How to Get MagicMirror to Run on a Raspberry Pi Zero W Rev 1.1

Late-May 2024

Huge thanks to @sdetweil for all his help!

---

1. Flash card with Legacy 32-bit.
2. Connect via ssh to run script:

   bash -c  "$(curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdetweil/MagicMirror_scripts/master/raspberry.sh)"
   

   Answer yes to disable screen saver and use pm2 questions.

3. Remove chromium with:

   sudo apt-get remove chromium-browser
   sudo apt autoremove
   

4. Add Firefox with:

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install firefox-esr
   

5. Enable VNC using GUI (Interface Options):

   sudo raspi-config

6. Connect via TigerVNC (Apple app)
7. Edit installers/mm.sh via VNC using Pi's baked-in text editor by adding:

   cd ~/MagicMirror
   export external_browser=firefox
   DISPLAY=:0 npm start
   

8. Execute fix'em-up script:

   bash -c "$(curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sdetweil/MagicMirror_scripts/master/fixuppm2.sh)"
   

9. cd ~/MagicMirror/
   pm2 start MagicMirror
   

10. sudo reboot

Note: On my Pi Zero W it takes a solid ten minutes from reboot to actually seeing MM output via HDMI.

@sdetweil I understand what you’re saying about fixing the Jeopardy module, but I really think that’s secondary to not getting MM to run in the first place (and it not starting as a service on boot). Once I get MM running reliably in the first place I will play around with modules. :-)

`@sdetweil Sadly that didn’t seem to work at all.

pm2 flush gave me:

[PM2] Spawning PM2 daemon with pm2_home=/home/dvg/.pm2
[PM2] PM2 Successfully daemonized
[PM2] Flushing /home/dvg/.pm2/pm2.log
[PM2] Logs flushed

Then pm2 status gave me:

┌────┬────────────────────┬──────────┬──────┬───────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
│ id │ name               │ mode     │ ↺    │ status    │ cpu      │ memory   │
├────┼────────────────────┼──────────┼──────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ 0  │ MagicMirror        │ fork     │ 0    │ online    │ 23.3%    │ 40.3mb   │
└────┴────────────────────┴──────────┴──────┴───────────┴──────────┴──────────┘

Then I did cd ~/MagicMirror/ and ran npm start which spit out this:

> magicmirror@2.27.0 start
> ./run-start.sh $1

[2024-05-29 23:08:58.949] [LOG] Starting MagicMirror: v2.27.0
[2024-05-29 23:08:59.437] [LOG] Loading config ...
[2024-05-29 23:08:59.497] [LOG] config template file not exists, no envsubst
[2024-05-29 23:09:07.135] [LOG] Loading module helpers ...
[2024-05-29 23:09:07.356] [LOG] No helper found for module: alert.
[2024-05-29 23:09:36.395] [LOG] Initializing new module helper ...
[2024-05-29 23:09:36.558] [LOG] Module helper loaded: updatenotification
[2024-05-29 23:09:36.688] [LOG] No helper found for module: clock.
[2024-05-29 23:10:00.038] [LOG] Initializing new module helper ...
[2024-05-29 23:10:00.109] [LOG] Module helper loaded: calendar
[2024-05-29 23:10:00.684] [ERROR] Whoops! There was an uncaught exception... 
[2024-05-29 23:10:01.570] [ERROR] Error: Cannot find module 'request'
Require stack:
- /home/dvg/MagicMirror/modules/MMM-JEOPARDY/node_helper.js
- /home/dvg/MagicMirror/js/app.js
- /home/dvg/MagicMirror/serveronly/index.js
    at Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1048:15)
    at Module._resolveFilename (/home/dvg/MagicMirror/node_modules/module-alias/index.js:49:29)
    at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:901:27)
    at Module.require (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1115:19)
    at require (node:internal/modules/helpers:130:18)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/home/dvg/MagicMirror/modules/MMM-JEOPARDY/node_helper.js:8:17)
    at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1241:14)
    at Module._extensions..js (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1295:10)
    at Module.load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1091:32)
    at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:938:12)
    at Module.require (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1115:19)
    at require (node:internal/modules/helpers:130:18)
    at loadModule (/home/dvg/MagicMirror/js/app.js:183:19)
    at loadModules (/home/dvg/MagicMirror/js/app.js:213:10)
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5)
    at async App.start (/home/dvg/MagicMirror/js/app.js:261:3) {
  code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND',
  requireStack: [
    '/home/dvg/MagicMirror/modules/MMM-JEOPARDY/node_helper.js',
    '/home/dvg/MagicMirror/js/app.js',
    '/home/dvg/MagicMirror/serveronly/index.js'
  ]
} 
[2024-05-29 23:10:01.664] [ERROR] MagicMirror² will not quit, but it might be a good idea to check why this happened. Maybe no internet connection? 
[2024-05-29 23:10:01.745] [ERROR] If you think this really is an issue, please open an issue on GitHub: https://github.com/MagicMirrorOrg/MagicMirror/issues 
[2024-05-29 23:12:53.308] [INFO] System information:
### SYSTEM: manufacturer: Raspberry Pi Foundation; model: Raspberry Pi Zero W Rev 1.1; raspberry: [object Object]; virtual: false
### OS: platform: linux; distro: Raspbian GNU/Linux; release: 11; arch: arm; kernel: 6.1.21+
### VERSIONS: electron: undefined; used node: 20.8.0; installed node: 20.8.0; npm: 10.1.0; pm2: 5.4.0
### OTHER: timeZone: America/New_York; ELECTRON_ENABLE_GPU: undefined
Starting chromium browser now, have patience, it takes a minute
Chromium_browser not installed

