Unidata Software and Data Support

Unidata Software and Data Support

UnidataProviding World-Class support to its community is at the heart of the Unidata Program.
Software Training

Training WorkshopsUnidata organizes and leads a variety of in-person and online workshops to train community members in the use of Unidata-supported software.

Interested in hosting a workshop at your institution? Visit the Learning Experiences at NSF Unidata page for information on how to get started.

See the Unidata Calendar of Events for the next scheduled workshop.

The training information and tutorials used during Unidata's training workshops are available online as a resource to our community.

View the training workshop materials
Ways to Get Support

Suggested Support Process

To better serve our community, we request those seeking support to consider the suggested process.

Have you reviewed the documentation?

Documentation Please review the existing software documentation for the answers to your questions. The documentation contains a wealth of useful information and provides the answers to most operational questions.

List available software documentation

Have you utilized our support archives and mailing lists?

Request Support Browse previously answered support questions in our Support Archives. It is likely the answer to your question has been addressed and is available in the archives.

Go to the support archives

Archives Query the Unidata community using our topical Mailing Lists. Our community contains expert users who are happy to share their experience and knowledge with others. Before asking your question you can also search the Mailing List Archives to see if your topic has been discussed.

View the mailing lists

Submit a support request to Unidata

Request SupportSubmit a support question directly to Unidata using one of the topic-specific email addresses, or you may use the support request form to compose your queries.

