[ERROR] unable to write js/positions.js

FalcoonnnnPUNCH

Newbie here, sorry if this is an obvious fix.
I just installed MagicMirror on a Pi 3 A+ yesterday. I can start the magic mirror application but it only displays a blank black screen.
I followed the following installation guide: https://docs.magicmirror.builders/getting-started/installation.html#manual-installation

full error message:
“unable to write js/positions.js with the discovered module positions make the MagicMirror/js folder writeable by the uder starting MagicMirror”

I’ve attempted to change ownership of the folder but was unsuccessful.

sdetweil

@FalcoonnnnPUNCH tell me more. how is MagicMirror installed where?

there was a bug on windows on 2.29, but it was fixed on 2.30 the current release

did you use sudo while installing MagicMirror

emlowe

Although it’s not related to your problem - I have a lot of trouble getting MM to run on the 512MB Pi3 A+.

It freezes often - possibly it’s bad h/w or sd card although it all tests fine - but after several days of running and it ends up frozen and inaccessible. (ie can’t ssh to it, etc unless I restart it)

I tried using some of the lower memory options instead of using electron without much success. It runs for a little longer but eventually still dies. None of my Pi3 B models with the 4GB RAM have had similar problems - so I tend to think it is something related to RAM

Just to say that you may find the experience in running on the Pi 3 A+ to be “complicated”

sdetweil

@emlowe what os level are you running?
i recommend the 32 bit legacy image

if you use my install script i will increase the swap spacr

emlowe

uname -m
armv7l

cat /etc/os-release 
PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)"

free -h
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           425Mi       316Mi        99Mi       8.1Mi        67Mi       108Mi
Swap:          732Mi       274Mi       457Mi

swapon -s
Filename				Type		Size		Used		Priority
/var/swap                               file		204796		0		-2
/dev/zram0                              partition	544892		299760		15

zramctl 
NAME       ALGORITHM DISKSIZE   DATA COMPR  TOTAL STREAMS MOUNTPOINT
/dev/zram0 lz4         532.1M 292.7M 98.2M 101.8M       4 [SWAP]


Jan 26 22:00:46 kid-mirror kernel: Out of memory: Killed process 23127 (WebKitWebProces) total-vm:1178000kB, anon-rss:184084kB, file-rss:0kB, shmem-rss:0kB, UID:1000 pgtables:1044kB oom_score_adj:0

sdetweil

@emlowe yes, i would try the 32 but legacy image on bullseye

bookworm seems about 500m bigger

sdetweil

@emlowe out of memory

plainbroke

@FalcoonnnnPUNCH
@emlowe
@sdetweil
I have had that problem before and it was a bad card. One other time it was a bad USB drive… Might try a different sdcard.

sdetweil

@plainbroke good point, I have had a number of sd card failures over the years, and they have all become read-only