This all seemed pointless, but I ran pm2 restart 0 anyway and got this:

Use --update-env to update environment variables
[PM2] Applying action restartProcessId on app [0](ids: [ '0' ])
[PM2] [MagicMirror](0) ✓
┌────┬────────────────────┬──────────┬──────┬───────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
│ id │ name               │ mode     │ ↺    │ status    │ cpu      │ memory   │
├────┼────────────────────┼──────────┼──────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ 0  │ MagicMirror        │ fork     │ 47   │ online    │ 0%       │ 23.5mb   │
└────┴────────────────────┴──────────┴──────┴───────────┴──────────┴──────────┘

At this point I’m going to give up and go back to square one and flash the drive again and start over. Ugh.

@sdetweil Okay! I’m doing this right now and will keep you posted. THANK YOU AGAIN.

@sdetweil Am I wrong about this? It actually appears that ‘electron’ is the missing module. But that’s not in /modules it’s in /js … Do I follow the same npm init steps to get it?

@sdetweil Ah. I see that. But … I don’t think the Jeopardy module is the main problem here. I’d prefer to simply remove that and try to get back to where I can even get MM to run in the first place; then I’ll screw around with adding modules. As it is I still can’t get MM to even run at all (plus all the restarts).

@sdetweil Oh. I thought the alert module was also indicating it was missing. Okay, I’ve tried npm init -y inside the MMM-Jeopardy dir, too, now.

pm2 status gives me:

┌────┬────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────┬─────────┬──────────┬────────┬──────┬───────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
│ id │ name           │ namespace   │ version │ mode    │ pid      │ uptime │ ↺    │ status    │ cpu      │ mem      │ user     │ watching │
├────┼────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────┼────────┼──────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ 0  │ MagicMirror    │ default     │ 2.27.0  │ fork    │ 1865     │ 11s    │ 28   │ online    │ 21.4%    │ 38.6mb   │ dvg      │ disabled │
└────┴────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴──────────┴────────┴──────┴───────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┘

And now a subsequent pm2 start MagicMirror gives me:

[PM2] Applying action restartProcessId on app [MagicMirror](ids: [ 0 ])
[PM2] [MagicMirror](0) ✓
[PM2] Process successfully started
┌────┬────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────┬─────────┬──────────┬────────┬──────┬───────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
│ id │ name           │ namespace   │ version │ mode    │ pid      │ uptime │ ↺    │ status    │ cpu      │ mem      │ user     │ watching │
├────┼────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────┼────────┼──────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ 0  │ MagicMirror    │ default     │ 2.27.0  │ fork    │ 1986     │ 0s     │ 34   │ online    │ 0%       │ 22.6mb   │ dvg      │ disabled │
└────┴────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴──────────┴────────┴──────┴───────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┘

But there’s still nothing displaying (aside from the generic Pi OS desktop, I mean).

@sdetweil So, because I am relentless, I rebooted to see if that would help. It didn’t, but now it looks like I have a different problem altogether:

cd MagicMirror/
pm2 start MagicMirror
[PM2] Spawning PM2 daemon with pm2_home=/home/dvg/.pm2
[PM2] PM2 Successfully daemonized
[PM2][ERROR] Script not found: /home/dvg/MagicMirror/MagicMirror

@sdetweil Hmmm. Okay. I tried that for the ‘alert’ module but it didn’t seem to have any impact:

dvg@hyperspace:~/MagicMirror $ cd modules/
dvg@hyperspace:~/MagicMirror/modules $ ls
default  MMM-JEOPARDY
dvg@hyperspace:~/MagicMirror/modules $ cd default/
dvg@hyperspace:~/MagicMirror/modules/default $ ls
alert  calendar  clock  compliments  defaultmodules.js  helloworld  newsfeed  updatenotification  utils.js  weather
dvg@hyperspace:~/MagicMirror/modules/default $ cd alert
dvg@hyperspace:~/MagicMirror/modules/default/alert $ ls package.json
ls: cannot access 'package.json': No such file or directory
dvg@hyperspace:~/MagicMirror/modules/default/alert $ npm init -y
Wrote to /home/dvg/MagicMirror/modules/default/alert/package.json:

