@bhepler Wow. Well done. That’s exactly where I ended up except my pm2 file name is called “omx.sh”. I ran into issues with the looped video interrupting my Monitors sleep mode (PIR Sensor), so I ended up disabling it and setting a crontab for both sleep and pm2 stop/start omx.sh. My original post was only because the —alpha was dimming other modules. Are you seeing the same?

Good work.

@bhepler Are you running a borderless OMX window centered on your mirror? If so, what parameters you starting it with?

After all of my troubleshooting, it seems like OMX is the best solution. I’ve just been putting up with the loss of module brightness. Overall though, good enough to get me through Halloween.

2 “hopefully” quick questions:

1. Is there any way to incorporate the AirVisual icons into this module? The colored text becomes harder to read during periods of “REALLY” bad air quality. (Like during the California fires last week)
2. My weather icon is showing above the temperature, but most of screenshots show it to the left. Is this a module width issue in my CSS? or something I have set in my config?

Thanks all.

@loctruong96 Yup… that did the trick. odd… seems like I’ve done the same steps 10 times, but it worked on the 11th.

I can’t seem to find electron under MagicMirror/node_modules/ to verify the version. Where else can I look?

-Rich

@loctruong96 Still no luck. I ran (sudo npm install electron@1.4.15 -g) after the clean install, triple verifying that I had the (-g) on there, and no luck.

-Raspberry Pi 3
-Raspbian Stretch
-Definitely ran (sudo apt-get update)
-Full error listed below:

npm ERR! 404 Not Found
npm ERR! 404 
npm ERR! 404 'types/node' is not in the npm registry.
npm ERR! 404 You should bug the author to publish it
npm ERR! 404 It was specified as a dependency of 'electron'
npm ERR! 404 
npm ERR! 404 Note that you can also install from a
npm ERR! 404 tarball, folder, or http url, or git url.

npm ERR! System Linux 4.9.41-v7+
npm ERR! command "/usr/bin/nodejs" "/usr/bin/npm" "install"
npm ERR! cwd /home/pi/MagicMirror
npm ERR! node -v v4.8.2
npm ERR! npm -v 1.4.21
npm ERR! code E404
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     /home/pi/MagicMirror/npm-debug.log
npm ERR! not ok code 0

@Mykle1 @Nystro0m

My opinion: We’re asking the Pi to do things that it’s just not capable of, or at least pushing it to its limits.

Honestly… this is good news. Gives me permission to stop troubleshooting :). I’m still doing a clean install of STRETCH (having minor issues on another thread), and I’ll fall back on my OMXPlayer workaround.

Thanks EVERYONE for helping me try every possible workaround. When the time comes for me to scale-up to a bathroom mirror, I’ll definitely plan on a little more processing power.

Also, I’ll post my final workaround/setup when I’m back up and running.

@loctruong96 said in Electron CPU usage:

3. sudo npm install electron@1.4.15 -g
4. WAIT PATIENTLY FOR ELECTRON TO LOAD IN THE BACKGROUND
5. a new line appear indicate electron has finished installing
6. Go to your download folder, exact Magic Mirror 2.1.0
7. Go to the newly exacted forlder, open another folder named config
8. Change the file name Config.js.example to Config.js inside the config folder

@Mykle1

I keep getting the same issue as @EventHorizon but none of his fixes seem to work (sudo npm install -g electron --unsafe-perm=true) or (nom @latest -g).

I’m starting with a fresh STRETCH install, and get to step 9 (npm install && npm start) where I get the (types/node) fault.

Any ideas?

Thanks all.

@Nystro0m So went all out, and did a fresh install of Raspbian Stretch, MM2.1.0 and electron 1.4.15… even with just the default modules and htmlvideo, electron has the CPU pegged at >75% playing the .webm file. The video is slightly less choppy than before, but still not as seamless as OMXPlayer. Do I just have a crappy Pi3? Are there memory, GPU, or overclock settings I’m missing in my pi config file that may help? I’m also running it through PM2… is that causing issues?

Thanks,
Rich

@Mykle1 said in Ghost Overlay / OMXPlayerTransparency:

What version combination of MM and Electron are you running? We’ve had great success eliminating excessive Electron CPU usage with MM v2.1.0 and Electron v1.4.15 on Pi3 B’s, and just recently, a Pi2 as well.

Obviously, the results are at the end of the topic

https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/4684/electron-cpu-usage

Unsure on electron (kinda hard to find a version). But I’m running 2.1.2, and still running Jessie. I should have some more time MUCH later today to tinker. I’ll use the steps on page 15 of that thread for a clean install and report back. Do any of these combinations allow GPU usage within electron? As always, appreciate the help.

-Rich

@Nystro0m I have minimal transitions on the screen (weather, newsfeed, clock). It looks like there is an occasional hiccup on the newsfeed, but otherwise, no issues. My front door cam is kind of a cluster and naturally clunky because it’s a non-rtsp feed, so I’m stuck doing snapshots every 500ms to give ma a “live” picture. Thinking this may be the culprit, I disabled it in the config.js to verify it wasn’t the one killing the video.

I like where you’re headed though. (top) is showing two electron processes, is that normal? The highest processor abusers are Electron # 1 / Electron # 2 / XORG.