Inland River Danube charts missing

[blueagle91]

Im frustrated by this software and im starting to think maybe its best to buy proper software.

Im having problems with charts from Bulgaria, they wont show at all, Austria wont show at all. Parts of Romania wont show. I have 2 PC`s on one i have 4.6 on another i have 4.8 version same exact problem.

I can open charts using 7C viewer no problem. They are IENC 2.3.

I thought OpenCPN is a good software that shows charts provided by national agencies, but it seems that is not the case. Anyone had similiar problem?

[cagney]

blueagle91

You don't say how you acquired your charts.

I just tested to download Bulgarian and Austrian charts by way of the built in "Chart Downloader".
I had no problems with the Austrian Charts.

The Bulgarian chart however did not download correctly. I had the following opencpn.log message:

20:32:13 EST: Error: chartdldr_pi: Unable to extract: /home/thomas/Charts/ENC/BG_INLAND/IENC_2.1_km375-km610_27.02.2017.zip

The ".zip" file is not a zip file It's a html file, indicating that the Bulgarians probably have changed the download page and/or address. I have not investigated further.

Can you please attach your opencpn.log file so that it can be analyzed.

Thanks for posting your problems!

Thomas

[bcn]

Blueagle91...

seems that the download direction has changed.
The actual link you will find here:
Electronic Navigation Charts (ENC)
and it is

javascript:__doPostBack('C002$btnDownloadENC','')

We had problems to download with the combination macOS/Safari but did succeed with Firefox.

See attached screenshots

We have sent a mail to the administrators of the site in order to request advice.

Hubert

[bcn]

And we have already a response from the Bulgarian authorities - very efficient:

Hi,

I just talked with our web administrator and currently we could not provide direct download link for our charts from our web page. But all of Danube river administrations are working with Danube FIS portal, and they are providing direct download link for our latest IENCs.

http://www.danubeportal.com/document...bg-enc-150.zip

Inside the .zip file there is a folder with the date of publication and our .000 files. We are updating our web page, our National RIS portal (�ачало) and the Danube FIS portal whenever we publish a new version (once or twice a month with all critical locations and marking updated).

We are still working on our download section for our new web page and soon we will have a direct link, but I could now say when it will be ready.

If you need anything else please feel free to write or even call me.


best regards,
.......

[CarCode]

As seen with this example it is not sufficient to code a plugin with fixed static URLs without someone responsible who cares about updates. The same problem is for the weatherfax plugin.
But it is needed also an update mechanismen for such plugins to keep the users up to date. I guess it exists for Linux systems (ppa ?) but not for Windows and macOS. These are available also such as e.g. Sparkle.
There are some people here posting more than 10 postings a day. Perhaps given them such a job will be an idea?

Gerhard

[rgleason]

Maybe you should go ahead with your plan. This is open source software, created and supported by volunteer programmers and users. What "proper" is is inherently subjective and pejorative.

FYI the charts you grumble about are dependent on several things:
1.Maintenancr of the url by the govertmental agency.
2. Not disontinuing or changing the link, the type of url, compression, format etc.
3. Chartdownloader successfully downloading and expanding the files.

Perhapsif you were to detail the specfic links/urls you are having trouble with, someone will find out what has happened.

Another alternative is to purchase oesenc charts to work with opencpn and to donate what you would have spent for new software, by hitting the donate button under the ?.
The oesenc charts are quite reasonable in cost.

[rgleason]

It may be that opencpn is not compatible with those charts.
It might be fixable and it might not.

Are the charts listed under the chart list, probably not.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by CarCode

As seen with this example it is not sufficient to code a plugin with fixed static URLs without someone responsible who cares about updates. The same problem is for the weatherfax plugin.
But it is needed also an update mechanismen for such plugins to keep the users up to date. I guess it exists for Linux systems (ppa ?) but not for Windows and macOS. These are available also such as e.g. Sparkle.
There are some people here posting more than 10 postings a day. Perhaps given them such a job will be an idea?

Gerhard

If you looked at the code you would see that the chart file URL locations are not hard coded in the plugin at all. The location of chart files is in a small local database which the user is free to modify using a dialog in the plugin. Also, there is a mechanism for automatically updating the URL database from a github web server. It works the same on all platforms (Mac, Linux and Windows).

[CarCode]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

If you looked at the code you would see that the chart file URL locations are not hard coded in the plugin at all. The location of chart files is in a small local database which the user is free to modify using a dialog in the plugin. Also, there is a mechanism for automatically updating the URL database from a github web server. It works the same on all platforms (Mac, Linux and Windows).

Please try to read code...

Gerhard

[nohal]

Originally Posted by CarCode

Please try to read code...

Gerhard

Gerhard...
Stop attacking people and spreading lies again, please, and read the code yourself. There are no links hardcoded in it at all.

If you spent 10% of the time you invest in your poisonous crap here in contributing to https://github.com/chartcatalogs/catalogs (Which is where the "links" you talk about are "hardcoded"), this discussion would of course be pointless as we both know.

Have a Merry Christmas

Pavel

[CarCode]

Originally Posted by nohal

Gerhard...
Stop attacking people and spreading lies again, please, and read the code yourself. There are no links hardcoded in it at all.

If you spent 10% of the time you invest in your poisonous crap here in contributing to https://github.com/chartcatalogs/catalogs (Which is where the "links" you talk about are "hardcoded"), this discussion would of course be pointless as we both know.

Have a Merry Christmas

Pavel

Make your home work and then come back...

Gerhard

[nohal]

Gerhard...
Pointless blah blah as usually, stop this please. If you have suggestions for improvements, we will gladly listen, if you want to improve things, send pull requests on Github.

Thank you

Pavel

[rgleason]

Carcode, Merry Christmas my dear friend. Perhaps you could help by providing compiled mac plugins or something. That might be really appreciated by MAC users, but Pavel might be doing it still.

[rooiedirk]

Originally Posted by blueagle91

Im frustrated by this software and im starting to think maybe its best to buy proper software.

Im having problems with charts from Bulgaria, they wont show at all, Austria wont show at all. Parts of Romania wont show. I have 2 PC`s on one i have 4.6 on another i have 4.8 version same exact problem.

I can open charts using 7C viewer no problem. They are IENC 2.3.

I thought OpenCPN is a good software that shows charts provided by national agencies, but it seems that is not the case. Anyone had similiar problem?

Just tried the Romania charts. Some of the charts have a broken update chain, and "O" is warning for this. This is the right way to do it. If there might be a problem with chart information you as user should no, and not having the program make a guess without warning.

Earlier this week I made an update to the github cataloge for the Netherlands inland ENC's, and within hours they where online for everybody. So this works quit well.