Electron CPU usage

wtidwell

Hey all, new user here.

I just installed everything according on my pi3 to the handy guides, using the automatic installer. However my MM lags whenever there’s a big animation like the compliment changing or the news feed updating. Using task manager it seems my electron cpu usage is around 35 percent at rest and over 100 percent during a transition.

Any thoughts on this? What information do I need to supply to help identify the problem?

Mykle1

@wtidwell

That’s with just the default installation? Have you added any modules?

wtidwell

Yeah that’s just default, no additional modules. I did remove both compliments and news feed both together and individually to see if it was one particular module but it seems to be both causing problems.

Mykle1

@wtidwell said in Electron CPU usage:

I did remove both compliments and news feed both together and individually to see if it was one particular module but it seems to be both causing problems.

Well, I’m fairly certain it is neither one of those modules. You’ve got something else going on there. The Pi3 can easily handle the default installation, and more.

What size SD card are you using? What speed is the SD card you are using? Is there anything else on the SD card other than the OS and the MM software? How much available space is on the SD card?

wtidwell

It’s a Samsung 32gb microsd. It’s Class10, u1 which I was wondering if that may be a problem? It says I have 22.9gb free out of 27.9 total.

Also I tried to reinstall electron and it said there was an unmet peer dependency for styleint. So now I’m trying to figure out how to install that.

Edit: got stylelint installed but it’s still laggy.

Mykle1

@wtidwell

The capacity is certainly large enough. I don’t know if the U1 designation has anything to do with it. There is a recommended SD card list somewhere. Your free space is more than adequate, assuming you expanded the swap file during installation of the OS, or something like that. If stylelint was a warning, and not an error, then that shouldn’t affect performance. I know, all of this doesn’t help you, so . . .

A few more thoughts. Are you running Raspbian Jessie? Lite? Are node and npm up to date?

I know it’s a hassle, but I always suggest a clean, MANUAL installation as opposed to troubleshooting, which could take hours, or days. Some people have had troubles with the automatic installer. That’s just my opinion, for what it’s worth.

roramirez

@wtidwell Can you share the configuration when did you get a big CPU usage?

What version are you using?

wtidwell

@Mykle1
Looks like I’m running Jessie and my SD card is on the recommended list so I’ll try a manual reinstall.

Thanks for all your help!

wtidwell

@roramirez
@Mykle1

I just did a full clean install of everything including Raspian and I had to install stretch instead of Jessie but everything else installed smoothly but I’m still having this lag.

Mykle1

@wtidwell
2 clean installations, 1 with Jessie and 1 with Stretch and the same issue appears? Unless some step is missing with the OS or MM then I’d hate to assume you have a hardware issue. I really need to get a spare Pi3 so that I can troubleshoot more effectively. I’m only on a dev machine at the moment.

Perhaps @roramirez has some input here

Snille

Hmm… I always thought this was a normal behavior? Electron always runs pretty high on my RPI Mirror. This is my “task-list” using nmon on the RPi (via SSH) with basically nothing on the Mirror Screen but as you can see Electron is pretty active. :)

I do have quite a lot of active plugins of course…

wtidwell

@Mykle1
Yeah I’d hate that too. =/ gonna try another clean install but this time of Raspian lite. I guess I can try a new SD card as well.

@Snille
That’s what mine looks like now with only default modules. And it spikes all the time.

Mykle1

@wtidwell & @Snille

For what it’s worth:

Here are my screenshots from my Pi3 mirror, via VNC, as of this morning, August 21, 2017
at 8:26am New York time. You can clearly see that Magic Mirror is running. It’s minimized
in the top Menu Bar so I could run Task Manager for this test. I marked the significant
details with red stars. This is on top of a standard Raspbian Jessie installation that was
done in January, 2017 and Magic Mirror version 2.1.0. It has been running this way for
8 months now, without a hitch. These screenshots were done with all of the below modules
running. I also included a screenshot of my system stats to show the temperature of my Pi’s
CPU and my system load, as they both may relate to performance and throttling issues.

Modules running during test and screenshots.

motiondetector
compliments
MMM-Fortune
MMM-EasyPix - 2 instances
MMM-EARTH
clock
calendar
MMM-Events
MMM-SystemStats
MMM-NetworkScanner
MMM-WunderGround - 2 instances
MMM-doomsDay
camera
MMM-Lottery
voicecontrol
MMM-EyeCandy
newsfeed

Snille

@Mykle1 Can you do a screenshot from a terminal running nmon?
If you are ok with that… Here is how to do it.

Open a terminal (or log in via SSH).
Install nmon (sudo apt-get install nmon).
Open nmon by just typing “nmon”. :)
Press “t”, “l” and “m” to get “task list”, “longer term CPU averages” and “Memory & Swap stats”.
Press + to increase the update rate.
Let nmon fill the “CPU” meter and take a screenshot. :)
Press “q” to quit nmon.
Good thing about nmon is that you can use it from ssh (via putty). :)

Thank you!

roramirez

@Mykle1 said in Electron CPU usage:

Perhaps @roramirez has some input here

What version of electron did you is installed in the system?

Mykle1

@Snille said in Electron CPU usage:

Can you do a screenshot from a terminal running nmon?

I think I did this correctly and I think you wanted a screenshot of each, so here they are. How do my stats look?

Mykle1

@wtidwell said in Electron CPU usage:

I guess I can try a new SD card as well.

Yeah, you gotta try something to eliminate all possibilities. Let me know how you make out. Good luck!

wtidwell

@Mykle1
I just made sure I updated to electron1.7.5 and it’s still chugging like before. I got some errors aboutHere is my nmon reading as well.
Imgur.com/np2mv54

I don’t know what to make of this haha

Mykle1

@wtidwell said in Electron CPU usage:

I don’t know what to make of this haha

It can be frustrating. Hang in there. We’ll try to get you sorted or at least find out what the issue is so it can be corrected.

Now, let me look at your nmon

Edit: Ouch! :-(

Snille

@Mykle1 Thank you! :) You can actually get all three on the same “screen”. :) But what matters is that your CPU is hovering around 5% and mine (ours) are hovering around 20%x2… That is strange.

@wtidwell Are you rinnung a “lite” version or a full version of the OS?