View the ways to submit a support request to Unidata

Mailing Lists

Unidata provides topical mailing lists to enable Unidata users to exchange information freely on topics of mutual interest. NOTE: Anyone posting to a list in an attempt to advertise or sell goods/services will be immediately unsubscribed and banned from the list.
List Name List Description
awips2-users
@unidata.ucar.edu
Low list traffic
The AWIPS Users mailing list provides a way for participating individuals to communicate with each other about the UPC AWIPS releases.
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community
@unidata.ucar.edu
Medium list traffic
Announcements from the UPC concerning advocacy issues, newsletters, software, workshops, special community meetings, equipment awards, and important data issues. Note: this is an announcement list only. No posting is allowed to this list.
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conduit
@unidata.ucar.edu
Low list traffic
Working collaboratively with NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS), National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (in the early years), and the Unidata Program Center (UPC), and with cooperation from the university community, Unidata's Internet Data Distribution (IDD) has been used for distribution of CONDUIT high resolution model data sets. The data consist of a substantial set of the data made available on servers at the NCEP and at NWS.
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data-curation
@unidata.ucar.edu
Medium list traffic
This mailing list is for community discussion centered on the curation of Unidata-provided data. Topics include the provenance of observation station metadata, usage of various data formats, and processing of Unidata-provided feeds as related to both current use and long-term storage of the data.
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data-service-announce
@unidata.ucar.edu
Low list traffic
This mailing list is for announcements about outages or upcoming changes to data servers operating at the UPC (IDD, TDS, RAMADDA, ADDE, EDEX). Note: this is an announcement list only. No posting is allowed to this list.
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gembud
@unidata.ucar.edu
High list traffic
The gembud (GEMPAK buddy) mailing list is a special interest list for users of the GEneral Meteorological PAcKage ( GEMPAK) developed by NASA and NCEP (formerly NMC). Subscribers to gembud include users at Unidata sites, government sites and commercial users, including the developers at NCEP, NASA, and Unidata. gembud is used primarily for discussions of intermediate to advanced GEMPAK issues, including topics such as using research datasets, developing local extensions, and customizing for site specific uses.
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idd-brasil
@unidata.ucar.edu
Medium list traffic
The idd-brasil email list is akin to the ldm-users email list. It was created for South American IDD participants so they could correspond with each other about IDD related issues in their native languages which are either Portugese or Spanish.
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idvdevelopers
@unidata.ucar.edu
Medium list traffic
A special interest list for developers using the Integrated Data Viewer 3D visualization application framework.
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idvusers
@unidata.ucar.edu
High list traffic
This mailing list is intended for discussion of IDV software including installation, setup, and use.
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ldm-users
@unidata.ucar.edu
High list traffic
This is an unmoderated list for announcements, discussions, bug reports, and questions about the LDM software and Unidata's Internet Data Distribution (IDD) system. It is also the main list for general data requests when data have been missed (other users will help replace the missing data). Typical postings include discussions on using the LDM; discussions of issues related to porting to various platforms; information about changes to stations; and discussion of issues and priorities affecting the further development of the LDM and the IDD.
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mcidas-x
@unidata.ucar.edu
Low list traffic
This is a mailing list to facilitate user interactions about subjects of mutual interest to McIDAS users. Typical uses of the list include announcements of new McIDAS releases, bug fixes and down times for the McIDAS mainframe at SSEC; verifying that the McIDAS data stream is running; user requests for unusual, historic data sets, information on hardware configurations and for help programming new McIDAS modules, using McIDAS commands, or importing non-McIDAS data. This list also provide the mechanisms for community activities such as contributing scripts and new routines to the community and even posting job openings requiring familiarity with McIDAS.
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needdata
@unidata.ucar.edu
Medium list traffic
This list is used to request missing or retrospective data. In the spirit of community that has made Unidata a success, subscribers help each other by supplying data that they have available (note that you must be subscribed to the list to post a request). Please be reasonable in your requests; don't expect someone to dig out six months of radiosonde data from 20 years ago.
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netcdf-java
@unidata.ucar.edu
High list traffic
This mailing list is intended for announcements and discussion among developers using the Java netCDF packages, including ucar.nc2, ucar.nc2.dods, and ucar.ma2 and the older ucar.netcdf and ucar.multiarray packages.
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netcdfgroup
@unidata.ucar.edu
High list traffic
netcdfgroup is an unmoderated mailing list for announcements, discussions, bug reports, and questions about netCDF software. Typical postings include announcements of new versions, patches, and bug fixes; questions about representing specific data relationships using the netCDF model; general discussions about scientific data access, including the use of other interfaces; and discussion of issues and priorities affecting the further development of the netCDF interfaces and software. Questions and discussion about porting the software to new platforms should be in the netcdf-porting mailing list.
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noaaport
@unidata.ucar.edu
Medium list traffic
This mailing list provides an opportunity for users to exchange information regarding the installation and operation of a local NOAAPORT receiver and data ingestion site. Unidata makes its locally developed downlink and LDM-ingestion software freely available as unsupported software, along with information regarding specific hardware in use.
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python-users
@unidata.ucar.edu
Medium list traffic
The python-users list provides up-to-date news, examples, and tutorials for python to the geosciences and meteorological community. This list also serves to summarize python development efforts at Unidata.
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suominet
@unidata.ucar.edu
Low list traffic
This mailing list consists of individuals participating, or interested in, the SuomiNet project.
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thredds
@unidata.ucar.edu
High list traffic
A mailing list for users of the THREDDS Data Server including installation, setup, and use.
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udunits
@unidata.ucar.edu
Low list traffic
A mailing list for users of the UDUNITS-2 and legacy UDUNITS packages. Questions about installation, use, and general support should be directed to this list. New UDUNITS releases will be announced on this mail list.
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visad
@unidata.ucar.edu
Medium list traffic
The visad mailing list is a special interest list for users of the VisAD library. Users are encouraged to send questions and problems to the list to get help from others in the VisAD community.
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Low list traffic
low list traffic
Medium list traffic
medium list traffic
High list traffic
high list traffic

Inactive mailing listDenotes an inactive mailing list. List archives are made available for historical reasons.

Mailing lists of interest to software developers
Mailing lists for Unidata community anouncements and interests

NSF Unidata Training Requests

NSF Unidata offers a variety of learning experiences for the unique needs of our community. Please see Learning Experiences at NSF Unidata for information on the types of learning experiences we offer, what needs they best serve, and the potential limitations.

We offer services and support to the broader Earth Systems Sciences community, including academic institutions. Emphasis will be placed on providing support for institutions serving historically marginalized populations, small institutions, and underrecognized groups. We additionally consider other funded opportunities from organizations in the public and private sector. Please note that our services and support are evaluated based on need and capacity, and are evaluated on a case by case basis.

We welcome the opportunity to support and partner with you to determine the best approach for your learning and training needs.

Scope of Educational Services and Support

What is included?