{
  "name": "alert",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "The alert module is one of the default modules of the MagicMirror². This module displays notifications from other modules.",
  "main": "alert.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC"
}


dvg@hyperspace:~/MagicMirror/modules/default/alert $ cd ..
dvg@hyperspace:~/MagicMirror/modules/default $ cd ..
dvg@hyperspace:~/MagicMirror/modules $ cd ..
dvg@hyperspace:~/MagicMirror $ pm2 start MagicMirror
[PM2] Applying action restartProcessId on app [MagicMirror](ids: [ 0 ])
[PM2] [MagicMirror](0) ✓
[PM2] Process successfully started
┌────┬────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────┬─────────┬──────────┬────────┬──────┬───────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
│ id │ name           │ namespace   │ version │ mode    │ pid      │ uptime │ ↺    │ status    │ cpu      │ mem      │ user     │ watching │
├────┼────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────┼────────┼──────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────┤
│ 0  │ MagicMirror    │ default     │ 2.27.0  │ fork    │ 16303    │ 0s     │ 744  │ online    │ 0%       │ 18.5mb   │ dvg      │ disabled │
└────┴────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴──────────┴────────┴──────┴───────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┘

Same result; just a bunch more restarts and nothing appearing. (The Pi desktop is there, though.)

@sdetweil I followed your tutorial on adding the Jeopardy module (just to see what would happen) and it worked fine. The last step is npm start and when I did that I got this:

> magicmirror@2.27.0 start
> ./run-start.sh $1

[2024-05-29 10:30:09.649] [LOG] Starting MagicMirror: v2.27.0
[2024-05-29 10:30:10.200] [LOG] Loading config ...
[2024-05-29 10:30:10.267] [LOG] config template file not exists, no envsubst
[2024-05-29 10:30:19.159] [LOG] Loading module helpers ...
[2024-05-29 10:30:19.394] [LOG] No helper found for module: alert.
[2024-05-29 10:30:53.041] [LOG] Initializing new module helper ...
[2024-05-29 10:30:53.066] [LOG] Module helper loaded: updatenotification
[2024-05-29 10:30:53.220] [LOG] No helper found for module: clock.
[2024-05-29 10:31:18.754] [LOG] Initializing new module helper ...
[2024-05-29 10:31:18.854] [LOG] Module helper loaded: calendar
[2024-05-29 10:31:19.537] [ERROR] Whoops! There was an uncaught exception... 
[2024-05-29 10:31:20.316] [ERROR] Error: Cannot find module 'request'
Require stack:
- /home/dvg/MagicMirror/modules/MMM-JEOPARDY/node_helper.js
- /home/dvg/MagicMirror/js/app.js
- /home/dvg/MagicMirror/serveronly/index.js
    at Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1048:15)
    at Module._resolveFilename (/home/dvg/MagicMirror/node_modules/module-alias/index.js:49:29)
    at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:901:27)
    at Module.require (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1115:19)
    at require (node:internal/modules/helpers:130:18)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/home/dvg/MagicMirror/modules/MMM-JEOPARDY/node_helper.js:8:17)
    at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1241:14)
    at Module._extensions..js (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1295:10)
    at Module.load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1091:32)
    at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:938:12)
    at Module.require (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1115:19)
    at require (node:internal/modules/helpers:130:18)
    at loadModule (/home/dvg/MagicMirror/js/app.js:183:19)
    at loadModules (/home/dvg/MagicMirror/js/app.js:213:10)
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5)
    at async App.start (/home/dvg/MagicMirror/js/app.js:261:3) {
  code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND',
  requireStack: [
    '/home/dvg/MagicMirror/modules/MMM-JEOPARDY/node_helper.js',
    '/home/dvg/MagicMirror/js/app.js',
    '/home/dvg/MagicMirror/serveronly/index.js'
  ]
} 
[2024-05-29 10:31:20.470] [ERROR] MagicMirror² will not quit, but it might be a good idea to check why this happened. Maybe no internet connection? 
[2024-05-29 10:31:20.593] [ERROR] If you think this really is an issue, please open an issue on GitHub: https://github.com/MagicMirrorOrg/MagicMirror/issues 
[2024-05-29 10:34:40.779] [INFO] System information:
### SYSTEM: manufacturer: Raspberry Pi Foundation; model: Raspberry Pi Zero W Rev 1.1; raspberry: [object Object]; virtual: false
### OS: platform: linux; distro: Raspbian GNU/Linux; release: 11; arch: arm; kernel: 6.1.21+
### VERSIONS: electron: undefined; used node: 20.8.0; installed node: 20.8.0; npm: 10.1.0; pm2: 5.4.0
### OTHER: timeZone: America/New_York; ELECTRON_ENABLE_GPU: undefined
Starting chromium browser now, have patience, it takes a minute
Chromium_browser not installed

FYI: There is definitely an internet connection, so we can rule that out. Otherwise I have no idea.