audio problem

[tommyk]

@sdetweil Hi sam
thanks for your reply, and thanks to everyone for all these wonderful modules
firstly I must say that I am a complete novice ,but love messing about with this mirror thing
I am running a pi 4 with debian 13 (trixie).
so when I type in terminal (cd MagicMirror npm start) the mirror starts with audio… ie Manual start
but when I created a bash file to autostart the mirror, which I got on utube from the fuzz guy
the mirror starts up automatically when the pi has loaded up… but there is no audio…
then if i click control and m to close the mirror and type in terminal the audio is on again.
so it seems something is not loading on autostart.
thats about all I know, sorry but I dont know how to show system info

thanks
tommyk

[sdetweil]

@tommyk I understand

Maybe there will be some info here

After starting from boot , where the audio fails,
Open the browser developers window
ctrl-shift-i
Select the console tab, and put juke in the filter field
To see if there are any errors, usually marked in red

If so, copy paste them here

Same keystroke to get out of dev window

Let me know what you find

Another test thing to try, is add a sleep 30
In the script before launching MagicMirror to see if that makes a difference

[tommyk]

@sdetweil hello again
thanks for your help sam.
I said I was a novice but neglected to say I am also a 77 year old fool, and I have just realized that I overlooked an issue which may be the problem I am having…so let me recap…

when I start up my pi 4 my speaker says bluetooth is now connected, then after 20 seconds the mirror starts with no audio, so I close the mirror and paste npm in terminal… ok…
then I just realized that the mirror wont start because the port is being used by another ?
so I have to open config.js to change the port number…
then the mirror opens up with audio and works fine…
so it seems it is a port issue…but how to fix this, I have no idea lol.
I just dont understand if it working ok when I change the port number , why is does not work on restart the next day.
why is the port being used by another something or other…
if the port was’nt being used then the mirror would autostart with no problem…I assume

any advice on that would be appreciated, and sorry for being a nusance
thanks again
tommyk

[sdetweil]

@tommyk no nuisance at all.

So, how did you setup to auto start. If you are using pm2 then there are commands that can help you without editing the config file to change the port

[tommyk]

well I tried pm2 method but could not get it to work
so I found a utube vid by the fuzz guy on how to autostart magic mirror
so I followed his instructions and finally got it to work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqNHX8v8cPY
perhaps I did something wrong . as I had to try a few times before it would actually autostart
cheers

[sdetweil]

@tommyk awesome… thanks…

ps. I am the current author/maintainer of the scripted MM install and upgrade scripts.
https://github.com/sdetweil/MagicMirror_scripts
referenced in the MM install doc, Alternative install methods…
I provide the mm.sh. and the pm2 setup to use it.
if you say no during install, then I provide a separate script to add that after the fact

I use pm2 because it fixes the one problem you have…

crontab started mm from a background script… BUT there is no EASY way to restart it without reboot…(which really isn’t needed) , unless you change the port like you found and start ANOTHER copy…

pm2 has ONE tiny drawback/benefit… its JOB is to START an app, AND KEEP IT RUNNING, if it fails for some reason, then it will get restarted… so, your old, crtl-q to quit, oops the app ends, pm2 will restart it

to work around that, pm2 is a commandline command, so ctrl-m to minimze MM, then open a terminal window,
ctrl-alt-t, and use pm2 status
to see the apps running under pm2 control
then using the name or number of the line with the app (I have a few apps under pm2 control)

id │ name                │ namespace   │ version │ mode    │ pid      │ uptime │ ↺    │ status    │ cpu      │ mem      │ user     │ watching │
├────┼─────────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────┼────────┼──────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ 8  │ MagicMirror         │ default     │ 2.32.0… │ fork    │ N/A      │ 0      │ 245… │ stopped   │ 0%       │ 0b       │ sam      │ disabled │
│ 7  │ MagicMirror 8       │ default     │ 2.31.0… │ fork    │ N/A      │ 0      │ 8    │ stopped   │ 0%       │ 0b       │ sam      │ disabled │
│ 10 │ MagicMirror-test    │ default     │ 2.37.0… │ fork    │ N/A      │ 0      │ 30   │ stopped   │ 0%       │ 0b       │ sam      │ disabled │

so to restart my current test version MM, I need to use the number 10, or the name MagicMirror-test