NSF Unidata’s educational services and support covers the creation of new materials, updates or changes to existing materials, and partnerships with organizations to use, create, or modify materials. This includes:

  1. Support for creation of materials as described by the Learning Experience Types offered by NSF Unidata.
  2. Updates or changes to educational materials currently authored or managed by NSF Unidata.
  3. Providing NSF Unidata Science Gateway infrastructure to support educational activities.
  4. Discussion and assistance on the usage or implementation of supported educational resources.
What is outside of the scope of educational support?
  1. Updates or changes to existing educational materials not currently managed or created by NSF Unidata.
      Please contact the material's author.
  2. Creation of new educational materials that do not have the capacity to be shared, whole or in part, to the broader community.
  3. Educational support for tools or technology not currently managed or created by NSF Unidata.
      Please contact the relevant party's support channels.
      For general scientific Python educational support, consider Project Pythia.
  4. Educational support for science topics that do not leverage tools or technology not currently managed or created by NSF Unidata.
      Please consider one of the other entities at UCAR, such as COMET or NSF NCAR EdEC.
  5. Technical support requests such as troubleshooting errors, workflows, or product installation.
      Please refer to the appropriate technical support channels for assistance.
  6. Requests for new or changes to existing product documentation.
      Please submit requests to the appropriate technical support channels.

Request Unidata Support

If you intend to email a support question directly to Unidata, please use one of the following topic-specific addresses below. Also, a support request form is available which will allow you to compose your queries.
Support Topic Email Address(add @unidata.ucar.edu)
AWIPS support-awips
CONDUIT Datastream support-conduit
Case Studies Project support-casestudies
Datastream (all products other than CONDUIT) support-datastream
eLearning support-elearning
Equipment Awards/Grants support-egrants
IDD (General) support-idd
IDD Antarctica support-idd-antarctica
IDD Brasil support-idd-brasil
IDD Cluster support-cluster
IDD SCOOP support-idd-scoop
IDD TIGGE support-idd-tigge
IDV support-idv
LDM support-ldm
LDM-McIDAS Decoders support-ldm-mcidas
Machine Learning support-ml
McIDAS support-mcidas
McIDAS-V project support-mcv
MetPy support-python
Miscellaneous Support Questions support-miscellaneous
NetCDF support-netcdf
NetCDF Decoders support-netcdf-decoders
NetCDF Java support-netcdf-java
NetCDF Perl support-netcdf-perl
News (Unidata) support-news
NOAAPORT Ingest Software support-noaaport
Outreach, Feedback, or Comments for Unidata support-outreach
Platform & OS Questions support-platforms
Python support-python
RAMADDA RAMADDA Users @ SourceForge
Science Gateway support-gateway
Security-related issues/bugs security
Siphon support-python
SuomiNet Project support-suominet
THREDDS Data Server support-thredds
UDUNITS support-udunits
VisAD support-visad
Web Site Questions and Feedback support-plaza
Workshop Questions support-workshop
General Support (I can't determine) support

Conditions of Support

There are conditions on obtaining Support Questions for some Unidata software:

Public Posting of Support & Mailing List Exchanges

All email exchanges with Unidata User Support are recorded in the Unidata inquiry tracking system and then made publicly available through the web. If you do not want to have your interactions made available in this way, you must let us know in each email you send to us.

Likewise, all exchanges posted to Unidata maintained email lists are recorded in the Unidata inquiry tracking system and made publicly available through the web. Users who post to any of the lists we maintain are reminded to remove any personal information that they do not want to be made public.

Support to Institutions

Unidata provides direct support via email for its software packages to institutions offering college-level courses for credit, and to non-profit institutions with education or research missions. Institutions must provide a single point of contact for direct support questions. Unidata staff will provide priority support to qualifying organizations with a geoscience focus.

Support for McIDAS software acquired through the UPC is provided under the above-conditions through the Unidata support team. SSEC (the software developers) provides support only to the McIDAS User Group (MUG) members.

Unidata provides training in the use of some of its packages. Priority for enrollment in this training is given to active participants from organizations offering courses for credit in the geosciences.

Support to Individuals

The UPC administers and maintains several topical mailing lists and support archives which act as an excellent source for problem resolution. These tools are freely available for use by any individual identified to the UPC through its registration process. Unidata does not provide direct email support to individuals who are not identified as the direct point-of-contact or technical liason for a given institution.

The UPC maintains web-based information and documentation which are accessible by any individual for any purpose without constraint.

Questions About the Conditions of Support?

Questions or comments about the Unidata conditions of support can be sent to: support@unidata.ucar.edu