MM shuts down after an hour

[Lazershrimp]

Hi!

This might be a stupid noob question and possibly in the wrong part of the forum, but I’m going nuts here. Until now, I’ve been running my MM every day, flawlessly for three years.

I run MM on a dedicated RPi3B, through “Raspberry Pi OS with desktop”, now on version 5.15. Ever since the last upgrade of the MM software (2.22.0?), the MM stops running after an hour or so. Sometimes I get the black screen, sometimes it reverts to what looks like a login screen. On reboot, MM runs again. For an hour or so.

To troubleshoot, I have

• gotten a new SD card,
• I have tried wiping the card and reinstalling Pi OS and MM three times,
• I have disabled screen blanking, and
• I have tried installing xscreensaver and disabling it through the Pi OS,
• I have checked that all my modules have the Node Helper,
  all with with no luck.

Of course all modules are updated.

What happened simultaneously is that I have great trouble accessing the Pi through SSH (PuTTY), but I’ve narrowed that issue down to a poorly working WiFi unit in the Pi. Therefore it’s difficult for me to access logs. I can, but I need to run a long cable. The Wifi works well enough to support updating the modules during use.

Modules I use:
MMM-Skolmaten
MMM-Tibber
MMM-NetworkScanner
MMM-Remote-Control
MMM-Netatmo
MMM-ResRobot

Any pointers would be helpful. If you need me to upload logs, please tell me how to do that, step by step …

Thanks!

[sdetweil]

@Lazershrimp how do you start mm?

npm start
pm2

did u upgrade the base os?

[Lazershrimp]

@sdetweil Yes, I use PM2 to start MM. If you by base OS mean RPi OS, then yes.

[sdetweil]

@Lazershrimp can u minimize mm ctrl-m and use the preferences (top left menu)
to see if blank screen was turned back on?

or from a terminal or ssh window, run my screensaveroff script from

https://github.com/sdetweil/MagicMirror_scripts

next to the last thing listed on the page, copy/paste the one line

[jasondreher]

I had a similar issue, the screen would go black after an hour or so (never the login screen just always went black). On of my modules was not compatible with the upgrade. Once I removed that module all was well.

[sdetweil]

@jasondreher can u tell me about that module? I like to keep track of troubles users experience

[jasondreher]

@sdetweil
https://github.com/scottcl88/MMM-DynamicWeather

Once I removed this module I had no issues.

[sdetweil]

@jasondreher that module suffers from this

https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/15778/fix-for-black-screen-in-2-16-and-later?page=1

[Lazershrimp]

@sdetweil said in MM shuts down after an hour:

or from a terminal or ssh window, run my screensaveroff script from
https://github.com/sdetweil/MagicMirror_scripts
next to the last thing listed on the page, copy/paste the one line

Thanks, I am now trying the screensaveroff script. Will have to wait for an hour to see if it works.

@sdetweil said in MM shuts down after an hour:

@jasondreher that module suffers from this
https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/15778/fix-for-black-screen-in-2-16-and-later?page=1

I have checked my modules for the package.json files, all good

[sdetweil]

@Lazershrimp you are not checking for package.json, except to apply the fix

the fix is to

npm install xxxx

where xxx is the missing library as found in the log error messages

[Lazershrimp]

@sdetweil said in MM shuts down after an hour:

@Lazershrimp you are not checking for package.json, except to apply the fix
the fix is to
npm install xxxx
where xxx is the missing library as found in the log error messages

This I don’t understand. You write in “fix for black screen in 2.16 and later” that some MM modules used libraries, which are now removed.

By navigating to the module folder and running “ls package.json”, I am checking whether the module contains this file or not, yes? If it does not, the fix is to install it by typing “npm init -y”

But since my modules all seem to contain the package.json, I’m guessing that this is not what causes my problem.

Or am I wrong?

[sdetweil]

@Lazershrimp you are wrong

if you have a black screen

you look at the messages put out from npm start

if you see

cannot find module xxxx

then this mm module has the problem

the fix is to install the missing library (called module in the message,) IN the mm module folder

NOW as part of the fix process we want the file put in the right place NOT in the MagicMirror folder.

to DO THAT , the mm module MUST supply a package.json file

this is where the ls command comes in to the fix process

it it already exists, cool, do the npm install for the missing library

if it does NOT exist, create it it with the npm init -y command
AND then do the npm install for the missing library.

but, the 1st step is to identify the missing library from the message output.
if that is NOT the problem, then the rest of the instructions don’t matter

there are.multiple libraries that could cause the problem, that’s why I have to read the messages to determine which ones are needed

[Lazershrimp]

@sdetweil I am having trouble following you, but that would most likely be due to my poor understanding of programming and its terminology.

You say

@sdetweil said in MM shuts down after an hour:

look at the messages put out from npm start
if you see
cannot find module xxxx
then this mm module has the problem

… I don’t even understand what you mean by “messages put out from npm start”. Is that the “start screen” for MM, the one that appears if you have a say an error in your config file?

However, I’m thinking that’s not the issue here. As I mentioned, I did follow your guide “fix for black screen in 2.16 …”, and the output was normal. Also, I don’t always get black screens, sometimes it’s a login screen.

The screensaveroff script didn’t help either. MM still shuts down after a while. It’s not always after an hour, seems to vary. Earlier today it had shut down after 39 mins, now it’s been running for over 40 mins.

Again, I’m sorry for my bad skills at this. Any help would be much appreciated!

[sdetweil]

@Lazershrimp I only have one more question

does it shutdown if MagicMirror is not running?

[Lazershrimp]

@sdetweil said in MM shuts down after an hour:

I only have one more question
does it shutdown if MagicMirror is not running?

Thanks for your patience, Sam.

Haven’t actually tried not running the MM, since it autostarts. And I don’t have a mouse/keyboard attached to the mirror setup. Good question though.

But - I think I might actually have figured out what the problem is! I pulled out a long ethernet cable to hardwire the Pi to internet. And - it’s been running for three hours straight now. Thinking that this might actually be a hardware issue.

If it still runs tomorrow morning, I will call this a faulty Wifi circuit issue. Strange though, that it would coincide with the software update.

What do you you think? Could a dodgy Wifi crash the MM app?

[sdetweil]

@Lazershrimp dodgie wifi creates dodgie data, which crashes all kind of apps

[Lazershrimp]

MM has been running flawlessly for >24h now, with assistance of a LAN cable. I consider the issue solved. Have ordered a wifi usb dongle as a more permanent solution. I consider this issue solved.

[sdetweil]

@Lazershrimp awesome detective work!!