[ferret_users] OPeNDAP (DODS) data from aggregation servers

[Ansley Manke <ansley.b.manke@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,
It's come up a few times lately that data on some OPeNDAP (DODS) servers 
can't be opened by Ferret.  These are servers that  use older versions 
of the OPeNDAP aggregation server. There is an incompatibility in the 
client/server libraries for OPeNDAP which means that that Ferret users 
wanting to use OPeNDAP data from the older aggregation servers will need 
to use Ferret version that is Ferret version 5.60 or earlier. If you 
wish to use OPeNDAP data from the newer aggregation servers it appears 
that versions of Ferret back to v5.22 will open the data.

We'd encourage you to lobby the OPeNDAP aggregation server manager at 
sites you use to upgrade to the latest server version, as there are 
improvements in the new OPeNDAP libraries, and of course we want to be 
able to use the latest Ferret versions and LAS software.

If you are trying to open a remote dataset in Ferret, and are seeing 
errors like
yes? set data 
"http://opendap.aviso.oceanobs.com/dodsC/merged/uv/madt_oer_merged_uv";
** netCDF error: Invalid Argument
is this a CDF file ?

You can check the version  of  the aggregation server, by appending 
".ver" to the address in your browser:
Here is an older one:

  http://opendap.aviso.oceanobs.com/dodsC/merged/uv/madt_oer_merged_uv.ver
Server Version: CatalogAggServer/0.6

Here is a newer one:

  
http://dods.jpl.nasa.gov/dods-bin/nph-nc/pub/data_collections/woce_v3/topex/data/05_deg/ssh05d19921121.nc.gz.ver 
DODS server core software: DODS DAP++/3.2.8
Server vision: nc-dods/3.2.6