MMM-EnvCanada stopped working ...

[crazylegs]

I’m the original author of the envcanada Provider for the default Weather module. Environment Canada has made a significant change to their API and, for some reason, I never saw the notification they sent out a few months ago (I was supposedly on their mailing list). I’ve only taken a very brief look at their changes, so take my assessment with a small grain of salt:

The change has made it impractical to continue fetching an XML document for whatever location has been configured for weather info. They are, instead, pushing clients to a completely different API that is much more complex to use. The API is basically a pub/sub scheme that is based on the AMPQ protocol. How it all works and whether it will play nice within the MagicMirror ecosystem is still very much TBD.

Based on what I see, the envcanada Provider and MMM-EnvCanada will pretty much require total rewrites. I can continue poking at this but to be fully transparent, it will be a couple of months before I can give this any significant focused effort.

[sunsetrider]

@crazylegs

Here is my solution to the envCanada issue:

• used: openweathermap
• needed to get": apiKey (from openweathermap)
• needed to get locationID, name, location (from openweathermap)
• used apiVersion: 2.5 (did not try more recent versions - default version not working)

following is my config file info (used similar version for weather forecast as well)-

 module: "weather",
			position: "top_right",
			header: "Current Weather: ",
			config: {
				weatherProvider: "openweathermap",
				apiVersion: 2.5,
		//		weatherEndpoint: "",
				type: "current",
					locationID: 3924642,
					name: "Mississauga",
					location: "Mississauga ON",
					state: "",
					country: "CA",
					coloured: "true",  // not working with this apiVersion
		//			coord:
		//			lon: -79.658302,
		//			lat: 43.578899,
		//		location: "New York",
		//		locationID: "5128581", //ID from http://bulk.openweathermap.org/sample/city.list.json.gz; unzip the gz file and find your city
				apiKey: "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

Hope this helps somebody.

[Dr8ke]

@sunsetrider TT
Thanks so much! This really helped me get the weather module backup up and running.

[sdetweil]

@sunsetrider just remember that OW has said they will terminate the 2.5 api

June/August/October 2024 (last year) … so remember this config when it fails…
we changed the default config to the new 3.0 api per their annoncements

[charlesf]

@crazylegs I have posted an update on GitHub that works with the new Environment Canada URL convention. I fetch the directory list and look for the most recent forecast xml file for the selected site code and then open the filename found, so I didn’t have to completely rewrite the module. I had issues with my http request to get the directory list that don’t occur when retrieving the xml files – no idea why, but my knowledge of JavaScript is very limited. I found a solution and the module now works.

I agree it looks like we are being pushed to the other API, so it is hard to know how long this approach of fetching an xml document will continue to work. But it works for now.

Comments welcome.

[jakabasej4]

This post is deleted!

[charlesf]

@jakabasej4 hmm … I don’t use it, but the author of the provider for the default module support tor Environment Canada posted in this thread that it is also broken. In any case, I have issued an update on GitHub for my MMM-EnvCanada module which supports the new Environment Canada url scheme. Two other users of the module have confirmed it works, so I gave closed the issue.

[sunsetrider]

@sdIetweil
Hello:
Thanks for your info.

I changed my config file to access apiVersion: 3.0

It does not work for me.

I did not change any other config values in the weather module calls (current and forecast).

Seems someone has updated the envCanada module. I will give it a shot later.

Thanks
MM

[sdetweil]

@sunsetrider right. just changing apiVersion back to 3.0 isn’t all that is required…
the endpoints changed, and you now need lat and lon,
and the header location has to be added manually…

api 3.0 requires a credit card , and provides 1000 uncharged api request per day.

[crazylegs]

@charlesf I took a quick look at your solution and happy to hear that it works! I agree that being able to preserve all the XML parsing is definitely the way to go. To be honest, I was assuming that your approach (parsing the correct file out of the directory listing) was going to be a massive PITA, but I think you did a very nice job! Congrats!

And if you don’t mind, I hope to lean on your solution to make updates to the envCanada provider code when I get a chance :)

To anyone using the envCanada provider in the default Weather module: I’m the original author of the envCanada provider. I have been traveling and unable to make corrections to the code, but I do hope to get it all working sometime in August (the earlier the better).

[charlesf]

@crazylegs Thanks. And by all means use as you see fit. I borrowed heavily from your code when I wrote my module 2 years ago.

Perhaps you can educate me: when I fetch the xml file the async process seems to wait till it is done and then the data is available. But if I use the same steps to fetch the directory list, the calling function receives a pending promise. That’s why I implemented the fetching of the xml file within what is effectively a call back - it didn’t work otherwise, but I can’t see what is different between the two cases. But as I said earlier, I don’t know much about this environment - I am am old assembler/C/C++/C# coder from the mists of time.

[sdetweil]

@charlesf is the function for the directory list marked async?? if so, then you could await it

[charlesf]

@sdetweil yes, and that is how I started, but it didn’t work.