Electron CPU usage

[mattn]

@Doum Yeah, just create the file, paste that line, save and reboot.

[martinkooij]

@mattn What version of electron are you running? I downgraded to 1.4.15 electron, have v6.12.3 nodejs and 2.3.1Magic Mirror. I set the environment variable as you indicated. CPU usage goes down remarkably, although not as much as in your case.

Did you also got rid of a memory leak? I start with 43% free and this falls to 7% after a day. Stays between 5%-7% for a few days and then after 3-5 days my mirror halts completely with E_NOMEM panic in the log files. Any reader knows of handy memory leak analysistools for nodejs? It seems you keep on having 50% used / 50% free… Not me ;(.

top - 20:03:02 up 21:14,  3 users,  load average: 0,30, 0,33, 0,41
Tasks: 165 total,   2 running, 163 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  8,6 us,  4,5 sy,  0,0 ni, 86,9 id,  0,0 wa,  0,0 hi,  0,0 si,  0,0 st
KiB Mem:    949580 total,   907688 used,    41892 free,    60200 buffers
KiB Swap:   102396 total,     5172 used,    97224 free.   444532 cached Mem

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
 1178 pi        20   0  828888 244624  65840 R  22,5 25,8 327:41.98 electron
 1216 pi        20   0  603272 349144 290184 S  13,6 36,8 132:11.73 electron
  666 root      20   0  200848  58756  28796 S  12,2  6,2 131:39.07 Xorg
24453 pi        20   0    5224   2580   2148 R   1,0  0,3   0:02.03 top

[mattn]

@martinkooij TBH, I have no clue how to check my electron version, but I used the MM install script and haven’t downgraded anything. So I’m running the version supplied by the script as of approximately two weeks ago.

I’ve not noticed any mem issues. My mirror’s been up 6 days mem usage is ~10% per process:

top - 19:19:50 up 6 days,  8:37,  3 users,  load average: 0.13, 0.24, 0.20
Tasks: 155 total,   1 running, 153 sleeping,   0 stopped,   1 zombie
%Cpu(s): 32.7 us,  4.8 sy,  0.0 ni, 62.5 id,  0.1 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem:    947732 total,   674684 used,   273048 free,    96984 buffers
KiB Swap:   102396 total,        0 used,   102396 free.   288436 cached Mem

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
 1099 pi        20   0  310396  98548  55500 S 104.4 10.4 765:21.28 electron
 1111 pi        20   0  366396 102884  51368 S  21.5 10.9 297:36.05 electron
 1071 pi        20   0  474832  84892  58020 S  12.3  9.0 244:20.94 electron

Could it be a module causing it? Or try reinstalling MM with the script and see what happens with the default install/modules

As far as my modules go, I’m only using the date and weather mods from standard and then 4 custom mods(technically 2, as 3 are separate instances of the same mod for bus/train times).

Regards,

Matt

[martinkooij]

@mattn thanks! I love my modules, so difficult to lose one ;).

It however seems you have a slow leak too, growing memory usage of ca 200Mbyte in 6 days. Much less than me, but still more than it should be, I guess. Just let us know how you fare! Thanks for sharing.

[martinkooij]

@mattn and others.
I have a stable situation with the following:

• electron 1.4.15 (withELECTRON_FORCE_WINDOW_MENU_BAR=1).
  higher elektron version gives black screen, the environment variable lowers the cpu-usage by elektron considerably).
• Magic Mirror 2.3.1 (actually I was quick to install MM2.3.0 but manually downgraded electron, but I am quite sure that amounts to the same as installing MM 2.3.1).
• nodejs version v9.11.1. (I used to have a 1.6.x nodejs, but that one caused memory leaks. )

Is now running in this configuration almost 7 days without interrupt. And no signs of stopping soon. Thanks you all in this forum for the help.

(Rasberry pi 3, Jessie, CPU Hardware: BCM2835, Revision: a02082)

[cdelaorden]

Hi guys

Im new to the forum and this project but I have some small experience with the Pis and having the same issue

I think that its related to the video driver, using ‘sudo raspi-config’ and changing the video driver to one of the GL drivers resulted in a much lower cpu load in my case.

Doesn’t matter if you choose full KMS or fake KMS as long as you dont use the legacy non-GL driver.

It took my 4 CPU from full 100% to idle bellow 35%

Im sure someone else with this problem can confirm this

[E3V3A]

@cdelaorden

• How can we check the video driver without using rapsi-conf?
  in dmesg? in systemd journal?
• How/where do you set the: ELECTRON_FORCE_WINDOW_MENU_BAR=1.
• What would be the easiest way for users to check electron version from command line?

[cdelaorden]

@e3v3a
You can check it in the config.txt

or just do a “tail /boot/config.txt | grep dtoverlay” to check what version is enabled

all the rest of my configuration is the default one after a fresh install from the current version of MM and Raspbian, I havent touched anything from electron

[Juju]

Omg, yes finally! :D
First I followed this installation guide: https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/236/complete-setup-tutorial/3
I had the electron CPU issue. So I downgraded to electron version 1.4.15. The CPU usage went down from 90% to 70%. It was still laggy as hell.
I then formatted the microSD card and followed that youtube guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q04SKvibik
Downgraded to 1.4.15 again and now it’s running great with a CPU usage of like 5% with spikes to 50%, when there is an animation on the screen.