pm2 stop 10
pm2 start 10

or

pm2 restart 10

a learning thing, under linux, raspios, … by convention commandline commands are required to provide easy access help, by responding to the --help parm

pm2 --help 

will do that… but ANY command should respond appropriately
— back to the problem

the mm.sh script he uses

npm run start

run start is a shortcut to npm run start

starting in release 2.35 we changed the startup to use the Raspberrypi default wayland display environment.
you can see this by examining the scripts: list in package.json (see below)
BUT many are not using that, still on x11… SO,

you need to change the script to use
npm run start:x11
(my mm.sh has that built in)

a part the package.json scripts list (I added comments, not allowed in a json file)

  "scripts": {
                "config:check": "node js/check_config.js",
                "postinstall": "git clean -df fonts vendor modules/default",
                "install-mm": "npm install --no-audit --no-fund --no-update-notifier --only=prod --omit=dev",
                "install-mm:dev": "npm install --no-audit --no-fund --no-update-notifier && npx playwright install chromium",
                "lint:css": "stylelint 'css/**/*.css' 'defaultmodules/**/*.css' --fix",
                "lint:js": "eslint --fix",
                "lint:markdown": "markdownlint-cli2 . --fix",
                "lint:prettier": "prettier . --write",
                "prepare": "[ -f node_modules/.bin/husky ] && husky || echo no husky installed.",
                "server": "node ./serveronly",
                "server:watch": "node ./serveronly/watcher.js",
                "start": "node --run start:wayland",    <----------------------------  start launch start:wayland
                "start:dev": "node --run start:wayland -- dev",
                "start:wayland": "WAYLAND_DISPLAY=\"${WAYLAND_DISPLAY:=wayland-1}\" ./node_modules/.bin/electron js/electron.js --ozone-platform=wayland", <-- start:wayland
                "start:wayland:dev": "node --run start:wayland -- dev",
                "start:windows": ".\\node_modules\\.bin\\electron js\\electron.js",
                "start:windows:dev": "node --run start:windows -- dev",
                "start:x11": "DISPLAY=\"${DISPLAY:=:0}\" ./node_modules/.bin/electron js/electron.js",

anyhow after ALL THAT… i’d edit your existing mm.sh and increase the time from 20 to 30 to try and let the system settle down some more… this is just a test…

if you want to switch to my pm2 setup, you can edit the crontab, and add a pound sign/hash ‘#’ as the first char of your launch of mm.sh, this will make it a comment

reboot so MM is not running (there are cool ways to make tools(scripts) that can solve that problem, but not trying to go there
and then copy/paste the command to setup pm2 launch from my scripts repo… not git clone, just copy paste one line to a terminal window
see https://github.com/sdetweil/MagicMirror_scripts#add-using-pm2-to-autostart-magicmirror-at-bootup

ps, i’m only a couple years younger then you…

[tommyk]

wow, thats a lot of info, I will maybe have to ponder over that a while to let it sink in
I will get back to you when I have digested some of this info
and hopefully gained some knowledge
thank you again
tommyk

[sdetweil]

@tommyk yeh, but I wanted to explain WHY and WHAT you can DO…

anytime, we’re here to help.
I do the scripts to help users get MM up and running, and KEEP their systems running… feel successful…

[tommyk]

@sdetweil Hi Sam
turned my pi4 on this morning
bluetooth speaker said I am now connected
Magic Mirror started after a short pause
hello lucy said hello and welcome to magic mirror jukebox
I clicked on a jukebox button and woke the neighbors up . lol…joking
and I thought (yippi) music played

now, I mess around with so many different things at once I confuse myself
so I dont know exactly what I done, but I did put a pound sigh at the start of the bash file
and changed the sleep time to 30
and done what you advised , run start with x11 etc.
Im not sure but I think I may have pasted some of your pm2 script in terminal
but whatever i did , thanks to you my problem is solved, I think you are a genius
…
my next project is to get my android phone to control the mirror
I tried mmm remote once and failed , so now that the autostart is working
I will try that again
thank you so much for all your help

ps, I think I may be back to you regarding this remote module
thank you
tommyk

[sdetweil]

@tommyk glad you got it working

As for remote control , open another topic. I’m sure someone can help