[ERROR] unable to write js/positions.js

FalcoonnnnPUNCH

Newbie here, sorry if this is an obvious fix.
I just installed MagicMirror on a Pi 3 A+ yesterday. I can start the magic mirror application but it only displays a blank black screen.
I followed the following installation guide: https://docs.magicmirror.builders/getting-started/installation.html#manual-installation

full error message:
“unable to write js/positions.js with the discovered module positions make the MagicMirror/js folder writeable by the uder starting MagicMirror”

I’ve attempted to change ownership of the folder but was unsuccessful.

FalcoonnnnPUNCH

Hello all,

So based on some of the comments here, i tried a new SD and a new pi. I had spare SDs lying around and I had a pi 4B that I was going to use initially but didn’t have a micro hdmi cable at the time so I had to use the 3. Micro HDMI cable came in, loaded piOS on the new SD, followed the MagicMirror install instructions and it came up first try.

Not sure what the initial issue was with the original install but I honestly just needed a win before getting bogged down in the weeds with stuff. I would like to have some fun with it first. Might go back to the original pi3 at a later date just to try and correct the initial issue, but for now, I’m happy.
The inital install, I had used sudo for the installation of MagicMirror, in this iteration I did not. I only utilized sudo to install the node.js

thanks everyone for the advice/comments.

sdetweil

@FalcoonnnnPUNCH tell me more. how is MagicMirror installed where?

there was a bug on windows on 2.29, but it was fixed on 2.30 the current release

did you use sudo while installing MagicMirror

emlowe

Although it’s not related to your problem - I have a lot of trouble getting MM to run on the 512MB Pi3 A+.

It freezes often - possibly it’s bad h/w or sd card although it all tests fine - but after several days of running and it ends up frozen and inaccessible. (ie can’t ssh to it, etc unless I restart it)

I tried using some of the lower memory options instead of using electron without much success. It runs for a little longer but eventually still dies. None of my Pi3 B models with the 4GB RAM have had similar problems - so I tend to think it is something related to RAM

Just to say that you may find the experience in running on the Pi 3 A+ to be “complicated”

sdetweil

@emlowe what os level are you running?
i recommend the 32 bit legacy image

if you use my install script i will increase the swap spacr

emlowe

uname -m
armv7l

cat /etc/os-release 
PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)"

free -h
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           425Mi       316Mi        99Mi       8.1Mi        67Mi       108Mi
Swap:          732Mi       274Mi       457Mi

swapon -s
Filename				Type		Size		Used		Priority
/var/swap                               file		204796		0		-2
/dev/zram0                              partition	544892		299760		15

zramctl 
NAME       ALGORITHM DISKSIZE   DATA COMPR  TOTAL STREAMS MOUNTPOINT
/dev/zram0 lz4         532.1M 292.7M 98.2M 101.8M       4 [SWAP]


Jan 26 22:00:46 kid-mirror kernel: Out of memory: Killed process 23127 (WebKitWebProces) total-vm:1178000kB, anon-rss:184084kB, file-rss:0kB, shmem-rss:0kB, UID:1000 pgtables:1044kB oom_score_adj:0

sdetweil

@emlowe yes, i would try the 32 but legacy image on bullseye

bookworm seems about 500m bigger

sdetweil

@emlowe out of memory

plainbroke

@FalcoonnnnPUNCH
@emlowe
@sdetweil
I have had that problem before and it was a bad card. One other time it was a bad USB drive… Might try a different sdcard.

sdetweil

@plainbroke good point, I have had a number of sd card failures over the years, and they have all become read-only

FalcoonnnnPUNCH

Hello all,

So based on some of the comments here, i tried a new SD and a new pi. I had spare SDs lying around and I had a pi 4B that I was going to use initially but didn’t have a micro hdmi cable at the time so I had to use the 3. Micro HDMI cable came in, loaded piOS on the new SD, followed the MagicMirror install instructions and it came up first try.

Not sure what the initial issue was with the original install but I honestly just needed a win before getting bogged down in the weeds with stuff. I would like to have some fun with it first. Might go back to the original pi3 at a later date just to try and correct the initial issue, but for now, I’m happy.
The inital install, I had used sudo for the installation of MagicMirror, in this iteration I did not. I only utilized sudo to install the node.js

thanks everyone for the advice/comments.