Weather Skins Not Working

[Yincognito]

Today, NONE of the weather skins are working anymore!

Is this indication of yet ANOTHER change in the way the skins have to work?

Or is this just a glitch in the weather info provider?

Well, mine does, due to the way it is built.

Yes, there is a change, but not in the way Rainmeter weather skins work, but in the 'authenthication' used by weather.com to "validate" and provide weather info, something that most skins use these days. In other words, the "default" API key used by weather.com to display the Weather.com JSON data has changed. So, to make it work, you either:
- switch to a skin that is capable to get the data from the weather.com's page source (and not just the weather.com's JSON file - my weather skin can toggle between these two methods through a simple variable modification, for example)
- take a look at weather.com's page source to find out the key it uses to display its "normal" webpage (the webpage you see when visiting the site; the info used by that page comes from the JSON data as well, but the latter needs an access key as you probably know already)

[MikeG621]

Good, wasn't just me.

[wawood8]

@yincognito

Thanks for the info -- but those changes are beyond my skill level.

I forgot to mention that I use the VClouds weather skin and SilveAzide's Weather skin -- and both of them are failing now.

Guess I will wait until their respective developers update their skins -- as they usually do when stuff like this happens.

[jsmorley]

@yincognito

Thanks for the info -- but those changes are beyond my skill level.

I forgot to mention that I use the VClouds weather skin and SilveAzide's Weather skin -- and both of them are failing now.

Guess I will wait until their respective developers update their skins -- as they usually do when stuff like this happens.

I think you will find that if you change the API Key to 21d8a80b3d6b444998a80b3d6b1449d3, it will begin to work again.

[balala]

I think you will find that if you change the API Key to 21d8a80b3d6b444998a80b3d6b1449d3, it will begin to work again.

Good catch. You were right, the skin has started to work again when applied the new key.
Thanks for it.

[Yincognito]

@yincognito

Thanks for the info -- but those changes are beyond my skill level.

I forgot to mention that I use the VClouds weather skin and SilveAzide's Weather skin -- and both of them are failing now.

Guess I will wait until their respective developers update their skins -- as they usually do when stuff like this happens.

The speed of replies was higher than the speed of my email alerts, LOL. But yeah, jsmorley is correct, the new key is the one he mentioned. There is also an older key that works as well (but that is not the key used to display the normal webpage to users, not that it would make a difference).

For future instances where this would be an issue (if, say, weather.com is changing its default key once every year or once every couple of years), assuming the structure of the weather.com's webpage stays the same, you'd want to CTRL+F (i.e. Find) the "V3" API Key in the page source. When looking for "Key" in the current webpage source, it is the 5th occurrence, so nothing beyond anyone's level.

[eclectic-tech]

Waether not working...

JSMorley: "If you change the API Key to 21d8a80b3d6b444998a80b3d6b1449d3, it will begin to work again."

[Yincognito]

JSMorley: "If you change the API Key to 21d8a80b3d6b444998a80b3d6b1449d3, it will begin to work again."

Yincognito: "take a look at weather.com's page source to find out the key it uses to display its 'normal' webpage"

[wawood8]

I think you will find that if you change the API Key to 21d8a80b3d6b444998a80b3d6b1449d3, it will begin to work again.

I found the APIkey variable in the WeatherComJSONVariables.inc files in the various skins, changed the key there to the one you provided, refreshed the skins -- and they work, now.

Thanks much for this info.

[Nekayah]

I found the APIkey variable in the WeatherComJSONVariables.inc files in the various skins, changed the key there to the one you provided, refreshed the skins -- and they work, now.

I was looking for the way to change the API key and feeling like an idiot! Thanks for this, that fixed it. Feeling like a pro now. Pro... at reading the forums.