But I have one question.

After I finished the youtube tutorial I have the “MagicMirror” and the “mm”. Both autostart when I boot the raspberry pi.
Which use has the “mm”?

[Mykle1]

@juju

pm2 stop mm
pm2 delete mm
pm2 save
rm ~/mm.sh

[MichMich]

@cdelaorden I think you’ve found the issue! Awesome work!

For others please note that when you start raspi-config and go to “Advanced Options” > “GL Driver”, the top one will always be selected, no matter which one is active. After selecting one of the two top drivers (GL), it might solve the hi CPU load issue …

It solved it on a clean installed Pi 3 for me.

[MichMich]

I added some info about the Open GL driver to the Wiki:
https://github.com/MichMich/MagicMirror/wiki/Configuring-the-Raspberry-Pi#enable-the-open-gl-driver-to-decrease-electrons-cpu-usage

[Hein-Jan]

@michmich

I seem to be running into some kind if trouble. My SD card failed, so I had to do a clean install. I decided to immediately go for the full KMS driver.
“$ tail /boot/config.txt | grep dtoverlay” results in “dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d”.

The CPU usage is alright, but “/home/pi/.pm2/logs/mm-error-o.log” states:

libGL error: MESA-LOADER: failed to retrieve device information
MESA-LOADER: failed to retrieve device information
MESA-LOADER: failed to retrieve device information

I am having trouble with the monitor. I am using MMM-Remote-Control.
“MONITOROFF” results in “/home/pi/.pm2/logs/mm-error-o.log”:

Powering off HDMI

“MONITORON” results in “/home/pi/.pm2/logs/mm-error-o.log”:

Powering on HDMI with preferred settings

[E] Failed to power on HDMI with preferred settings

{ Error: Command failed: tvservice --preferred && sudo chvt 6 && sudo chvt 7
[E] Failed to power on HDMI with preferred settings

    at ChildProcess.exithandler (child_process.js:217:12)
    at emitTwo (events.js:106:13)
    at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:194:7)
    at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:899:16)
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:226:5)
  killed: true,
  code: null,
  signal: 'SIGTERM',
  cmd: 'tvservice --preferred && sudo chvt 6 && sudo chvt 7' }
Powering off HDMI

I may be wrong but I feel this is related to the Full KMS driver.

Can anyone confirm? Does anyone have a solution?
I am way out of my depth here…

[Dom1n1c]

@Hein-Jan I got the same issue.
A few minutes, the monitor could be controlled, but then “tvservice -p” fails to power on the monitor.

[cdelaorden]

@hein-jan @Dom1n1c

Please use the fake kms driver instead “dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d”

it its known that the full kms driver isnt compatible with tvservice plus other restrictions

EDIT:
Also with the fake KMS you can rotate the display from /boot/config.txt so I suggest @michmich using it as the preferred method in the wiki

[schmo90]

@cdelaorden said in Electron CPU usage:

the full kms driver isnt compatib

hy now i use the fake kms driver, everything is working fine and realy fast.
but i have the problem that the mirror will go to a black screen after some hours.

only a pm2 restart mm helps in this case -.-

[cdelaorden]

@schmo90 mmm havent had that problem, everything its working fine

Have you deactivated the screensaver as its shown in the wiki?

Also, are you using a module like MMM-Remote-Control to turn off the screen?

If you see a black screen and the mouse but nothing else you are probably missing “sudo chvt 6 && sudo chvt 7” in your statement after turning hdmi back on. You can test it in ssh after forcing the issue.

Also if you are concatenating commands like Hein-Jan did with “tvservice --preferred && sudo chvt 6 && sudo chvt 7” have in mind that commands after && are only executed if no errors are found. So maybe “tvservice -p” its working correctly but its giving some feedback and things after && aren’t executed.

You could force it by using ; as a separator instead of && so it doesn’t look for an answear

[schmo90]

hy i didnot turn off the hdmi,

i will turn off the lcd with the gpio’s

screen is turning on normal but electron browser is showing a black screen (mous appears at moving)

[binderth]

adding another flavour:
As my Foscam FI9900P got an ONVIF-Update lately and is now capable of RTSP-streaming I installed MMM-RTSPStream.

• activated fake (or full) OpenGL Desktop driver:
  omxplayer crashes
• activated non-GL desktop driver:
  omxplayer runs

So, as I see it, the omxplayer problem doesn’t concern MagicMirror - is there another way to reduce Electron CPU usage - except using an Open-GL dekstop driver?

PS: activating fake KMS reduced CPU usage as recommended in this thread - but I’d like to have the video-stream of my cam on the MM (unfortunately it doesn’t provide MJPEG)

[cdelaorden]

hi @binderth
the fake-kms was created for keeping omxplayer compatibility but you need to add the “–no-osd” flag to the omxplayer command line

you might want to try it

dont bet on it, but changing line 101 of node_helper.js to

var args = ["--no-osd", "--live", "--video_queue", "4", "--fps", "30",

might do the trick