Third-Party Module - how to get help?

sdetweil

@ember1205 the pics above are without any mods… installed MM, install the module, linked to my server and started MM… they reach to the top of the window or the side (only a few), never both
no border around. not used space is filled with the background color.

if u accidentally zoomed in the browser using ctrl-+, it sadly remembers across instances

ctrl-minus sign will zoom out again

ember1205

@sdetweil

I’ll definitely give it a try. But… If it were a browser zoom issue, wouldn’t that prevent the other module from displaying them properly as well?

sdetweil

@ember1205 yes…

sdetweil

I just added a little bit of debug messaging…

go to the MMM-ImagesPhotos folder, and do a git pull

then edit the config and add
debug:true,

then restart MM

using keyboard, hit ctrl-shift-i, a window will open on right side, select the tab labeled console, and type
image into the field labeled filter…

now u will see messages from the module as it loads images and gets the image actual size, and sets the location and dimension of the image to be displayed… like this sizes are width/height
top is the top left corner (all locations are relative to the top left corner of the screen, 0,0 is the top left… so 0:72 is all the way left and 72 pixels down. (note its centered, so height+2*offset = max,.

MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:237 image setting size to 3023:2015
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:238 image setting top to 0:72
2015+72*2=2159 (of 2160) in this case

MM-ImagesPhotos.js:222 image loaded=http://localhost:8080/MMM-ImagesPhotos/photo/DSC_0491.JPG size=4000:6000
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:237 image setting size to 1440:2160
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:238 image setting top to 791:0

MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:222 image loaded=http://localhost:8080/MMM-ImagesPhotos/photo/PICT0097.JPG size=5472:3648
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:237 image setting size to 3023:2015
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:238 image setting top to 0:72

MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:222 image loaded=http://localhost:8080/MMM-ImagesPhotos/photo/DSC_0027.JPG size=6000:4000
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:237 image setting size to 3023:2015
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:238 image setting top to 0:72

MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:222 image loaded=http://localhost:8080/MMM-ImagesPhotos/photo/DSC_0476.JPG size=6000:4000
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:237 image setting size to 3023:2015
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:238 image setting top to 0:72

MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:222 image loaded=http://localhost:8080/MMM-ImagesPhotos/photo/DSC_0042.JPG size=6000:4000
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:237 image setting size to 3023:2015
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:238 image setting top to 0:72

MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:222 image loaded=http://localhost:8080/MMM-ImagesPhotos/photo/DSC_0198.JPG size=6000:4000
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:237 image setting size to 3023:2015
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:238 image setting top to 0:72

MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:222 image loaded=http://localhost:8080/MMM-ImagesPhotos/photo/DSC_0720.JPG size=4496:3000
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:237 image setting size to 3023:2017
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:238 image setting top to 0:71

MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:222 image loaded=http://localhost:8080/MMM-ImagesPhotos/photo/DSC_0697.JPG size=3000:4496
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:237 image setting size to 1441:2160
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:238 image setting top to 791:0

MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:222 image loaded=http://localhost:8080/MMM-ImagesPhotos/photo/DSC_0319.JPG size=4000:6000
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:237 image setting size to 1440:2160
MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:238 image setting top to 791:0

ember1205

@sdetweil

“do a get pull”… To date, I’ve done little with repositories - can you elaborate on how I do this to make sure I do it correctly?

Also… Some updates.

CTRL - does not affect image size in any way. It DOES affect the sizing of the text for the other modules, though.
I believe that I have determined that the desktop / browser “believes” that it is in portrait mode. The images seem to be getting constrained properly, but because the browser is configured to be as tall as it is, I’m losing all kinds of content off the bottom of the screen. If I do a CTRL-SHIFT-I and then turn on the device toolbar, I see a full vertical representation of the browser and I can see the entire image. As I increase the zoom, it becomes apparent where the image is getting clipped vertically.

Thoughts?

sdetweil

@ember1205
do a get pull…

No
“do a git pull”

Do

cd ~/MagicMirror/modules/MMM-ImagesPhotos
git pull

That copies the latest from a remote repo and updates the local copy and working directory.

I don’t understand how electron thinks it should be in portrait mode. Never seen that

sdetweil

@sdetweil yeh, you should NOT zoom in

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fake kms driver?

ember1205

@sdetweil

git pull says everything up to date and didn’t do anything. No image size info available.

I tried reverting TO the fake driver as I was not using it (real one instead) and that hasn’t made any difference. I also tried editing the startup file to remove the rotate setting, also didn’t help.

sdetweil

@ember1205 did u install.my MMM-ImagesPhotos or the original?

I JUST updated mine before telling u, and I just checked the new code is there.

