Weather Report applet 1.26.1 not updating

[highflux7]

mateweather-app[2354]: Failed to get METAR data: 404 Not Found

Changing “location” makes no difference.

[ugnvs]

According to Heads up on URL Change · Issue #135 · mate-desktop/libmateweather · GitHub mate weather applet changes URL of its data source. And yes, directing browser to the old url shows page with not found status. Apparently, the applet needs to be updated somehow.

[tkn]

Mate 1.26.1 ??

That is the version of mate of Ubuntu-MATE 22.04 LTS and that was indeed a known problem. You will find a lot of info on this site about it if you do a search on "weather"

Best you can do is at least upgrade to 24.04

On my computers (running 24.04) the clock/weather-applet runs fine but I would like to know from other 24.04 users if they experience the same.

(the reason we have to wait for an update in these kind of cases is that the designers of the applet chose to sacrilegically hardcode the weather URL in the applet itself )

[highflux7]

I have upgraded 22.04 to 24.04 and have been running that for quite some time.

At this point, perhaps my best option is to switch to My-Weather-indicator applet.

[tkn]

@highflux7

I have upgraded 22.04 to 24.04

If that is the case then you should be on version 1.27.1 of the clock/weather applet, not on 1.26.1

@highflux7

At this point, perhaps my best option is to switch to My-Weather-indicator applet.

The best option at the moment is to find out why you are still on version 1.26.1 instead of 1.27.1 because there might be something wrong with your updates and that could be way more serious than a non-functioning weather applet.

[highflux7]

Can’t tell you man. Just upgraded 22.04 to 24.04 using apt. No idea why it’s still using 1.26.1 instead of 1.27.1. Am open to suggestions. Tkx.

——————–

CrapGPT says:
”The confusion arises from the fact that the MATE Weather Applet version 1.27.1 is available in the upstream MATE project releases. Specifically, version 1.27.1 was released on August 23, 2023. However, this version has not yet been included in the Ubuntu MATE 24.04 LTS repositories.

As a result, users upgrading to Ubuntu MATE 24.04 LTS will receive the version of the MATE Weather Applet that is available in the Ubuntu repositories at the time of the upgrade, which is 1.26.1.”

[tkn]

@highflux7

However, this version has not yet been included in the Ubuntu MATE 24.04 LTS repositories.

Strange, DuckDuckGoAI claims the same but it is blatantly false, so it is either misinformed or has an association disorder. See this:

is mate-panel 1.27.1 in the official ubuntu repository ?

The MATE Panel version 1.27.1 is not available in the official Ubuntu repositories. Instead, the version that is typically found in the repositories for Ubuntu MATE 24.04 LTS is 1.26.2.

However, version 1.27.1 is available in the Debian repositories, and it may be accessible through unofficial Personal Package Archives (PPAs) or by manually installing it from source.

If you need help with installation or finding a PPA for version 1.27.1, let me know!

Again, this is blatantly false, see this:

If I open a terminal and type

apt search mate-panel

I get the reply:

mate-panel/noble,now 1.27.1-2build3 amd64 [geïnstalleerd,automatisch]
  launcher and docking facility for MATE

So I really started being extremely specific and asked the same question over and over again like a bad cop, each time with a different official repository in the question and each time it lies about 1.27.1 being in an official repositories until:

Is mate-panel 1.27.1 in the noble-proposed repository ?

The MATE Panel version 1.27.1 is indeed available in the noble-proposed repository. It appears that this version has been included as part of the proposed updates for testing before being moved to the main repositories.

If you're interested in using this version, you can enable the noble-proposed repository in your system settings. However, keep in mind that packages in the proposed repository are still under testing and may not be as stable as those in the main repositories.

If you need guidance on how to enable the proposed repository or install this version, just let me know!

So you are indeed definitely up-to-date with your version.

And I made you worry for nothing, please accept my apologies

Also, since my clock/weather applet also gave up this morning, there is no reason to enable the proposed repository or install the 1.27.1 version.

The old thread about this failing clock/weather-applet is opened again because of all this. You can find it here:

I broke weather applet

There are major changes again to the Metar data source at aviationweather.gov. Not only URL changes, but changes to the parameters to the API, some have been dropped or become part of the URL. Data API The weather stopped working for me this morning, so I have removed my location so it no longer tries to call the API. I think it will be a long time before the clock applet will show the weather once more if ever. We can hope for Ubuntu Mate 26.04

@highflux7

At this point, perhaps my best option is to switch to My-Weather-indicator applet.

Yes, you're good to go.
Good luck !

[ClaudioDC]

@highflux7

CrapGPT says:
”The confusion arises from the fact that the MATE Weather Applet version 1.27.1 is available in the upstream MATE project releases. Specifically, version 1.27.1 was released on August 23, 2023. However, this version has not yet been included in the Ubuntu MATE 24.04 LTS repositories.

As a result, users upgrading to Ubuntu MATE 24.04 LTS will receive the version of the MATE Weather Applet that is available in the Ubuntu repositories at the time of the upgrade, which is 1.26.1.”

Hi everyone, new to the forum here.

Thank you @highflux7 for that. I’m on 24.04.3, fresh install from a couple weeks ago, weather applet v1.26.1 was working fine until yesterday.

Also thank you very much @tkn for all the input.

I guess I’ll have to learn to live without a weather applet, a good reason to actually stick my head out of the window and look up to the sky

[tkn]

Hi @ClaudioDC, welcome to the community !

I have some more news. I tested the My-Weather-indicator applet that @highflux7 proposed and it is awesome.

1. it works™
2. it integrates beautifully with the MATE panel and respects themes
   (in other words, it feels 'native')
3. it is much more advanced and through settings better controllable.
4. easy to install:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao &&
sudo apt update &&
sudo apt install my-weather-indicator

On the other hand, going outside to check the weather is indeed healthy from time to time

[ClaudioDC]

Thanks @tkn !

Ah, I remember atareao’s my-weather-indicator from back in the day, many years ago, then I lost track of it. Happy to see it’s still alive. I just installed it and works fine thanks @highflux7 for bringing my attention back to this wonderful little thing

[Norm24]

Another good weather app is kweather. It's only available as a Flatpak though.

[vkareh]

NOAA changed the AviationWeather API, where we fetch weather data from. They notified us about it and I've submitted a pull request to update it: metar: Update AviationWeather URL by vkareh · Pull Request #136 · mate-desktop/libmateweather · GitHub

[tkn]

A patch within 24-hours time is unbelievably fast !!
Will it be backported to UM 24.04 (mate 1.26) ?

[vkareh]

@tkn

Will it be backported to UM 24.04 (mate 1.26) ?

I created a pull request for 1.26, but it needs @Wimpy to actually make the release happen in UM once we merge/tag it.

[tkn]

Thanks to the instructions of @fabrizio.lombardozzi i could (with a minor change) compile the patched version successfully. His instructions were invaluable. :

sudo apt install mate-common libglib2.0-dev build-essential libgtk-3-dev libxml2-dev libxml2-dev libsoup2.4-dev libsoup3.0-dev libxml2-utils autopoint
wget https://github.com/mate-desktop/libmateweather/archive/refs/heads/master.zip
unzip master.zip
cd libmateweather-master/
./autogen.sh && ./configure --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu && make -j 4 && sudo make install

To load the new created version, kill clock-applet or logout and login again.