RPI 3B keeps going to blank screen (cursor showing)

[BigTJ]

@sdetweil Hi,
Were the displayed messages of any help in narrowing down the issue?

BigTj

[sdetweil]

@BigTJ said in RPI 3B keeps going to blank screen (cursor showing):

4067:0824/230903.755884:ERROR:broker_posix.cc(46)] Received unexpected number of handles

this is the error

we don’t really know the cause.
u can try disabling the use of gpu

change package.json line to look like this

		"start": "DISPLAY=\"${DISPLAY:=:0}\" ./node_modules/.bin/electron --disable-gpu js/electron.js",

[BigTJ]

@sdetweil Thanks for the suggestion.

I’ll give it a go and let you know if it is successful.

BigTJ

[BigTJ]

@sdetweil Hi, I have changed the line as your suggestion.
The mirror screen is still going blank after a short random period of time.

I have installed the ‘example’ mirror as per your suggestion to a previous query. The mirror works OK and (appears) not to go to black screen. Currently I am commenting out each module in config.js to try to identify if it is a particular module that is causing the problem.

My original set up uses the Calendar module twice (for 2 different users). Is this a possible cause of the problem? ie do I need to have independent modules one per user?

The following lines occur each time I start the mirror. Could this be relevant to my problem?

“[24055:0824/184036.476041:ERROR:viz_main_impl.cc(161)] Exiting GPU process due to errors during initialization
[24096:0824/184036.932766:ERROR:sandbox_linux.cc(376)] InitializeSandbox() called with multiple threads in process gpu-process.”

Thanks

[sdetweil]

@BigTJ if u did --disable-gpu, then u shouldnt be getting those messages

u can use all the default modules multiple times

when the screen goes black, does the mouse work? does it wake up?

[BigTJ]

@sdetweil Thanks for the response

I amended the package.json as follows;-

“start”: “DISPLAY="${DISPLAY:=:0}" ./node_modules/.bin/electron --disable-gpu js/electron.js”,
“start:dev”: “DISPLAY="${DISPLAY:=:0}" ./node_modules/.bin/electron --disable-gpu js/electron.js”,

Is this correct?

Yes the mouse still works. Cursor is a black arrow with a white outline. No it does wake up.
Control M works
Control R Works
Control Q works

The start up report of the mirror with minimal content shows;-

magicmirror@2.18.0 start
DISPLAY=“${DISPLAY:=:0}” ./node_modules/.bin/electron --disable-gpu js/electron.js “run”

[11.10.2022 11:45.29.988] [LOG] Starting MagicMirror: v2.18.0
[11.10.2022 11:45.30.003] [LOG] Loading config …
[11.10.2022 11:45.30.030] [LOG] Loading module helpers …
[11.10.2022 11:45.31.926] [LOG] Initializing new module helper …
[11.10.2022 11:45.31.930] [LOG] Module helper loaded: MMM-Wallpaper
[11.10.2022 11:45.31.935] [LOG] No helper found for module: weather.
[11.10.2022 11:45.31.936] [LOG] All module helpers loaded.
[11.10.2022 11:45.32.214] [LOG] Starting server on port 8080 …
[11.10.2022 11:45.32.258] [LOG] Server started …
[11.10.2022 11:45.32.261] [LOG] Connecting socket for: MMM-Wallpaper
[11.10.2022 11:45.32.268] [LOG] Starting node helper for: MMM-Wallpaper
[11.10.2022 11:45.32.270] [LOG] Sockets connected & modules started …
[11.10.2022 11:45.32.942] [LOG] Launching application.
[6000:1011/114533.695740:ERROR:sandbox_linux.cc(376)] InitializeSandbox() called with multiple threads in process gpu-process.

Any further ideas?

Thanks for your continued assistance

[BigTJ]

@sdetweil
Hi,
Did you have any further thoughts on this problem?

[sdetweil]

@BigTJ no. not really. 2.18 is fairly old and we have upgraded electron in each of the last releases

I would use my upgrade script, see
https://github.com/sdetweil/MagicMirror_scripts

it will complain about package.json as we made the disable-gpu change

so restore it first, before running the upgrade

cd ~/MagicMirror 
git checkout package.json

there is a new way to disable gpu use without editing that package.json file

edit the ~/MagicMirror/installers/mm.sh

and add

export ELECTRON_DISABLE_GPU

before the npm start line

[BigTJ]

@sdetweil
I’ll give that a go in the next few days.
Thanks

[BKeyport]

@sdetweil Course, now begs the question… “What if there’s no npm start line?”

run-start.sh is used. :)

[sdetweil]

@BKeyport do it the same. run-start does npm run server

but at that point, there is no electron…

[BigTJ]

@sdetweil
Thanks for all your efforts and assistance. After many reloads of the OS and the MM software I still have the same issue. After searching for similar Pi problems outside of MM it appears that this can happen due to hardware failure. I am now going to purchase a new pi and start from the beginning. Will report back on success or failure in due course. Thanks to everyone that has offered help and assistance.

BigTJ

[costascontis]

i have the same “problem” i think…New installation mirror works just fine for hours or even a day or two,then black screen with cursor.No network,so i cant restart it properly.I did disable gpu so no error massage anymore and i did the " npm init -y" thing inside every module folder.No solution yet…

[BigTJ]

Finally resolved my black screen issue!
After replacing the Pi 3B, the SD card, the OS, using the latest MM software, much internet searching and a great deal of help through this forum it appears the problem is being caused by the jpg photos being added to the wallpaper module. Changing the photos from large tif files into jpg files using Adobe lightroom creates a highly compressed jpg file that the wallpaper module cannot deal with properly.
Reducing the resolution of the files during the conversion seems to create a less compressed jpg file that the Wallpaper module can deal with.
Hope this helps others with the same issue.

[sdetweil]

@BigTJ very cool detective work! glad you found a resolution!!