PM2 start web browser at start up of pi4

plainbroke

I am trying to get PM2 to start firefox when I boot raspi 4 running bookworm.
I have the browsers home page set to my tinycam pro web page display (local)
It works great if I start it manually but would like it to start from my crontab -e and shut down the same way I just do not understand the syntax I need to use to get Firefox to start using crontab.
Probably making it harder than it really is…
Thanks in advance.
Jeff

sdetweil

@plainbroke you could use pm2 to launch as well

in my scripts, runstart I launch firefox like this to view the MM page(on the same system)
where port is the MM port

firefox http://localhost:$port  -kiosk

I do not know how to launch it from crontab

plainbroke

@sdetweil

DISPLAY=:0 chromium https://www.google.com &

opens the chromium web browser with google just fine, but then I get this error over and over again.

[4886:4886:1201/195513.105659:ERROR:gbm_wrapper.cc(79)] Failed to get fd for plane.: No such file or directory (2)
[4886:4886:1201/195513.105747:ERROR:gbm_wrapper.cc(262)] Failed to export buffer to dma_buf: No such file or directory (2)

any idea why that would be happening? It doesn’t start until the web browser actually starts up on my screen. I can ctr c and it stops and the web browser stays running like I want it to.

I made a Camera.sh and pasted.
DISPLAY=:0 chromium 192.168.1.177:8083/live & ^C
PM2 start Camera.sh
PM2 save

AND

it works kind of, the problem now is it just keeps running and loading tab after tab until I kill it.
What am I not doing correctly.?

plainbroke

@sdetweil

I figured out I had to remove the && ctrl C and now it just opens the one tab.
DISPLAY=:0 chromium http://192.168.1.177:8083/live
is all that is inside the Camera.sh file now, it now works.
So I can now start it up with crontab -e
I can use killall chromium and it shuts it down.
But then pm2 restarts it for me automatically.
How do I get pm2 to stop watching for the shut down?

sdetweil

@plainbroke the app pm2 starts MUST STAY RUNNING
pm2’s job is to keep the app running. If it ends it starts it again

Repeat

You can use the sleep command

while 1 == 1
do
sleep 10000
done

plainbroke

@sdetweil
I just made it work, I am so happy
the commands to start it are
pm2 start 0
and to stop
pm2 stop 0
works that is how my MagicMirror starts in the mornings and stops at night…
pm2 is like magic…
Thanks for the help
I will give it a run overnight and see how crontab handles the commands.
You always have an answer that triggers my thought process to make it work.
Thank you Sam I appreciate your efforts to teach us that are not too bright…

sdetweil

@plainbroke we are all learning new stuff every day!!! Glad you got it!!