Fix for envcanada Provider to use new Environment Canada weather data access #3878

Crazylegstoo · 2025-09-07T14:48:33Z

Earlier in 2025, Environment Canada changed the process to access weather data for Canadian cities. This change was raised in Issue #3822 as a Bug, which is addressed in this Provider update. There are no Magic Mirror UI changes from this update.

The 'old' method to access Environment Canada involved accessing a static URL based on a City identifier which would result in an XML document containing the appropriate weather data.

The 'new' method is a 2 step process. The first step is to access a time-sensitive URL that contains a list of links to various cities that have weather data available. The second step requires finding the correct city in that list based on a City identifier, and then accessing that unique URL to access an XML document containing the appropriate weather data.

The changes made to the envcanada Provider code are solely aimed at using the new 2-step method to access a specified City's weather data. Since the resulting XML document structure has not changed, no other code in envcanada required changes.

Note that a ChangeLog entry is included in this PR.

rejas

Tahnks for the PR, just minor things to change :-)

rejas · 2025-09-08T11:42:26Z

modules/default/weather/providers/envcanada.js


 	// Set the default config properties that is specific to this provider
 	defaults: {
+		debug: false,


Please just use Log.debug for places you want to have a debug output

rejas · 2025-09-08T11:43:15Z

modules/default/weather/providers/envcanada.js

+	 * 1. Query the MSC Datamart Index page, which returns a list of all the filenames for all the cities that have
+	 *    weather data currently available.
+	 *
+	 * 2. With the city filename identified, build the approrpiate URL and get the weather data (XML document) for the


shouldnt our spellcheck task get this "approrpiate" ?

Until now we don't run the spell checker on Pull Requests.

When the spell checker was introduced (#3623), I thought it could be too annoying for PRs. But now I would be in favor of activating it. What do you think?

Thanks for having a look! I updated the code to use Log.debug, fixed the spelling mistake, and added an 'acknowledgement' in the beginning comments. Changes have been tested and committed, as well.

ArcticNerd · 2025-09-08T21:39:33Z

Apologies, not sure if this is the place for this, but I find this is not working for me?
Would I need to do more than just replace the default envcanada.js file with the updated?

sdetweil · 2025-09-08T21:47:59Z

You loaded the new file from the MagicMirror develop branch, right?

actually the file hasn’t made it to develop yet. Did you get it from the pull request?

ArcticNerd · 2025-09-08T22:37:09Z

Yes, I got it from the pull request.

Crazylegstoo · 2025-09-08T23:07:40Z

Yes, I got it from the pull request.

Hi there! Can you tell me what's not working?

The code has been running fine on my MM for a few weeks. FWIW I'm running on a Rasp Pi 4 + Bookworm and the latest version MM (v2.32.0). The changes are all within envcanada.js and are not reliant on anything special with the MM framework, so you I think you should be able to simply replace your existing module code with the updated version I created.

ArcticNerd · 2025-09-08T23:21:00Z

EDIT: Apologies, so it wouldn't start, which was due to the older version I was running, but now I'm not getting any data from the weather.
"UNDEFINED" and "Invalid date" seem to be showing up instead.
(not sure if links are okay, but here's a photo: https://i.imgur.com/6hjetXd.png)

rejas

That config variable "debug" can go. If one wants to debug, they should change the debug level globally, we dont have module specific debug switches here.

Crazylegstoo · 2025-09-10T13:29:39Z

That config variable "debug" can go. If one wants to debug, they should change the debug level globally, we dont have module specific debug switches here.

D'oh! That was a brain-cramp on my part. Fixed!

Crazylegstoo · 2025-09-10T13:37:45Z

EDIT: Apologies, so it wouldn't start, which was due to the older version I was running, but now I'm not getting any data from the weather. "UNDEFINED" and "Invalid date" seem to be showing up instead. (not sure if links are okay, but here's a photo: https://i.imgur.com/6hjetXd.png)

Yeah that says you've got 'blank' weather info populating the UI. What version of MM are you using?

ArcticNerd · 2025-09-10T13:46:40Z

EDIT: Apologies, so it wouldn't start, which was due to the older version I was running, but now I'm not getting any data from the weather. "UNDEFINED" and "Invalid date" seem to be showing up instead. (not sure if links are okay, but here's a photo: https://i.imgur.com/6hjetXd.png)

Yeah that says you've got 'blank' weather info populating the UI. What version of MM are you using?

2.32

rejas · 2025-09-10T14:48:53Z

modules/default/weather/providers/envcanada.js

+
+				Log.debug(`[weather.envcanada] ${target} Citypage url: ${forecastFileURL}`);
+
+			/*


just this one intend fix and its ready to be merged

I just fixed it 🙂

sdetweil · 2025-09-10T14:50:52Z

weather is done all in browser, so you can debug in the developer window, sources tab.

