Electron CPU usage

Tourpe

@MichMich Got a similar issue as reported by @schlachtkreuzer6, unfortunately I now have a black screen when starting. Logs show “WARNING! Could not load config file. Starting with default configuration. Error found: Error: Module version mismatch. Expected 50, got 54”. Any suggest on how to revert?

Update: Managed to successfully revert back but doing a " npm install electron".

Sandy2503

i have a problem at downgrading:

pi@magicmirror:~ $ cd ~/MagicMirror
pi@magicmirror:~/MagicMirror $  npm install electron@1.4.15

> electron@1.4.15 postinstall /home/pi/MagicMirror/node_modules/electron
> node install.js

- @types/node@7.0.43 node_modules/@types/node
magicmirror@2.1.3 /home/pi/MagicMirror
└── electron@1.4.15  invalid

How can i fix that ?

Sandy2503

cruunnerr

Hey guys,

(first, sorry for my english. i hope you understand what i am trying to tell^^)

i have got the same problem as u all.

So i tried to fix it with using MagicMirror 2.1.0 and electron 1.4.15

Unfortunately i am not the best programer, so sometimes i don’t know if i’m doing anything right.

Well, i tried the option as shown in this thread on page 18 (https://forum.magicmirror.builders/post/28875)

That gave me some npm errors when i type “npm start”.
So i tried to use this guide: https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/5274/how-to-manually-install-mm-on-your-pi-for-absolute-beginners

But it gave me the same errors.

Step by step i did:

rename the original MM-Folder to “MagicMirror_OLD”
Downloaded this https://github.com/MichMich/MagicMirror/archive/v2.1.0.zip
extract it and rename it to “MagicMirror”
cd in this folder and type “npm install”
after installing was done i typed “npm start” and got this:

pi@MagicMirror:~ $ cd ~/MagicMirror/
pi@MagicMirror:~/MagicMirror $ npm start

> magicmirror@2.1.0 start /home/pi/MagicMirror
> electron js/electron.js


npm ERR! Linux 4.9.59-v7+
npm ERR! argv "/usr/bin/node" "/usr/bin/npm" "start"
npm ERR! node v6.12.2
npm ERR! npm  v3.10.10
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! magicmirror@2.1.0 start: `electron js/electron.js`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Failed at the magicmirror@2.1.0 start script 'electron js/electron.js'.
npm ERR! Make sure you have the latest version of node.js and npm installed.
npm ERR! If you do, this is most likely a problem with the magicmirror package,
npm ERR! not with npm itself.
npm ERR! Tell the author that this fails on your system:
npm ERR!     electron js/electron.js
npm ERR! You can get information on how to open an issue for this project with:
npm ERR!     npm bugs magicmirror
npm ERR! Or if that isn't available, you can get their info via:
npm ERR!     npm owner ls magicmirror
npm ERR! There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR!     /home/pi/MagicMirror/npm-debug.log
pi@MagicMirror:~/MagicMirror $

Another time i tried as shown on page 18. it was showing me, that i was using electron 1.4.15, but when i typed the “npm start” it shows me the same message as above.

i don’t know what to do :( would be quite nice, if u guys could invest some time to solve my problem together. thank you very much :)

edit:

the “npm-debug.log” is here:

