Black blank screen

[HerrB92]

So, at least for my installation I was able to sort things out. This also included as well re-installing Raspbian, but I just wanted to have a clean installation. The main culprit seem to be the node.js version which is important to be at least from the V7 branch (V8 not tested, my system shows v0.10.x before any installation steps) and an issue with the automated installation script:

Problem in automated installation script:
It tests for node.js V5.1.x and if not or only an earlier version is found, asks to install node.js from the V6 branch. Even with the latest node.js version from V6 the installation of electron fails in a postinstall step due to a problem in the extract-zip package (yes, complicated, indeed).

Indicator for the problem in the electron installation is a missing path.txt file which should be in the electron sub folder and the message “Electron failed to install correctly, please delete node_modules/electron and try installing again” if MM is tried to be started.

Even, if the electron installation is fixed as described before, you will just get a black screen: MM starts, but all areas remain empty which is optically “a black screen”. This (and actually the other problems as well) can be fixed by installing the node.js version of the V7 branch before installation.

Additionally, due to the problems during the installation the final steps, e.g. creating the config file and asking, if the automatic start manager PM2 should be used, are not executed.

Hint: You can check the node.js version by issuing:

node -v

Clean installation steps:

1. Optional: Re-install Raspbian to get a clean system
2. Update Raspbian:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

3. Reboot
4. Update to node.js V7.x (if you have already installed and used node.js of the V8.x branch then you may not like to execute the following lines) as described on node.js project website:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_7.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

4. Get and install MagicMirror (without starting it) from the PI home folder:

git clone https://github.com/MichMich/MagicMirror
cd ~/MagicMirror
npm install

5. Fix complaints about global scripts (may be optional, requires sudo due to the global option as special folders have to be accessed):

sudo npm install --global stylelint
sudo npm install --global coffeescript

7. Execute post installation steps from the automatic installation script to make it perfect:

cp ~/MagicMirror/config/config.js.sample ~/MagicMirror/config/config.js
sudo mkdir /usr/share/plymouth/themes/MagicMirror
sudo cp ~/MagicMirror/splashscreen/splash.png /usr/share/plymouth/themes/MagicMirror/splash.png
sudo cp ~/MagicMirror/splashscreen/MagicMirror.plymouth /usr/share/plymouth/themes/MagicMirror/MagicMirror.plymouth
sudo cp ~/MagicMirror/splashscreen/MagicMirror.script /usr/share/plymouth/themes/MagicMirror/MagicMirror.script

8. Optional: If you would like to autostart MM and to install the automatic start tool PM2:

sudo npm install -g pm2
sudo su -c "env PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin pm2 startup linux -u pi --hp /home/pi"
pm2 start ~/MagicMirror/installers/pm2_MagicMirror.json
pm2 save

Steps in 7&8 taken from the automatic script: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MichMich/MagicMirror/master/installers/raspberry.sh

Oh, start MM, if you a directly working on the system (no SSH/Putty connection):

npm start

or while using a SSH/Putty connection:

DISPLAY=:0 nohup npm start &

Regards,
HerrB92