I see current weather conditions come back, but no forecast (null)
put a stop on the first line of getTemplateData

sdetweil · 2025-09-10T14:53:35Z

I also see and error in the console

weather.js:165 New weather information available.
weather.js:171 Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Cannot read properties of null (reading 'replace')
    at Class.updateAvailable (weather.js:171:106)
    at Class.updateAvailable (weatherprovider.js:104:17)
    at envcanada.js:216:26
    at <anonymous>

sdetweil · 2025-09-10T19:36:40Z

and here is the config I used

      {
        module:"weather",
        position:"top_right",
        classes:"page2",
        config:{
           weatherProvider:"envcanada",
           siteCode:"s0000004",
           provCode:"BC"
        }
      },

rejas · 2025-09-10T20:08:17Z

yeah, somethings not quite right with the envcanada provider in this PR.

but our weatherprovider could also need a better null handling. so far no provider seems to have triggered this altthough some other provider (like openmeteo) COULD also return null if some weathertype is not send or recognized.

envcanada doesnt seem to send this info though (and some others also)

adding some better null checks in our module seems to be necessary, should we do this here or in another PR?

lets see what the PR creator @Crazylegstoo says about the env data

sdetweil · 2025-09-10T21:19:33Z

I think fixing our code should be done outside this PR

Crazylegstoo · 2025-09-10T21:33:31Z

Thanks for raising this weirdness, guys. I've been running this code for weeks in various configurations and have not seen this problem crop up. Except... I updated my config.js today to have 4 instances of the weather module displaying Current weather (using envcanada) for 4 different Canadian cities. Having 3 instances was no problem, but once I added a 4th instance then the same null issue cropped up. It only seems to occur for Current weather - did not arise with multiple instances of Forecast or Daily.

This is all VERY anecdotal since I only did a quick test and I cannot explain how null is arising, yet. I'll have to spend some quality time looking at this more closely. Just a heads up that I am leaving on a 2-week camping trip in a couple of days so I may not have anything to share until I get back. If it makes sense to close this PR and start anew, I'm good with that.

sdetweil · 2025-09-10T21:52:50Z

no problem, your 2 week trip time will put this very close to Oct 1, release.. so I think this needs to wait

As mentioned [here](#3878 (comment)) our weather module needs a bit better handling for null values in the type field. This pr adds this and cleans up the layout a little.

rejas · 2025-09-16T16:24:50Z

Could still use some more Null checks:

khassel · 2025-09-16T17:50:22Z

Could still use some more Null checks

is this provider specific or again a "global" problem of the weather module?

I would be happy to get this merged before next release. We should not block this PR with old "global" problems ...

sdetweil · 2025-09-16T18:26:36Z

this (null checks) is global problem of weather module.. MAY also be IN the provider, but the problem I posted was the weather provider returning nulls

rejas · 2025-09-17T09:37:12Z

Could still use some more Null checks

is this provider specific or again a "global" problem of the weather module?

I would be happy to get this merged before next release. We should not block this PR with old "global" problems ...

part time old , but also part time how envcanada seems to deliver wind speed:

<speed unittype="metric" units="km/h" qavalue="100">calm</speed>

I guess our code doesnt know how to convert "calm" :-) Maybe @Crazylegstoo can fix it later.

And yes, I am too for merging now and have it fix later. Better to have something working instead of nothing...

Crazylegstoo · 2025-10-06T23:32:09Z

Just playing catch up, so many thanks for everyone who looked at this! That 'calm' windspeed value from Environment Canada is a new wrinkle (and pretty dumb, I'd say). I'll put this on my to-do list to look at.

Crazylegstoo added 2 commits August 30, 2025 15:35

Update CHANGELOG.md

6151583

Fix applied for updated Environment Canada API

bc73a4a

Crazylegstoo marked this pull request as draft September 7, 2025 15:00

Update envcanada.js - formatting

290176e

Crazylegstoo marked this pull request as ready for review September 7, 2025 15:20

rejas requested changes Sep 8, 2025

View reviewed changes

Fixed debug logging and comments

1524b5a

rejas requested changes Sep 9, 2025

View reviewed changes

Update envcanada.js to fix Log.debug use

9f41eee

rejas requested changes Sep 10, 2025

View reviewed changes

rejas mentioned this pull request Sep 16, 2025

[weather] better null value handling for weather type #3892

Merged

chore: fix indent

e7d8413

KristjanESPERANTO approved these changes Sep 16, 2025

View reviewed changes

Merge branch 'mm_develop' into envcanada

dc4fad4

Typos and whiteline cleanups

08cc9dd

rejas approved these changes Sep 17, 2025

View reviewed changes

rejas merged commit e886821 into MagicMirrorOrg:develop Sep 17, 2025
9 checks passed

KristjanESPERANTO mentioned this pull request Sep 30, 2025

Release 2.33.0 #3903

Merged


		Log.debug(`[weather.envcanada] ${target} Citypage url: ${forecastFileURL}`);

		/*

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Fix for envcanada Provider to use new Environment Canada weather data access #3878

Fix for envcanada Provider to use new Environment Canada weather data access #3878

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