MagicMirror on Pi Zero W

[Mitchfarino]

I think if someone can get this up and running, they should host the image somewhere for people to download.

Don’t load any modules, just go with the default.

Then people can install the ones that they need.

[Hawking]

@strawberry-3.141 said in MagicMirror on Pi Zero W:

@Hawking you should check if moment weas installed properly it sits in the vendor directory in node_modules, if it isnt there run npm install in the vendor directory

With “vendor directory” you refer to “~/MagicMirror”?
I have a folder
/home/pi/MagicMirror/node_modules/moment with several files (including moment.js) and subfolders. Is this enough indication for a proper installation or should I check other details?

@Mitchfarino said in MagicMirror on Pi Zero W:

@Hawking

I saw errors stating that MM requires a higher version of node, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it.

Could you provide the command you used? Then I’ll try it on mine too and will feed back

Yes, I got the same error/warnings, that’s why I tried to use a more recent version of node. I used the scripts available here
https://github.com/sdesalas/node-pi-zero
I tested it for v6 (don’t remember which subversion) and v7.7.1. Both was without success (no error/warning about old node version, instead other issues and finally still a blank screen). But maybe I made something wrong. Please try your self and let us know about the results (and post the error you get, I don’t remember them in detail).

@Mitchfarino said in MagicMirror on Pi Zero W:

I think if someone can get this up and running, they should host the image somewhere for people to download.

I would strongly prefer to know the commands that worked. An image is a huge file that gets outdated (replacement of jessie…), has to be stored on some external server (the free one are usually slow…) The commands on the other hand are hopefully only a small modification of the tutorial writen above, can easily be used and even adapted more easy.

[strawberry 3.141]

@Hawking said in MagicMirror on Pi Zero W:

/home/pi/MagicMirror/node_modules/moment

it should look like this /home/pi/MagicMirror/vendor/node_modules/moment do you have a package.json file in /home/pi/MagicMirror/vendor?

[Hawking]

@strawberry-3.141 said in MagicMirror on Pi Zero W:

@Hawking said in MagicMirror on Pi Zero W:

/home/pi/MagicMirror/node_modules/moment

it should look like this /home/pi/MagicMirror/vendor/node_modules/moment do you have a package.json file in /home/pi/MagicMirror/vendor?

I have a directory /home/pi/MagicMirror/vendor containing
package.json and vendor.js but noting more.

I now used npn version 2.14.7 (checked by npm -version) to

cd ~/MagicMirror/vendor
npm install

This gave

npm WARN package.json magicmirror-vendors@ No README data
font-awesome@4.7.0 node_modules/font-awesome
moment-timezone@0.5.13 node_modules/moment-timezone
weathericons@2.1.0 node_modules/weathericons
moment@2.18.1 node_modules/moment

and the folder /home/pi/MagicMirror/vendor/node_modules/moment that you mentioned before was created.
I then rebootet (not sure if necessary) and it seems to work (I see the date and time, holidays,quote…). I’ll now set everything up but it looks way better then before.
So thanks a lot for your help!! I hope that your fix also works for the other people who have the same problem.

Just to understand the fix a bit better:
Is there a reason that one seem to have to do run
sudo npm install once in /home/pi/MagicMirror/ (this is already included in the initial post) and once npm install in /home/pi/MagicMirror/vendor/? (this is not mentioned in the initial post and also not directly done by the standard installer (that does not work for the pi-Zero) located in /home/pi/MagicMirror/installers/raspberry.sh (at least I don’t see it therein).

[strawberry 3.141]

@Hawking the command npm install in the directory /home/pi/MagicMirror/ has a hook in the package.json file which automatically runs npm install in /home/pi/MagicMirror/vendor as well, so there is no need to mention this because it’s done automatically ;)

[Hawking]

I now did a installation on a fresh image and used node version 6.6.1 which automatically includes npm 3.10.8. So instead of

sudo wget http://node-arm.herokuapp.com/node_latest_armhf.deb
sudo dpkg -i node_latest_armhf.deb
sudo apt-get install npm

I did

wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdesalas/node-pi-zero/master/install-node-v6.9.1.sh | bash

Then I got later on no warnings about to old or insecure version any more but just

npm WARN prefer global coffee-script@1.10.0 should be installed with -g
npm WARN prefer global jsonlint@1.6.2 should be installed with -g
npm WARN prefer global colorguard@1.2.0 should be installed with -g

> electron-chromedriver@1.6.0 install /home/hawking/MagicMirror/node_modules/electron-chromedriver
> node ./download-chromedriver.js


> electron@1.6.5 postinstall /home/hawking/MagicMirror/node_modules/electron
> node install.js

npm WARN lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.1~install: cannot run in wd %s %s (wd=%s) magicmirror@2.1.1 cd vendor && npm install /home/hawking/MagicMirror
npm WARN lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.1~postinstall: cannot run in wd %s %s (wd=%s) magicmirror@2.1.1 sh installers/postinstall/postinstall.sh /home/hawking/MagicMirror

(in this installation I did not use the pi user, but I had the same problem when I used the default pi user).

If one knows the solution for the blank screen it is obvious that this is a strong hint that one should run

cd ~/MagicMirror/vendor/ && npm install 
cd ~/MagicMirror/ && sh installers/postinstall/postinstall.sh 

(the later at the moment just prints a success message and is therefore not really needed)
I don’t know why these commands did not work automatically, maybe an issue with some directories that are not set (I assume in the error instead of %s the directory should be displayed).

[Iseknutz]

I installed the image from https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/1183/how-i-got-my-magic-mirror-working-on-a-raspberry-pi-0-zero/84 , updated the System to use the onboard wifi and this works for me.

[Mitchfarino]

@Hawking Thanks for all your help and comments, I’ve managed to get it up and running now!

Now I just need to get the whitelist sorted :grimacing:

[Hawking]

@Mitchfarino said in MagicMirror on Pi Zero W:

@Hawking Thanks for all your help and comments, I’ve managed to get it up and running now!

No problem.

@Mitchfarino said in MagicMirror on Pi Zero W:

Now I just need to get the whitelist sorted :grimacing:

This worked fine for me, I just added the IP of my regular PC (e.g 192.168.2.185) to the list in the config file so that it looked like

ipWhitelist: ["192.168.2.185", "127.0.0.1", "::ffff:127.0.0.1", "::1"],

If I then typed the ip:port (the port is also defined in the MM config, default is 8080) of my raspi (e.g.

http://192.168.2.170:8080/

) in the browser bar of my regular PC I could see the page also on my regular PC (took 1-2 seconds to load).
If this does not work for you, just open a new thread and provide details.

[CaptnJB]

BLANK SCREEN, NO CLOCK/CALENDAR/MOMENTS solved and simplified from other topics and posts:

After you follow the instructions in the first post to #23 then jump to here:

24 cd ~/MagicMirror/vendor
25 npm install
26 sudo reboot

I’m not a linux expert, but I built this a few weeks back before the latest version of MM and it worked flawlessly. There should be a hook in the original package.json that kicks it into the vendor directory and runs “npm install” there but it doesn’t happen now (5/3/2017).

Also, for those of you who do not have a monitor, after you SSH into your Rpi Zero W:
sudo raspi-config
5 interfacing options
P3 VNC
YES you want to enable the VNC server
reboot when it asks.

Use VNC Viewer or whatever, connect to your rpi using either ip address or if you set it up in your DHCP table with a :0 (zero) to see your screen or :1 to have a desktop.

CaptnJB