Hi John,
I run into this problem using netcdf-java toolsUI to open either local
netcdf-4 file or via opendap, here is an example link
http://esg.nccs.nasa.gov/thredds/catalog/ying/readonly/catalog.html?dataset=ying/readonly/e562p1_fp.inst3_3d_asm_Nv.20100907_00z%2B20100909_1200z.nc4
it just shows all -Infinity on the color-bar.
I was first having trouble to use NASA GISS Panoply (which uses
netcdf-java), then I tried this recent version of netcdf-java 42. ToolsUI
(downloaded from UNIDATA) --- it can read netcdf-4 file (the above link)
but it shows same max and min values of each variable. As a result, it just
gives a blank plot.
Then I tried toolsUI-4.2.jar and it shows the same problem.
ftp://ftp.unidata.ucar.edu/pub/netcdf-java/v4.2/toolsUI-4.2.jar
by the way, I can use Ferret (most recent version) to open this netCDF-4
file and makes right plots.