA model. If you are having problems accessing WeatherTAP via your PDA, we recommend that you try accessing the same data through your desktop computer. If you can get to the data from your desktop but not your PDA,this indicates there is a browser inconsistency within the PDA. We recommend that you contact the PDA manufacturer and point out the fact that it works on the desktop but not on the PDA, and inquire as to the source of the problem. It's possible that they can offer a firmware or software upgrade to correct the issue.