Application not starting when OpenGL is enabled

[dazza120]

@anthony yeah found GL caused black screen and running out of ram that’s why I have a Cron Job running every 12hours as after 24hours it would go dark, hence Cron job every 12hours

[rts58]

@anthony I am also noob. But, I installed pm2 and it allowed me to run OpenGL. I think it keeps electron and other running processes from using up all memory and will help.

[dazza120]

@rts58 as mentioned GL causes all sorts of other issues for the Pi really not advisable

[rts58]

@dazza120 I was also running OpenGL because mostly of this thread. I was/am concerned about temps, my pi is stuck in a wall and I’m running modules for background images, weather, nests, calendar and newsfeeds. When I first tried the fake and full I was having startup problems so started using pm2 which fixed them. I just now performed a very unscientific comparison. I ran under each driver and compared the average 15 minute processor usage (after 30 minutes).
Full - .62
Fake - .45
Orig - .36
I wasn’t smart enough to pay attention to the other stats :frowning_face: . But for now I am going to follow your recommendation and drop OpenGL. Thanks.

[dazza120]

@rts58 get MMM-SystemStats works well for the Pi and you can see memory,cpu and temp readings very handy when your running a Pi, if it ever happens that it goes black screen from days of use you will need to set a Cron job that refreshes the MM so memory starts over again hope that helps

[bhepler]

@anthony - Just FYI: PM2 is a process manager. It’s purpose is to make sure that the Magic Mirror process is always running and to start it automatically when you Pi boots. That’s all. It won’t help nor hinder your mirror’s performance.

When your Pi starts to overheat, you’ll see a thermometer icon in the upper right corner of your mirror.

[dazza120]

@bhepler wow never knew about the overheating symbol good to know, Everyone with a Pi should get a good heatsink and a fan fan not essential but helps loads.

[dazza120]

@rts58 I stand corrected the latest version of MMM-System-Stats locks up after 13hours of the Pi being on, I’ve left a message on his github so hopefully it will be fixed as it’s the Pi’s only true stat reading for everything that you need to know the Pi is doing. Oh if your not using video modules you can get 16Mb more ram 🐏 by taking it from the graphics if your on a Pi 3B+ You can use the desktop

Start Menu, Preferences, Raspberry Pi configuration, Performance, then change GPU memory

or use Terminal

sudo Raspi-config 

Advance
Memory Split
Ok
Then it will ask you to reboot

[rts58]

@dazza120 Thanks, I’m not using video, so I’ll look into this. I’ll also look at system stats.

[Anthony]

Hello everyone. So I installed pm2 as @bhepler said and MMM-System-Stats as @dazza120 mentioned above and I managed to enable OpenGL without a black screen but I realized that the cpu load went from 0.85 to 2.1 and after half an hour the rpi got frozen. So I and up disabled it once again and my mirror runs continuously fro yesterday afternoon without any problem of overheating, black screen or freezing. the last stats I saw today was:
CPU Temp: 32.22
System Load 0.81
Free RAM: 32%
Uptime: 13 hours
Avail Space: 24G