``
0 info it worked if it ends with ok
1 verbose cli [ ‘/usr/bin/node’, ‘/usr/bin/npm’, ‘start’ ]
2 info using npm@3.10.10
3 info using node@v6.12.2
4 verbose run-script [ ‘prestart’, ‘start’, ‘poststart’ ]
5 info lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.0~prestart: magicmirror@2.1.0
6 silly lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.0~prestart: no script for prestart, continuing
7 info lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.0~start: magicmirror@2.1.0
8 verbose lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.0~start: unsafe-perm in lifecycle true
9 verbose lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.0~start: PATH: /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/node-gyp-bin:/home/pi/MagicMirror/node_modules/.bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games
10 verbose lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.0~start: CWD: /home/pi/MagicMirror
11 silly lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.0~start: Args: [ ‘-c’, ‘electron js/electron.js’ ]
12 silly lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.0~start: Returned: code: 1 signal: null
13 info lifecycle magicmirror@2.1.0~start: Failed to exec start script
14 verbose stack Error: magicmirror@2.1.0 start: electron js/electron.js
14 verbose stack Exit status 1
14 verbose stack at EventEmitter. (/usr/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/lifecycle.js:255:16)
14 verbose stack at emitTwo (events.js:106:13)
14 verbose stack at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:191:7)
14 verbose stack at ChildProcess. (/usr/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/spawn.js:40:14)
14 verbose stack at emitTwo (events.js:106:13)
14 verbose stack at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:191:7)
14 verbose stack at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:920:16)
14 verbose stack at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:230:5)
15 verbose pkgid magicmirror@2.1.0
16 verbose cwd /home/pi/MagicMirror
17 error Linux 4.9.59-v7+
18 error argv “/usr/bin/node” “/usr/bin/npm” “start”
19 error node v6.12.2
20 error npm v3.10.10
21 error code ELIFECYCLE
22 error magicmirror@2.1.0 start: electron js/electron.js
22 error Exit status 1
23 error Failed at the magicmirror@2.1.0 start script ‘electron js/electron.js’.
23 error Make sure you have the latest version of node.js and npm installed.
23 error If you do, this is most likely a problem with the magicmirror package,
23 error not with npm itself.
23 error Tell the author that this fails on your system:
23 error electron js/electron.js
23 error You can get information on how to open an issue for this project with:
23 error npm bugs magicmirror
23 error Or if that isn’t available, you can get their info via:
23 error npm owner ls magicmirror
23 error There is likely additional logging output above.
24 verbose exit [ 1, true ]

Sandy2503

@cruunnerr - I `ve done it !
without previous Unistall

i have downgraded with:

sudo npm install -g electron@1.4.15

Sandy2503

cruunnerr

Well,

i had MM 2.1.2 installed, so i needed to use the 2.1.0 way…

but i actually got it running with “DISPLAY=:0 npm start”

then i just copied the installed modules folders to the new directory and copied my “old” config.js but that didn’t work.

i actually install the 3rd party modules manual. hopefully my old config.js will work then.

But thank you anyway

edit:

so,

i got MM2.1.0 running with electron 1.4.15

have had a few problems, but now all works great.

knubbl

Bad issue with electron. When i downgrade to 1.4.15 the default calender module does not work

ok…calendar works fine

cruunnerr

Cause i didn’t want to run 2.1.0 and also got many errors every time i looked in the logs, i decided to do a fresh install and try again.

So i just installed a fresh Raspbian stretch lite and followed this guide: https://github.com/MichMich/MagicMirror/wiki/Jessie-Lite-Installation-Guide

after the first start i got 80-85% cpu usage just playing the default modules.

so i went into my MagicMirror folder and just typed “npm install electron@1.4.15”.
It said that the version seems to be invalid, but after a reboot i tooled a look in the
“/home/pi/MagicMirror/node_modules/electron/dist/version”
and saw a 1.4.15 shown.

thats all.

so in my experience its just the electron version needed to downgrade. Neither the OS nor the MagicMirror Version needs to be downgraded.

Loaded up a video: https://youtu.be/ak_mEMuLpYc

shows “nmon-stats” while adding Traffic- and News-Module via Remote Control
Still shows peaks when animation comes, but its fluety anyway

WeatherGeek

I have been having the issue, thanks so much for all the detailed information! I am going to do a fresh install with Jessy and downgrade Electron and MM2.

mattn

First off, apologies for the necro! But I had to reinstall MM this weekend and came across this same issue. After a fair bit of time reinstalling/googling, I managed to resolve it by adding the following to /etc/environment

ELECTRON_FORCE_WINDOW_MENU_BAR=1

So thought I’d post it here in case anyone else experiences this.
I’ve had the default install running for a while since adding the fix and my load avg has dropped from 6+ to “0.00, 0.02, 0.02” and electron seems to peak at around 7% every ~30s for about 2s. The rest of the time it isn’t even visible in top’s list.