In the MMM-ImagePhotos folder do
git remote -v
Should point to sdetweil

ember1205

@sdetweil

I followed the directions on the page for your module:

Clone this repository inside your MagicMirror's modules folder

cd ~/MagicMirror/modules

git clone https://github.com/roramirez/MMM-ImagesPhotos.git.

I saw the reference to roramirez, but as I said - I don’t do a lot with git, so I have to go with what’s on the page. Did that install the original?

sdetweil

@ember1205 yes, u installed the original… when one develops enhancements of a git project, you make a connected copy (fork), anything u change can be sent back to the author with a ‘pull request’. I didn’t change any of his install instructions.

when u are on a git project, there is a button, clone or download(the fork, not the original), u press that, and then click the little clipboard icon to copy the url for the git clone command

at any time, you can see where your instance is sourced from by doing

git remote -v

in the module folder

so, I would rename the current folder out of the way (the original doesn’t work at all for me)

cd ~/MagicMirror/modules
mv MMM-ImagesPhotos MMM-ImagesPhotos.orig
git clone https://github.com/sdetweil/MMM-ImagesPhotos

and then restart the mirror

ember1205

@sdetweil

Sigh. Best laid plans… lol

At any rate - I actually rm’ed the original dir and re-did the clone using YOUR version. Came right up and started working properly right out of the gate.

Thanks for not only all of the help, but all of the patience. I do learn quickly, and this should now remain fairly firmly entrenched in my brain going forward.

Now I’m off to see how to modify the CSS of MM to change some of the font aspects for text!

sdetweil

@ember1205 cool. thanks for the feedback… come on back when u need help, there are amazing talented folks who can help with just about everything!

ember1205

I know this is marked ‘solved’, but I wanted to mention that A ) the module does still crash with “out of memory” errors and B ) a little bit of investigative tinkering makes me think that this all ties back to a garbage collection issue with Java.

If I change the timing of how often the images change, I can effectively ‘force’ or almost eliminate a crash. The shorter the duration between photos, the more likely a crash will occur. I changed the timing to 45 seconds and saw the setup run reliably from power on at 7AM until power off at 11PM for multiple days in a row.

Shortening the window down to 5 seconds between images will cause the system to crash typically within about 10-15 minutes at a maximum.

At no time do I actively witness memory levels dropping down to zero, but that could just be “bad luck” in not seeing the issue arise when it errors out. Is there an easy way on the Pi to track a process and watch for a specific, correlating event when something crashes?

ember1205

Also - I caught this error with your debug output:

Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 404 (Not Found) :8080/MMM-ImagesPhotos/photos:1

That’s at the beginning of the console output along with another error I have seen later in the console:

MMM-ImagesPhotos Could not load photos
photosrequest.onreadystatechange @ :8080/modules/MMM-ImagesPhotos/MMM-ImagesPhotos.js:65

Any thoughts on those?

sdetweil

@ember1205 i am not aware of any debugging tools or strategy that can get to the type of issue being encountered. I have been chasing these for the last 4 years…

i also think the error reported is bogus, caused by the mishandling of some other error.

the ‘problem’ is that the browser thinks IT is in control of the content update cycle, but with all these modules running separate timer event handlers, it is not.

I have debugged a lot of ‘electron is single threaded’ problems down to , ‘you might THINK its single threaded, but it is NOT’… when the timer fires, SOMETHING is getting interrupted… in gosh knows what state…

one way you might prove this, is to turn off every other module, so only ONE does any content updating (it is a web page after all)

One of my modules has 2-10 images loaded over the top of the web page, on independent timing cycles. i traced failures to attempting to load an image, while an image load was already in progress. I added code to my module to prevent this behavior, and my failures went away.

I added a background image thing, and they returned when my module is running…
they are both loading images at the same time sometimes… and electron crashes… in various ways.

I have been trying (last 6 months) to find a mechanism to serialize this across multiple modules, without changing the modules, but have failed so far.

we are also running on an age old electron (3.x), which the most recent version that will run for MM is 6.x) (7.x will not run)

sdetweil

@ember1205 said in Third-Party Module - how to get help?:

:8080/MMM-ImagesPhotos/photos:1

yeh, the code attempts to load the folder… once… I haven’t debugged it cause it doesn’t matter

ember1205

@sdetweil said in Third-Party Module - how to get help?:

@ember1205 said in Third-Party Module - how to get help?:

:8080/MMM-ImagesPhotos/photos:1

yeh, the code attempts to load the folder… once… I haven’t debugged it cause it doesn’t matter

Thanks.

What about second error I mentioned? Or, is that essentially part of the overall error?

sdetweil

@ember1205 part of the same… looking at it now

sdetweil

@ember1205

ok, fixed the error message… a startup timing error…

module tried to get images from node_helper, before node_helper had established the linkage…
(if u are using my repo)
go to your MMM-ImagesPhotos folder and do

git pull

then restart mirror app