Trouble Parsing Station Metadata File in SourceSpec

[sadia145]

I'm new to seismic data analysis and currently working on a project using SourceSpec v1.8. I'm encountering an issue when trying to parse a station metadata file (station_metadata.xml). Despite editing the file according to the provided specifications and ensuring that the path in the configuration file is correct, I'm still getting an error indicating that the file cannot be parsed.

Here's the error message I'm receiving:

Unable to parse file "C:Users\Ahsan\Documents\Sadia\sourcespec-1.8\paz\station_metadata.xml" as Inventory
[Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'C:Users\\Ahsan\\Documents\\Sadia\\sourcespec-1.8\\paz\\station_metadata.xml'

As a newcomer to this field, I'm not entirely sure what might be causing this issue. I've checked the file path, file permissions, and the content of the station_metadata.xml file, and everything seems to be in order.

Is there anything specific I might be missing or any other troubleshooting steps I should try to resolve this issue? Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.**

[claudiodsf]

Dear Sadia, could you please share your config file?

[sadia145]

source_spec.txt

this is config file

[krisvanneste]

I note there's a backslash missing between C: and Users. Not sure if this is because of path manipulations in sourcespec and if this is really causing the problem.

[claudiodsf]

Yes, I was thinking exactly at this 😉 and wanted to confirm it through the config file

[krisvanneste]

On my computer,
os.path.exists(r'C:Users')
returns True.

[sadia145]

I have tried multiple approaches and changed the path, but each attempt results in an error message stating, "Unable to parse file."

[claudiodsf]

Have you tried with a relative path?

[krisvanneste]

Could you try this in a python console:
os.path.exists(r'C:Users\Ahsan\Documents\Sadia\sourcespec-1.8\paz\station_metadata.xml')
and see if it is different from:
os.path.exists(r'C:\Users\Ahsan\Documents\Sadia\sourcespec-1.8\paz\station_metadata.xml') ?

[sadia145]

Yes, I tried different paths, but none of them worked. In the Python shell, it indicates:
"The file at C:\Users\Ahsan\Documents\Sadia\sourcespec-1.8\paz\station_metadata.xml exists."

[claudiodsf]

So maybe the error message is not correct. Could you please also share the StationXML file?

[sadia145]

This is the full error that i am facing
This is SourceSpec v1.8.

Reading station metadata...
Reading station metadata from file: C:Users\Ahsan\Documents\Sadia\sourcespec-1.8\paz\station_metadata.xml
Unable to parse file "C:Users\Ahsan\Documents\Sadia\sourcespec-1.8\paz\station_metadata.xml" as Inventory
[Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'C:Users\\Ahsan\\Documents\\Sadia\\sourcespec-1.8\\paz\\station_metadata.xml'
Reading station metadata: done
---------------------------------------------------
Event ID: 20240523_0000
Hypocenter:
  Longitude: 53.6490°, Latitude: 27.1920°, Depth: 8.6 km, Origin time: 2024-05-23T00:00:00.000000Z
Magnitude: mb 5.1
---------------------------------------------------
Reading traces...
II.UOSS.00.BH1: Unknown channel orientation: "1": skipping trace
II.UOSS.00.BH2: Unknown channel orientation: "2": skipping trace
II.UOSS.00.BHZ: cannot get instrtype from inventory: inventory is empty: skipping trace
Reading traces: done
---------------------------------------------------
No trace loaded

[claudiodsf]

Hi @sadia145,
I got your metadata file via email, but I cannot find it here, so let me put it again for reference:

station_metadata.txt

Your file is a mix of PAZ (first 42 lines) and StationXML (next lines), which is not standard.
However, this is not the problem here.

The problem is that SourceSpec tries to read the metadata file as a PAZ file, and PAZ file reading has a bug in SourceSpec v1.8.
This is the output on macOS:

Reading station metadata...
Reading station metadata from file: station_metadata.txt
Unable to parse file "station_metadata.txt" as Inventory
Unable to parse file "station_metadata.txt" as PAZ file. Error at line None: I/O operation on closed file.
Reading station metadata: done

I got via mail a report for the same problem from another user (on Linux) three days ago, and the error is fixed in this commit.

With the current development version of SourceSpec (1.8+8.gdb76727), I can read the file correctly (with limitations inherent to the PAZ format):

Reading station metadata...
Reading station metadata from file: station_metadata.txt
Using generic trace ID for PAZ file station_metadata.txt
Cannot find input units for ID "XX.GENERIC.XX.XXX". Defaulting to M/S
Reading station metadata: done

Could you please update to the current development version and try again?

Installation instructions are in the documentation.

[sadia145]

thankyou for your time.. but i couldn't find the latest version here "https://github.com/SeismicSource/sourcespec/releases" .

[claudiodsf]

There is no new release yet. You have to follow the instructions in the documentation on how to install a developer version.

[sadia145]

I am confused because in the README.md file, you mentioned, "Edit the config file variable station_metadata to point to the paz directory," and later stated, "Note that SEED RESP and PAZ formats do not contain station coordinates, which should therefore be in the trace header (traces in SAC format)."

There are two subdirectories: "sac_data," where I placed SAC files (trace files), and "paz," where I placed poles and zeroes files in PAZ format. Do I need to point station_metadata in the config file to the "paz" folder that contains poles and zeroes, or to "sac_data," where SAC files contain station information in the headers?

[claudiodsf]

station_metadata should point to your paz directory, and trace path should be provided through the command line using the option -t sac_data 😉

[claudiodsf]

Hi @sadia145, could you please tell us if your problem is fixed? Thanks 😉

[sadia145]

After installing the development version as you suggested, the program is now running perfectly. Thank you very much for your help!

[claudiodsf]

Great! Thanks for the feedback!