Acurite 899 Rain Gauge Fails

[K2AAE]

Just tried testing a new Acurite 0899 Rain Gauage, fails with: Acurite 5n1 sensor 0X0426 Ch C, Status 0, Unknown message type 0x30 This message repeats three times.

I can add -R 10 and only run 0896 which still detects nothing. I ran every Acurite device and only 40 responds, my 5n1 and a 'tower' device with the 0899 rain gauge above message mixed in.

[iandees]

I get data from my other sensors. It's all repeated three times, but it does come through correctly.

# rtl_433 -F json
rtl_433 version unknown inputs file rtl_tcp RTL-SDR
Use -h for usage help and see https://triq.org/ for documentation.
Trying conf file at "rtl_433.conf"...
Trying conf file at "/root/.config/rtl_433/rtl_433.conf"...
Trying conf file at "/usr/local/etc/rtl_433/rtl_433.conf"...
Trying conf file at "/etc/rtl_433/rtl_433.conf"...

    Consider using "-M newmodel" to transition to new model keys. This will become the default someday.
    A table of changes and discussion is at https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433/pull/986.

Registered 106 out of 136 device decoding protocols [ 1-4 8 11-12 15-17 19-21 23 25-26 29-36 38-60 63 67-71 73-100 102-103 108-116 119 121 124-128 131-136 ]
Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
Exact sample rate is: 250000.000414 Hz
[R82XX] PLL not locked!
Sample rate set to 250000 S/s.
Tuner gain set to Auto.
Tuned to 433.920MHz.
Allocating 15 zero-copy buffers
Failed to allocate zero-copy buffer for transfer 0
Falling back to buffers in userspace
{"time" : "2019-09-20 21:02:19", "model" : "Acurite tower sensor", "id" : 13142, "sensor_id" : 13142, "channel" : "B", "temperature_C" : 24.800, "humidity" : 46, "battery_low" : 1}
{"time" : "2019-09-20 21:02:19", "model" : "Acurite tower sensor", "id" : 13142, "sensor_id" : 13142, "channel" : "B", "temperature_C" : 24.800, "humidity" : 46, "battery_low" : 1}
{"time" : "2019-09-20 21:02:19", "model" : "Acurite tower sensor", "id" : 13142, "sensor_id" : 13142, "channel" : "B", "temperature_C" : 24.800, "humidity" : 46, "battery_low" : 1}
{"time" : "2019-09-20 21:02:25", "model" : "Acurite tower sensor", "id" : 2935, "sensor_id" : 2935, "channel" : "A", "temperature_C" : 20.600, "humidity" : 63, "battery_low" : 0}
{"time" : "2019-09-20 21:02:25", "model" : "Acurite tower sensor", "id" : 2935, "sensor_id" : 2935, "channel" : "A", "temperature_C" : 20.600, "humidity" : 63, "battery_low" : 0}
{"time" : "2019-09-20 21:02:25", "model" : "Acurite tower sensor", "id" : 2935, "sensor_id" : 2935, "channel" : "A", "temperature_C" : 20.600, "humidity" : 63, "battery_low" : 0}
{"time" : "2019-09-20 21:02:26", "model" : "Acurite tower sensor", "id" : 12824, "sensor_id" : 12824, "channel" : "A", "temperature_C" : 31.300, "humidity" : 58, "battery_low" : 0}
{"time" : "2019-09-20 21:02:26", "model" : "Acurite tower sensor", "id" : 12824, "sensor_id" : 12824, "channel" : "A", "temperature_C" : 31.300, "humidity" : 58, "battery_low" : 0}
{"time" : "2019-09-20 21:02:26", "model" : "Acurite tower sensor", "id" : 12824, "sensor_id" : 12824, "channel" : "A", "temperature_C" : 31.300, "humidity" : 58, "battery_low" : 0}

When running it with data from tests it seems to work (although maybe duplicating output?)

$ rtl_433 acurite/Acurite_986/Acurite_TX_51.cu8
rtl_433 version 19.08 branch  at 201908291429 inputs file rtl_tcp RTL-SDR
Use -h for usage help and see https://triq.org/ for documentation.
Trying conf file at "rtl_433.conf"...
Trying conf file at "/root/.config/rtl_433/rtl_433.conf"...
Trying conf file at "/usr/local/etc/rtl_433/rtl_433.conf"...
Trying conf file at "/etc/rtl_433/rtl_433.conf"...

    Consider using "-M newmodel" to transition to new model keys. This will become the default someday.
    A table of changes and discussion is at https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433/pull/986.

Registered 106 out of 136 device decoding protocols [ 1-4 8 11-12 15-17 19-21 23 25-26 29-36 38-60 63 67-71 73-100 102-103 108-116 119 121 124-128 131-136 ]
Test mode active. Reading samples from file: acurite/Acurite_986/Acurite_TX_51.cu8
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
time      : @0.123836s
model     : Acurite 986 Sensor                     id        : 17021
channel   : 1R           temperature: 51.000000 F  battery   : OK            status    : 0
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
time      : @0.123836s
model     : Acurite 986 Sensor                     id        : 17021
channel   : 1R           temperature: 51.000000 F  battery   : OK            status    : 0

[zuckschwerdt]

Can you confirm it's really that decoder returning the bad data? rtl_433 -R 40 filename.cu8

[iandees]

Yep, looks like it is:

# rtl_433 -R 40 /tmp/parenttmp/g001_433.92M_250k.cu8
rtl_433 version 19.08 branch  at 201908291429 inputs file rtl_tcp RTL-SDR
Use -h for usage help and see https://triq.org/ for documentation.
Trying conf file at "rtl_433.conf"...
Trying conf file at "/root/.config/rtl_433/rtl_433.conf"...
Trying conf file at "/usr/local/etc/rtl_433/rtl_433.conf"...
Trying conf file at "/etc/rtl_433/rtl_433.conf"...

    Consider using "-M newmodel" to transition to new model keys. This will become the default someday.
    A table of changes and discussion is at https://github.com/merbanan/rtl_433/pull/986.

Registered 1 out of 136 device decoding protocols [ 40 ]
Test mode active. Reading samples from file: /tmp/parenttmp/g001_433.92M_250k.cu8
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
time      : @0.317064s
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
time      : @0.317064s
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
time      : @0.317064s

[zuckschwerdt]

Perhaps sprinkle the code with printf's to see where the data goes missing. Put e.g. printf("%s : %d = %p\n", __func__, __LINE__, data); in acurite.c after // Rain Fall Gauge 899, before data_make and decoder_output_data.

[iandees]

Found a fix to get data out of data_make() and filed a PR for it.

[zuckschwerdt]

Oh no, I'm so sorry. I have an uncommited change …raincounter * 0.2 there. That's why it was working for me. Thanks for seeing this through and fixing it!

[iandees]

No problem! Thanks for the debug pointers. Seems to be working.

[merbanan]

@zuckschwerdt can this be closed?

[makeitworktech]

I see this is closed, but why isn't the 899 listed in supported devices?

[zuckschwerdt]

"899 Rain" is now added to the list with 5c17e4e.