TROUBLESHOOTING

	Please go through the following steps before asking for tech 
	support. If problems still occur, try another data request but
	with a CC to Dan_Martin@buoyweather.com . I cannot help without 
	seeing exactly what you are sending to the auto-responder. When 
	I see a CC come in, I will know it is because there is a problem
	and I will likely see the cause immediately and assist. DO NOT 
	send me an email saying "I didn't get a response. What am I doing 
  	wrong". The CC is all I need to help.
 
 1. No response from a data request. 

	The most common problem is a mis-spelled word in the message
	format. Check to make sure the keyword, username, and sendaddress
	are spelled correctly. All the words must also be lower case. no cap's!

	There are five auto-respond email address's. Make sure you send the
	right message to the right responder. Note: buoyweather not bouyweather.

	Your email client needs to be set to send text only and no HTML. Some 
	email programs,	like hotmail, will force HTML into your perfectly
	formatted request. The HTML will screw up your format.
 	
	If you save the auto-responder email addresses in your address book,
	make sure the keyword is not in the name. A few people have saved 
	data@buoyweather.com and named it "nww3forecast". The keyword tells 
	the program to start reading in your variables. It cant find this word 
	before the message. Also don't use the keyword as the subject.

	Delays at your mail server will occationally happen. The sailmail return
	time is about two hours. Their email is only processed once per hour.

 2. Forecast data comes back all zeros.

	The latitude longitude point chosen was not on the weather model's 
	grid. Wave data covers ocean region only. Finding forecast points 
	near land requires some math and a chart. Using the nww3 grib, the latitude 
	must be along a whole numbers with no decimal point. The longitude 
	points are spaced at 1.25 degree intervals. Divide your longitude 
	point by 1.25. If there is a remainder, the point is not on the 
	grid. Valid points are evenly divisible by 1.25 and over 
	water. If zeros still come up, move the point offshore 1.25 degrees.
	
	Also check to make sure there is a minus sign to indicate southern
	latitudes and western longitudes. If you are using regional gribs, 
	make sure the point is within their domain. 

	If you are in the Mediterranean or Red Seas, data format 6 is the
	only one that will work.
	

 3. Getting an error message as a response.

	There was an error in your message format. Since you got a reply,
	it means your keyword, username, and sendaddress were correct. You 
	either have a missing variable or an illegal charactor in a 
	variable. For instance, the latitude was entered as 30S instead of
	-30 . A comma where there should be a period will also cause an 
	error. -156,25 should be -156.25 .

	There should never be a plus sign in front of any number. likely
	the most common mistake is putting a "+" in the time zone setting.
	If you are 8 hours ahead of GMT, just put 8. Not +8 or 08. There 
	also should never be a zero in front of a number. The program needs
	to convert your text into a real number for math calculations. +8
	is not a number. 08 is not a number. 8 or -8 are numbers.
	
 4. The data doesn't make sense.

	We occasionally get a corrupt data download and you will see some
	strange results. If this occurs, wait 6 hours and try again. The 
	problem will usually be resolved within a few hours.	
	
	If the forecast looks OK, but the weather doesn't correlate with 
	your position, you may have missed a minus sign and the forecast 
	is for the other side of the world. Check the lat/long closely. 

 5. The data is dated yesterday.

	Several times per year, there are computer outages at NOAA that 
	prevent new data from being generated. We closely monitor data 
	updates. If the data hasn't updated, it means we cannot get it.
	It will be updated as soon as possible!