credit to reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/5x9t7j/electron_app_high_cpu_usage/
Edit: After adding my usual modules, electron’s CPU usage has gone up to a fairly constant ~9% across 3 processes.

top - 00:04:33 up 25 min,  3 users,  load average: 0.06, 0.13, 0.13
Tasks: 156 total,   2 running, 154 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  2.0 us,  0.4 sy,  0.0 ni, 97.6 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem:    947732 total,   486072 used,   461660 free,    26476 buffers
KiB Swap:   102396 total,        0 used,   102396 free.   240288 cached Mem

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
 1387 pi        20   0  300260  98384  55840 S   4.9 10.4   0:45.48 electron
 1394 pi        20   0  286500  68700  49420 S   2.0  7.2   0:23.08 electron
 1358 pi        20   0  436408  78528  57656 S   1.0  8.3   0:19.25 electron

Edit2: Left it running over night, and it’s stable:

top - 07:51:22 up  8:12,  3 users,  load average: 0.24, 0.23, 0.17
Tasks: 153 total,   1 running, 152 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  2.1 us,  0.3 sy,  0.0 ni, 97.5 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem:    947732 total,   543280 used,   404452 free,    34664 buffers
KiB Swap:   102396 total,        0 used,   102396 free.   271040 cached Mem

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
 1798 pi        20   0  301180  99652  56580 S   5.3 10.5  22:54.84 electron
 1805 pi        20   0  321060  79368  50868 S   2.6  8.4  11:36.49 electron
 1770 pi        20   0  480972  82744  58648 S   1.0  8.7   7:20.91 electron

Doum

@mattn I am pretty new to linux/raspbian… I do not have any file/folder under /etc with the name environment?

Should i create a file and add this line in? add it somewhere else?

Thanks

nparab

Thanks v.much to everyone on this forum. I just downgraded Electron to 1.4.15, without downgrading either MagicMirror2 or my OS, and my CPU usage and temperature are significantly down. But I’m facing yet another problem because of this downgrading of Electron. My MMM-PIR-Sensor module is giving this error:

App threw an error during load
Error: Module version mismatch. Expected 50, got 54.
    at Error (native)
    at process.module.(anonymous function) [as dlopen] (ELECTRON_ASAR.js:173:20)
    at Object.Module._extensions..node (module.js:583:18)
    at Object.module.(anonymous function) [as .node] (ELECTRON_ASAR.js:173:20)
    at Module.load (module.js:473:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:432:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:424:3)
    at Module.require (module.js:483:17)
    at require (internal/module.js:20:19)
    at bindings (/home/pi/MagicMirror/modules/MMM-PIR-Sensor/node_modules/bindings/bindings.js:81:44)
Whoops! There was an uncaught exception...
Error: Module version mismatch. Expected 50, got 54.
    at Error (native)
    at process.module.(anonymous function) [as dlopen] (ELECTRON_ASAR.js:173:20)
    at Object.Module._extensions..node (module.js:583:18)
    at Object.module.(anonymous function) [as .node] (ELECTRON_ASAR.js:173:20)
    at Module.load (module.js:473:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:432:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:424:3)
    at Module.require (module.js:483:17)
    at require (internal/module.js:20:19)
    at bindings (/home/pi/MagicMirror/modules/MMM-PIR-Sensor/node_modules/bindings/bindings.js:81:44)

Any help on fixing this would be appreciated.

nparab

Fixed it! I just went to the modules/MMM-PIR-Sensor directory and did

npm install

That fixed it.

mattn

@Doum Yeah, just create the file, paste that line, save and reboot.

martinkooij

@mattn What version of electron are you running? I downgraded to 1.4.15 electron, have v6.12.3 nodejs and 2.3.1Magic Mirror. I set the environment variable as you indicated. CPU usage goes down remarkably, although not as much as in your case.

