How to MANUALLY install MM on your Pi. For absolute beginners.

Mykle1

How to MANUALLY install MM on your Pi. For absolute beginners.

I’m going to walk you through this. Why? Well, someone always helped me when I was new.
What better way to repay them? By helping others, that’s how.

Raspbian is already installed?

This tutorial assumes that you’ve already set up your Pi correctly

Why a manual install?

The automatic installation script failed or did not complete
You upgraded from an earlier version of MM and now your mirror doesn’t work
Troubleshooting often takes longer than this
You want to learn a new or different way to install MM
You always listen to my suggestions

You won’t lose your current installation

You’ll be renaming your current MM folder so nothing will be lost

Let’s get to it

Rename your current MagicMirror folder. (e.g MagicMirror-OLD)
Go to https://github.com/MichMich/MagicMirror in your browser
Click on the green Clone or Download button on the right side of the window
Click on Download ZIP. Now you have a MagicMirror-master.zip file
Double Click the MagicMirror-master.zip file. Inside is the MagicMirror-master folder.
Move the MagicMirror-master folder to your /home/pi folder. (Where your MagicMirror-OLD is)
Rename the MagicMirror-master folder to MagicMirror.
Then in your terminal, cd into the MagicMirror directory and run npm install.
When that finishes, run npm start, also in the MagicMirror directory.
At this point the mirror should run but you’ll likely get a “Create a config” message.

Don’t worry, you’re almost there

Create a working config. If you don’t know how you should go to the following link.

https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/4528/how-to-create-a-working-config-for-absolute-beginners

Once you’ve created a working config, open your terminal
cd into the MagicMirror directory and run npm start. That should get your mirror running.
Then you can copy your modules, 1 by 1, into the new MagicMirror/modules folder
Copy the entries from your old config.js file, 1 by 1 into your new config.js file.
Test run after each copy

Can’t I just copy everything over all at once?

You can, but if something fails in the process, you’ll be back to troubleshooting again. It’s
a whole lot safer doing it 1 by 1 and running the mirror after each addition as a test.

Backup your config.js file

Each time you add a module and its config.js entry, run the mirror. If it works, backup your
config.js file. If it doesn’t work, you know it’s the addition you just made. If you make
bulk additions and it fails, you’ll hear yourself say, “I should have listened to Mykle!”

Peace

fox

@Mykle1 said in How to MANUALLY install MM on your Pi. For absolute beginners.:

Backup your config.js file

Thank you very much for this Tut. I’ll give it a try. And thank you for linking it here

Mykle1

@fox said in How to MANUALLY install MM on your Pi. For absolute beginners.:

I’ll give it a try.

You’re welcome. Let me know how you make out.

fox

Hi @Mykle1 i get this error when i make

npm start

Error:

Whoops! There was an uncaught exception...
{ Error: listen EADDRINUSE 0.0.0.0:8080
    at Object.exports._errnoException (util.js:1050:11)
    at exports._exceptionWithHostPort (util.js:1073:20)
    at Server.setupListenHandle [as _listen2] (net.js:1263:14)
    at listenInCluster (net.js:1304:12)
    at doListen (net.js:1428:7)
    at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:83:11)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:104:9)
    at Module.runMain (module.js:607:11)
    at run (bootstrap_node.js:431:7)
    at startup (bootstrap_node.js:155:9)
  code: 'EADDRINUSE',
  errno: 'EADDRINUSE',
  syscall: 'listen',
  address: '0.0.0.0',
  port: 8080 }

edit:
with

sudo netstat -lnptu

i saw that electron.js is already using the port. But i have a blank screen and nothing is shown. Also rebooted a couple of times.

Mykle1

@fox said in How to MANUALLY install MM on your Pi. For absolute beginners.:

i saw that electron.js is already using the port. But i have a blank screen and nothing is shown. Also rebooted a couple of times.

Hmm, make sure you only have 1 terminal open when you run npm start from the pi@user/MagicMirror directory. Also, make sure the address: "0.0.0.0", entry in your config is OUTSIDE the whitelist. If you’re running pm2 make sure that is not launching an instance of MM. Otherwise, is there anything else that you changed after the install?

noorm91

How do you apply after each module you try out? Is there a way or do you have to reboot every time?

Mykle1

@noorm91 said in How to MANUALLY install MM on your Pi. For absolute beginners.:

How do you apply after each module you try out? Is there a way or do you have to reboot every time?

You don’t have to reboot the Pi to launch MM after adding a module. Assuming you quit MM before you added the module, you simply launch MM as you normally would

noorm91

@Mykle1
The MM autostarts when booting up the Pi, what’s the command you use to apply/run the config.js right after you save it?

Mykle1

@noorm91 said in How to MANUALLY install MM on your Pi. For absolute beginners.:

The MM autostarts when booting up the Pi, what’s the command you use to apply/run the config.js right after you save it?

