Wayland problems in the April 2026 release

[parnic]

My MagicMirror installed on an rpi with Raspbian Bullseye was failing to start up with the following errors:

[27320:0401/071435.406601:ERROR:ui/ozone/platform/wayland/host/wayland_connection.cc:202] Failed to connect to Wayland display: No such file or directory (2)
[27320:0401/071435.406797:ERROR:ui/ozone/platform/wayland/ozone_platform_wayland.cc:281] Failed to initialize Wayland platform

As per https://github.com/MagicMirrorOrg/MagicMirror/pull/4011, I was able to modify my startup scripts to use start:x11 instead of start and it came back online. I’m concerned that the no-longer-default startup method will not continue to work into the future, so what steps do I need to take to ensure my installation continues to work in the future without special start targets? I assume this means a full RPi OS update, which I’m dreading as that typically means having to reconfigure everything I’ve setup for display rotation and touch support and etc.

[sdetweil]

@parnic how did you upgrade? And how did you start MagicMirror before this release?

[parnic]

@sdetweil upgrade:

git pull
npm i

Running with pm2 executing a shell script. Prior to this release, that script was

ELECTRON_ENABLE_LOGGING=true DISPLAY=:0 npm run start

now it’s

ELECTRON_ENABLE_LOGGING=true DISPLAY=:0 npm run start:x11

which works, I’m just concerned that the non-default path will not be checked regularly going forward. Maybe there’s a way to install wayland onto my rpi.

PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)"
NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="11"
VERSION="11 (bullseye)"
VERSION_CODENAME=bullseye
ID=raspbian

[sdetweil]

@parnic got it.

If you had used my installer it would have created a script to detect Wayland… and start () but oops I see a bug there too, fixed bug for new installs, have to fix for upgrades

[rkorell]

@parnic said:

I was able to modify my startup scripts to use start:x11 instead of start and it came back online

Dear parnic,
if you can start your mirror with x11 - than you have configured your pi for x11 - and wayland will not work! As far as I know this is either-or, not in parallel…

This is not related to the mirror upgrade, I guess.

You can change X11/wayland with raspi-config (with sudo) …

Hope this helps - good luck!

Ralf

[parnic]

@rkorell said:

This is not related to the mirror upgrade, I guess.

It’s related insofar as the default compositor changed which can break installations that have been working for quite a while. Fortunately the fix/workaround is straightforward, my concern is the stability of the fix going forward.

You can change X11/wayland with raspi-config (with sudo) …

Good to know - I’ll see if this works for me!

[karsten13]

@parnic

bullseye support ends in 5 month. But I don’t think we will remove the x11 start option because there are many other os which have no wayland support.

This is an electron option, wayland needs an extra param -ozone-platform=wayland. This is all defined in the package.json.

So as long as electron supports x11 I see no reason to remove the x11 option from mm.

With the new release we only switched to wayland as default option (when you use node --run start) because we think the majority is meanwhile using wayland.

[parnic]

@karsten13 I appreciate the info!

It does sound like a full reimage is advised if Bullseye will be out of support soon.

And to close the loop for others finding this, it looks like I just overlooked the notes about x11 in the forum post that was linked from the release: https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/20138/upcoming-release-april-1-2026-breaking-changes-some-operational-changes

[sdetweil]

@parnic use my backup/restore scripts to migrate your setup to next release
Backup existing, copy backup folder off or use GitHub
Flash sd with os, install MagicMirror (scripted)
Copy backup folder on or use GitHub source
Run restore

See
https://github.com/sdetweil/MagicMirror-backup-restore

[howest]

@rkorell

Today was the first day I actually heard of Wayland, so the update broke my setup, which has been running for several years. After reading all the discussions I could find, I used raspi-config to turn on Wayland (which said it was experimental), and the MagicMirror started, but my keyboard no longer worked. I use a combination wireless mouse/keyboard on my Raspberry Pi. The mouse worked fine, but no keyboard. I couldn’t stop the MagicMirror, or make changes to my startup script. I dug up a wired keyboard and turned off Wayland, and added x11 to my startup script. Everything is working fine now. I am assuming this was an elaborate April Fools joke.