Did you also got rid of a memory leak? I start with 43% free and this falls to 7% after a day. Stays between 5%-7% for a few days and then after 3-5 days my mirror halts completely with E_NOMEM panic in the log files. Any reader knows of handy memory leak analysistools for nodejs? It seems you keep on having 50% used / 50% free… Not me ;(.

top - 20:03:02 up 21:14,  3 users,  load average: 0,30, 0,33, 0,41
Tasks: 165 total,   2 running, 163 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  8,6 us,  4,5 sy,  0,0 ni, 86,9 id,  0,0 wa,  0,0 hi,  0,0 si,  0,0 st
KiB Mem:    949580 total,   907688 used,    41892 free,    60200 buffers
KiB Swap:   102396 total,     5172 used,    97224 free.   444532 cached Mem

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
 1178 pi        20   0  828888 244624  65840 R  22,5 25,8 327:41.98 electron
 1216 pi        20   0  603272 349144 290184 S  13,6 36,8 132:11.73 electron
  666 root      20   0  200848  58756  28796 S  12,2  6,2 131:39.07 Xorg
24453 pi        20   0    5224   2580   2148 R   1,0  0,3   0:02.03 top

mattn

@martinkooij TBH, I have no clue how to check my electron version, but I used the MM install script and haven’t downgraded anything. So I’m running the version supplied by the script as of approximately two weeks ago.

I’ve not noticed any mem issues. My mirror’s been up 6 days mem usage is ~10% per process:

top - 19:19:50 up 6 days,  8:37,  3 users,  load average: 0.13, 0.24, 0.20
Tasks: 155 total,   1 running, 153 sleeping,   0 stopped,   1 zombie
%Cpu(s): 32.7 us,  4.8 sy,  0.0 ni, 62.5 id,  0.1 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem:    947732 total,   674684 used,   273048 free,    96984 buffers
KiB Swap:   102396 total,        0 used,   102396 free.   288436 cached Mem

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
 1099 pi        20   0  310396  98548  55500 S 104.4 10.4 765:21.28 electron
 1111 pi        20   0  366396 102884  51368 S  21.5 10.9 297:36.05 electron
 1071 pi        20   0  474832  84892  58020 S  12.3  9.0 244:20.94 electron

Could it be a module causing it? Or try reinstalling MM with the script and see what happens with the default install/modules

As far as my modules go, I’m only using the date and weather mods from standard and then 4 custom mods(technically 2, as 3 are separate instances of the same mod for bus/train times).

Regards,

Matt

martinkooij

@mattn thanks! I love my modules, so difficult to lose one ;).

It however seems you have a slow leak too, growing memory usage of ca 200Mbyte in 6 days. Much less than me, but still more than it should be, I guess. Just let us know how you fare! Thanks for sharing.

martinkooij

@mattn and others.
I have a stable situation with the following:

electron 1.4.15 (withELECTRON_FORCE_WINDOW_MENU_BAR=1).
higher elektron version gives black screen, the environment variable lowers the cpu-usage by elektron considerably).
Magic Mirror 2.3.1 (actually I was quick to install MM2.3.0 but manually downgraded electron, but I am quite sure that amounts to the same as installing MM 2.3.1).
nodejs version v9.11.1. (I used to have a 1.6.x nodejs, but that one caused memory leaks. )

Is now running in this configuration almost 7 days without interrupt. And no signs of stopping soon. Thanks you all in this forum for the help.

(Rasberry pi 3, Jessie, CPU Hardware: BCM2835, Revision: a02082)

cdelaorden

Hi guys

Im new to the forum and this project but I have some small experience with the Pis and having the same issue

I think that its related to the video driver, using ‘sudo raspi-config’ and changing the video driver to one of the GL drivers resulted in a much lower cpu load in my case.

Doesn’t matter if you choose full KMS or fake KMS as long as you dont use the legacy non-GL driver.

It took my 4 CPU from full 100% to idle bellow 35%

Im sure someone else with this problem can confirm this

E3V3A

@cdelaorden

How can we check the video driver without using rapsi-conf?
in dmesg? in systemd journal?
How/where do you set the: ELECTRON_FORCE_WINDOW_MENU_BAR=1.
What would be the easiest way for users to check electron version from command line?

cdelaorden

@e3v3a
You can check it in the config.txt

or just do a “tail /boot/config.txt | grep dtoverlay” to check what version is enabled

all the rest of my configuration is the default one after a fresh install from the current version of MM and Raspbian, I havent touched anything from electron