AlexaPi Issue

[StrIIker]

Hello,
I previously had AlexaPi running from its initial install. When starting up the computer, I would hear it say “hello”. I have since connected a microphone and went through the configuration steps listed in the git wiki for AlexaPi. I have validated that the microphone works (I can record my voice to a wave file and play it back). What is not working now is AlexaPi… I see the following in the status error message now…

Oct 04 13:35:21 mirror01 python[578]: File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/yaml/parser.py", line 98, in check_event
Oct 04 13:35:21 mirror01 python[578]: self.current_event = self.state()
Oct 04 13:35:21 mirror01 python[578]: File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/yaml/parser.py", line 439, in parse_block_mapping_key
Oct 04 13:35:21 mirror01 python[578]: "expected <block end>, but found %r" % token.id, token.start_mark)
Oct 04 13:35:21 mirror01 python[578]: yaml.parser.ParserError: while parsing a block mapping
Oct 04 13:35:21 mirror01 python[578]: in "/etc/opt/AlexaPi/config.yaml", line 7, column 1
Oct 04 13:35:21 mirror01 python[578]: expected <block end>, but found '<block mapping start>'
Oct 04 13:35:21 mirror01 python[578]: in "/etc/opt/AlexaPi/config.yaml", line 16, column 3
Oct 04 13:35:21 mirror01 systemd[1]: AlexaPi.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Oct 04 13:35:21 mirror01 systemd[1]: Unit AlexaPi.service entered failed state.

When I examine /etc/opt/AlexaPi/config.yaml , I do not see any issues… Here’s the start of the file… row 7 is where the logging is set…

# See https://github.com/alexa-pi/AlexaPi/wiki/Audio-setup-&-debugging
# to get a better idea of how to set things in here

# Level of log output
# default: INFO
# set to DEBUG for verbose logging
logging: INFO

sound:
  # Name of your microphone device: "raspberrypi"
  # leave empty for default
input_device: "pulse"
output: "pulse"
output_device: ""

  playback_handler: "vlc"

  # you can go here with alsa, pulse or others
  # keep blank for the best audio output selected by the underlying code
  output: "alsa"
  # output device: "raspberrypi"
  # currently supports ALSA only
  output_device: "default"

Has anyone else run into this? Should I uninstall and reinstall Alexapi? This seems related to the steps I went through to enable the recording device…

[sdetweil]

did u edit this with an editor that left line ends and carriage returns (like windows editor?)

[StrIIker]

@sdetweil said in AlexaPi Issue:

did u edit this with an editor that left line ends and carriage returns (like windows editor?)

No, I do this from the command line using vim…

[sdetweil]

@striiker said in AlexaPi Issue:

expected , but found %r

ok, this error “expected , but found %r” kind of indicates a carriage return

[StrIIker]

Well, I determined the cause of the issue I think. I decided to remove everything prior to the line with “playback_handler” and pasted it from the template. I then manually entered the values under sound but this time, included two leading spaces to match the original config under sound where "input_device: “” had the spaces…
My config now looks like:

# See https://github.com/alexa-pi/AlexaPi/wiki/Audio-setup-&-debugging
# to get a better idea of how to set things in here

# Level of log output
# default: INFO
# set to DEBUG for verbose logging
logging: INFO

sound:
  # Name of your microphone device in PortAudio
  # leave empty for default
  input_device: "pulse"
  output: "pulse"
  output_device: ""

  playback_handler: "vlc"

Now I have new issues related to ALSA I think as there are errors related to this in the logs.