When the mirror is running, press your Alt key to drop down a menu bar. Choose Minimize from the Window menu. Assuming pm2 is autostarting for you, open a terminal and type pm2 stop mm to quit MM.

You can start MM after saving your config in the terminal by typing pm2 start mm, or if MM is still running, from the drop down menu, View, Reload

fox

The problem was the module watchdog !
Also with fresh install it throws errors with the newest update.

Fixed for me. Thank you @Mykle1 !!!

axellejamous

I don’t know if this is the right place for me to reply but I’m desperate.
I’m supposed to do a project for school with the MM but I can’t even seem to get it up and running.
I made an issue on the forum but so far I’ve gotten no replies :(

I followed these steps to reinstall the MM but instead of making my own config file I used the one provided. When I run it, the screen is black and I can see in dev tools that the “moment” npm package is having some issues but I can’t find any info anywhere on how to solve it or anyone that has a similar issue.

Mykle1

@fox said in How to MANUALLY install MM on your Pi. For absolute beginners.:

Fixed for me. Thank you @Mykle1 !!!

You’re welcome, mate.

Mykle1

@axellejamous said in How to MANUALLY install MM on your Pi. For absolute beginners.:

I followed these steps to reinstall the MM but instead of making my own config file I used the one provided. When I run it, the screen is black and I can see in dev tools that the “moment” npm package is having some issues but I can’t find any info anywhere on how to solve it or anyone that has a similar issue.

I see that you have fixed your issue in another topic. Very good! Can I ask, are you saying you had this issue after a manual installation? The symptoms and fix you used are commonly associated with the automatic installer or version update. I’m just curious because I have not heard of this happening after a manual installation.

axellejamous

@Mykle1
I did luckily!
I indeed had the issue after manual installation. Fact is, the automatic installation script would actually get stuck on two of my Pi’s at the node modules installation.
So I had to manually install.

In the issue that helped me find the answer, he did do a manual install as well and had the same problem.
But someone did mention “in the latest version there is a npm install task in the vendor folder as well which gets executed automatically after a successful install, yours wasn’t successful so this was never executed” which means I probably made a mistake in my manual installation, although I have no clue what it could’ve is as I followed the steps thoroughly on 2 different pi’s, getting the same result.

Mykle1

@axellejamous said in How to MANUALLY install MM on your Pi. For absolute beginners.:

I probably made a mistake in my manual installation,

No sir, you made no mistake. You download the software and run npm install in the MagicMirror directory. If, and when that fails, it is no fault of yours.

I’m glad you solved your problem and thanks for the information. It’s good to know that in case anyone else encounters that problem with a manual installation.

slametps

@axellejamous I still got no luck making 2.1.3 works. the log said MM run without error. Unfortunately, got a black screen using default config.js (copy from config.js.sample). If I remove config.js, the MM display to create a config. Still no clue how to solve this.

Mykle1

@slametps said in How to MANUALLY install MM on your Pi. For absolute beginners.:

If I remove config.js, the MM display to create a config. Still no clue how to solve this.

You did a manual install and ran npm install in the MagicMirror directory? He solved his problem by running npm install in the vendor directory. I don’t know if you have the same issue.

But it seems to me if MM is reporting “Create a config” that MM is launching correctly. You could try getting a fresh copy of the config.js.sample (in case something is wrong with the one you have) and trying again.

Good luck

slametps

@Mykle1 said in How to MANUALLY install MM on your Pi. For absolute beginners.:

@slametps said in How to MANUALLY install MM on your Pi. For absolute beginners.:

If I remove config.js, the MM display to create a config. Still no clue how to solve this.

You did a manual install and ran npm install in the MagicMirror directory? He solved his problem by running npm install in the vendor directory. I don’t know if you have the same issue.

But it seems to me if MM is reporting “Create a config” that MM is launching correctly. You could try getting a fresh copy of the config.js.sample (in case something is wrong with the one you have) and trying again.

Good luck

Yap, I just copy config.js from config.js.sample, and got a black screen.
I will give a try, running npm install in vendor folder.

Mykle1

@slametps

You didn’t answer my question.
You didn’t try my suggestion.
You did the one thing that I said I didn’t know was your issue.

Shrug

slametps

@Mykle1 said in How to MANUALLY install MM on your Pi. For absolute beginners.:

@slametps

You didn’t answer my question.
You didn’t try my suggestion.
You did the one thing that I said I didn’t know was your issue.

Shrug

Yap, I install MM manually refers to documentation you wrote (and backed up current running MM 2.1.0).
config. js I mentioned earlier, is a fresh copy from config.js.sample in config folder.
I did npm-install in MM folder, but not in vendor yet. I’ll try later when I have access to my MM.