How I got my Magic Mirror working on a Raspberry Pi 0 (zero)

Hawking

@SebTota
Which updates are you referring to? I’m still using Raspbian Jessie Light (I didn’t use the image provided in this thread but my own installation and didn’t update so Stretch yet), which is up to date (according to sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade) and the latest version of MagicMirror (according to cd ~/MagicMirror && sudo git pull) and don’t see any (new) issues on my Pi Zero W.

What are your problems?
`

SebTota

@Hawking I get an error saying that modules/color is missing or something like that. I’ve been working on it for 3 days but can’t get it to work.

Hawking

@SebTota

Do you also get this error if you use a very minimal config file like

var config = {
        port: 8080,
        ipWhitelist: ["127.0.0.1", "::ffff:127.0.0.1", "::1"],
        language: "en",
        timeFormat: 24,
        units: "metric",
        modules: [
                {
                        module: "clock",
                        position: "top_left"
                },
        ]
};

/*************** DO NOT EDIT THE LINE BELOW ***************/
if (typeof module !== "undefined") {module.exports = config;}

If this works, you can step by step add the modules you want and see which one causes the problem.

The exact error message would be helpful for an analysis.

SebTota

@Hawking
module.js:339
throw err;
^

Error: Cannot find module ‘express’
at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:337:15)
at Function.Module._load (module.js:287:25)
at Module.require (module.js:366:17)
at require (module.js:385:17)
at Object. (/home/pi/MagicMirror/js/server.js:8:15)
at Module._compile (module.js:435:26)
at Object.Module._extensions…js (module.js:442:10)
at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
at Function.Module._load (module.js:311:12)
at Module.require (module.js:366:17)

and then the browser loads and says it cannot find http://localhost:8080

SebTota

@SebTota I went to my old image from before the update and thats still working fine, but when I updated it, it again had the error come up. The only difference is last time I did the update it said Error: Cannot find module ‘colors’

Hawking

@SebTota
I still don’t understand what update you are referring to.
Both error messages sound like there are modules missing (either “express” or “colors”).

What happens if you do

cd ~/MagicMirror && sudo npm install
cd ~/MagicMirror/vendor && npm install

SebTota

@Hawking My MagicMirror has been sitting for a long time. When I recently finished the frame to get the computer display and rpi zero out of my closet I booted the rpi zero and on the top of the display it said A New Version of Magic Mirror is available or something along those lines. So I went into the MagicMirror folder and used the command “git pull && npm install” as specified in the README file of MagicMirror.

Hawking

@SebTota said in How I got my Magic Mirror working on a Raspberry Pi 0 (zero):

git pull && npm install

Have there been errors when you did so?

I got

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/me/MagicMirror

Thats why I then did

cd ~/MagicMirror/vendor && npm install

in addition (see my post above). Maybe this also solves your problem.

SebTota

@Hawking Sorry to keep bothering you but I ended up making it work with the two commands you told me to do. Now my problem is when the Pi Zero W is booting it connects to the WiFi but when magic mirror boots the pi disconnects.

Hawking

@SebTota
Just to make sure that I understand the problem correctly:
You see the MagicMirror on the screen (Clock running etc). but you can no longer connect to the Pi Zero (using eg. ssh)?

Just as a test:
What happens if you disable the MagicMirror from autostart (for example by moving the MagicMirror start script from /etc/init.d/ to your home directory) and start it manually while you are already logged in? I don’t know your exact setup or your Linux knowledge, if you need further help how to do this, just let me know.