Very poor communication to developers of upload software
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Hi,
as the developer of the Meteobridge SW which quite a few user use to upload data of their PWS to windy, I am largely disappointed that you do not inform me before doing changes in the upload format. The current issue I was pointed to by my customers is that station IDs are now given as alphanumerics, while it was only numerics before. Looks like a small change, but Meteobridge allowed to use numerics only according to previous specs. As a result I got bug reports and frustrated customers.Is it too much to ask to be informed on changes that impact data upload before you implement those? I see this as rather unprofessional and I am not interested to support unreliable services that impact quality and user experience of my product.
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Hello @docbee, we are sorry about your situation. However, we had to update our station service as the whole product, since the old solution was not ideal in the long term.
To offer the easiest way to the newer version of our station API, we keep the functionality of the old version until the end of 2026, so you still have the time to comfortably update to the new solution. Only new stations need to use the API v.2, since there is no logic to start now with the old system.
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Hello, how can i send to Windy with my MeteoBridge?
I create the windy station and i see it OFFLINE but on my MB i put the correct ID STATION and PWD...
I'm still receiving an error about wrong authentication data or other errors...
Who needs to update? -
@Suty said in Very poor communication to developers of upload software:
Hello @docbee, we are sorry about your situation. However, we had to update our station service as the whole product, since the old solution was not ideal in the long term.
To offer the easiest way to the newer version of our station API, we keep the functionality of the old version until the end of 2026, so you still have the time to comfortably update to the new solution. Only new stations need to use the API v.2, since there is no logic to start now with the old system.
???
Can you help me with Meteobridge? -
@Suty where do I find the new upload API definition? Do old uploads that just have the key and the station id defaulted to "0" still work or do they need new credentials?
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@Suty looks like I found a rather confusing api upload definition here: https://stations.windy.com/api-reference. Is that the one to use? Why aren't there any examples and what is all this duplicate station id thing good for?
Can you please explain why the upload below does returns a 403 error (which is btw not defined in your API doc) without any useful information what exactly is the problem?
{"message":"Forbidden resource","error":"Forbidden","statusCode":403}
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@docbee Hello, yes, all necessary information about the new version of stations API can be found on stations.windy.com/api-reference
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@Suty yes, this is what I found myself (as stated in my previous post).
I received an ID and a PASSWORD for a specific station by calling "https://stations.windy.com/api/v2/pws". When I use these credentials via "https://stations.windy.com/api/v2/observation/update?station=....&password=..." I get this error:
{"message":"Provide a valid password via the PASSWORD query parameter or a Bearer token.","error":"Unauthorized","statusCode":401}
Why? The credentials are what windy told me for that specific station.
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@docbee said in Very poor communication to developers of upload software:
Hi,
as the developer of the Meteobridge SW which quite a few user use to upload data of their PWS to windy, I am largely disappointed that you do not inform me before doing changes in the upload format. The current issue I was pointed to by my customers is that station IDs are now given as alphanumerics, while it was only numerics before. Looks like a small change, but Meteobridge allowed to use numerics only according to previous specs. As a result I got bug reports and frustrated customers.Is it too much to ask to be informed on changes that impact data upload before you implement those? I see this as rather unprofessional and I am not interested to support unreliable services that impact quality and user experience of my product.
I can totally relate to this, and I’m actually dealing with something similar on my end. I also have the same question about why changes like this aren’t communicated in advance, especially when they directly impact integrations. Even a small shift like moving from numeric to alphanumeric IDs can break assumptions in existing systems, and it ends up causing unnecessary issues for both developers and users.
It’s particularly frustrating when you’re the one fielding bug reports from customers without having any prior notice of the change. I’m also wondering if there’s any official channel or update feed where these kinds of changes are announced ahead of time, because relying on users to discover breaking changes isn’t really sustainable. Would definitely appreciate more transparency and coordination here.
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I just released a new Meteobridge version that hopefully supports legacy API and the new V2. The lack of support from Windy is rather outstanding compared to other weather networks. There was not any helpful information in this thread given from @Suty, who seems to have the task just to simulate customer or developer support.
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Just to leave some hints for others dealing with the changing upload API.
Current windy account provide 3 credentials:
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the API KEY that is used in the legacy API to identify your account. It is just this, no password is needed here. The second parameter is the STATION ID, which is a pure numerical that allows you to enumerate multiple stations if you have that. Default is "0" for the regular case where just one station is registered.
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The PASSWORD which is given to make use of the new V2 API. In addition to the password you are also provided a STATION ID which is not just an enumeration of your own stations, but a unique ID to identify your station within all stations on the network. This is no longer pure decimal but alphanumeric (or hex? I don't know and they don't tell).
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As mentioned before STATION ID is different, when using legacy API or V2 API. This will give a lot of confusion for users, when they have to change from old to new upload API.
You can derive the V2 credentials from Windy when calling this URL with your legacy API KEY:
https://stations.windy.com/api/v2/pws?key=***your_legacy_api_key***&station=0
The returning JSON text shows new Station ID and PASSWORD
Caveat on handling the return information on uploads:
Error and/or success reporting is unclear as before. On some conditions it returns nothing, sometimes lengthy JSON stuff with "success":"true" somewhere in it, sometimes error messages introduced by "message", confusion all over the place and of course no documentation. I understand that it is hard to document things that don't have a proper design apart from "you get something in JSON", sometimes... -
