Black Screen after Booting Up

[Mykle1]

@nickymac12 said in Black Screen after Booting Up:

If someone could help me out

After the bootup sequence and the screen goes black, have you tried your Alt key? If MM is running, and displaying a blank screen, you might get lucky. The Alt key should drop a menu down from the top. If it does, you won’t see your mouse until you move it all the way up into the menu bar, then you can quit the mirror from the leftmost menu.

Good luck

[j.e.f.f]

@nickymac12 are you able to connect remotely? over SSH? if so you might be able to check MM’s logs to see if anything went wrong

[nickymac12]

@Mykle1 I tried the alt key but nothing happened. The Windows key won’t pull down the menu either.

[nickymac12]

@j.e.f.f I usually use VNC Connect to connect to it remotely, but since I moved into a new house it isn’t connected to the new wifi so it won’t work.

[Mykle1]

@nickymac12

So the mirror has no internet connection?

[j.e.f.f]

@nickymac12 maybe try connecting a LAN cable. it should work with DHCP by default

[nickymac12]

@j.e.f.f I was able to connect but it still shows a black screen and I still cannot control it.

[j.e.f.f]

@nickymac12 is SSH enabled? if so try to connect that way. That will allow you to check MM’s logs

[nickymac12]

I am able to connect via SSH now. How do I check the MM’s logs?

[j.e.f.f]

@nickymac12 type pm2 logs mm

[j.e.f.f]

@nickymac12 Also, at this point, you can start disabling modules one by one until MM starts. That should help you figure out the culprit.

[nickymac12]

@j.e.f.f all it responded with was
“Spawning PM2 daemon with pm2_home=/home/pi/.pm2”

[j.e.f.f]

@nickymac12 ok. Try installing the sample config file.
Type:

cd ~/MagicMirror/config

mv config.js config.js.bak (this will back up your existing config)

cp config.js.sample config.js

pm2 restart mm

If magic mirror starts, then you either have a problem with your config or with a module.

[nickymac12]

So, unfortunately, I only had an 8gb sd card so I used that in my Pi and it is full so it will not write config.js.sample because there is not enough room…

[j.e.f.f]

@nickymac12 Aha! I’d say that might be your problem. See if you can free up some space, then restore your config file, and restart MM

[nickymac12]

Oh! How can I clear up space remotely?

[j.e.f.f]

@nickymac12 you can delete files with the rm command. Be careful with this, because it can’t be undone.

Say you wanted to delete some pictures you have in a folder in you home directory. Navigate to that directory like so:

cd ~/photo-directory-name (whatever the folder name might be)

rm file-name.jpg (this will permanently delete the file)

You can remove entire directories with the -r switch. Example:

rm -r directory-name

And be sure to double-check your typing before you hit enter. deleting things this way is not recoverable.

[nickymac12]

Is there a way to see what directories or files I have so I know what I can delete?

[j.e.f.f]

@nickymac12 yes.

Use the ls command to see a list of files in the current directory

use the cd command to enter a directory e.g.: cd directory-name

use the the command cd .. to go back up to the parent directory

the pwd command will tell show the path to the current directory

cd ~ will take you your home directory

[nickymac12]

how would I restore my config file? Sorry I am new to using terminal and don’t really know all the commands.