@chief said in Magic Mirror Blanks Several Hours:

@madscientist It was always black - if I don’t run with sudo it quits almost immediately. I’m not sure exactly what the issue was, but I went ahead and restored a backup from 2.4.1 and it’s working fine now (removed the update alert on the top bar).

If you need to run this as sudo then your installation probably has root as the owner of the files. A simple way to check this is log in as pi and type cd ~ and then ls -al you should see the list of files and directories and a column of pi pi (shows owner and group membership of the file or directory). If you see a lot of root root then you ran something which changed ownership of these files and directories…

ls -al
total 221604
drwxr-xr-x  17 pi pi      4096 Oct 10 16:00 .
drwxr-xr-x  27 pi pi      4096 Oct 10 10:33 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi     24164 Oct  8 18:56 CHANGELOG.md
drwxr-xr-x   2 pi pi      4096 Oct  8 18:56 clientonly
drwxr-xr-x   2 pi pi      4096 Oct  8 19:00 config
-rw-------   1 pi pi 498610176 Oct 10 16:00 core
drwxr-xr-x   3 pi pi      4096 Oct  8 19:16 css
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi       856 Oct  8 18:56 dangerfile.js
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi       132 Oct  8 18:56 .eslintignore
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi       448 Oct  8 18:56 .eslintrc.json
drwxr-xr-x   3 pi pi      4096 Oct  8 19:00 fonts
drwxr-xr-x   8 pi pi      4096 Oct 10 10:33 .git
drwxr-xr-x   2 pi pi      4096 Oct  8 18:56 .github
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi      1074 Oct  8 18:56 .gitignore
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi      2385 Oct  8 18:56 Gruntfile.js
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi      2675 Oct  8 18:56 index.html
drwxr-xr-x   3 pi pi      4096 Oct  8 18:56 installers
drwxr-xr-x   2 pi pi      4096 Oct  8 18:56 js
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi       271 Oct  8 18:56 jsconfig.json
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi      1118 Oct  8 18:56 LICENSE.md
drwxr-xr-x   4 pi pi      4096 Oct  8 18:56 modules
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi      1040 Oct  8 18:56 module-types.ts
drwxr-xr-x 642 pi pi     20480 Oct  8 19:00 node_modules
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi      2195 Oct  8 18:56 package.json
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi    271341 Oct  8 19:00 package-lock.json
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi     14450 Oct  8 18:56 README.md
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi       142 Oct  8 18:56 run-start.sh
drwxr-xr-x   2 pi pi      4096 Oct  8 18:56 serveronly
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi       478 Oct  8 18:56 .snyk
drwxr-xr-x   2 pi pi      4096 Oct  8 18:56 splashscreen
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi       126 Oct  8 18:56 .stylelintrc
drwxr-xr-x   6 pi pi      4096 Oct  8 18:56 tests
drwxr-xr-x   2 pi pi      4096 Oct  8 18:56 translations
-rw-r--r--   1 pi pi       285 Oct  8 18:56 .travis.yml
drwxr-xr-x   3 pi pi      4096 Oct  8 19:00 vendor

If you have a permissions issue, you can fix it easily by typing:

sudo chown -R pi:pi /home/pi

This will change owner and group membership to pi

@mykle1 said in Modules with Images not Displaying:

@striiker

I just copy and pasted your config entry from above and both modules fired right up. Have you changed anything in the module files?

Well, looks like I should have rebooted my system. I was going to and thought “nah, I shouldn’t have to do that”. Then it was suggested by @justjim1220 and so I tried it and now both are working… Thank you both for your help!!

@justjim1220

I love this News Ticker. Can I ask how I can change the size of the ticker? My mirror is in Portrait mode and the font feels oversized. I would prefer 40-50% of the current release size which would also allow the full headline to show. Also, can you include an opacity value for the background? I like the maroon but would prefer it to be less intense. I am sure these could be handled via the custom.css but I am a novice with this all. Thank you again for a great module!

@shaunybean said in Seeking Help on First Build and Alexa:

I would love to know too - I think the video you are talking about is this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa3VVZA0e5Y

He seems to suggest on his youtube channel he is going to release the software video of how he did it soon - but just like you, I would love to know if anyone else has done/knows how to implement it.

Yes, that’s the video. I think I know what needs to be done and I have most of the parts needed. If / when I get this up and running, I will make the missing how-to video for this project.

@justjim1220 said in Modules with Images not Displaying:

@striiker

Have your tried rebooting your system?

Derp… No… I should have done that!! It’s all working now… Thank you for the advice!

@cyberphox said in Change newsfeed title to image/logo?:

Ok so to remove the old one and install this, let’s review the steps!
Anyone…??

Sure! I assume this is what you want…

Refer to: https://github.com/justjim1220/MMM-NewsFeedTicker for the full install details etc.

Install new news ticker:
Log into your Raspberry Pi as pi and:

cd ~/MagicMirror/modules
git clone https://github.com/justjim1220/MMM-NewsFeedTicker.git

This installs the requisite module into the correct directory.

Remove old news and enable new news
The nice thing with this is that enabling or disabling modules is done simply by adding or deleting entries in the config.js file. The only catch is that it’s touchy with proper syntax so make sure you aren’t missing something simple (like a trailing comma or a misplaced ‘}’ or ‘{’. I suggest backing up your current config.js so that you can revert to it if needed. This is generally a good policy when modifying any config files. To check your config for errors, reference the following article:
https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/5399/how-to-check-your-config-for-errors-for-absolute-beginners/2
So, onto making that backup copy…

cd ~/MagicMirror/config
cp config.js config.bak01

Increment the trailing number if you want to retain multiple backup copies. If you make a mistake and want to start over, copy the backup to overwrite the current version of config.js…

cp config.bak01 config.js

Now edit the config file…

nano config.js

To disable the default news reader, delete the following: (you may have additional feeds if you added anything).

{
			"module": "newsfeed",
			"position": "bottom_bar",
			"config": {
				"feeds": [
					{
						"title": "New York Times",
						"url": "http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml"
					},
				],
				"showSourceTitle": true,
				"showPublishDate": true
			}
		},

Now to add the new feed, add the following somewhere in the config (maybe where the old new feed was?) You can customize this by adding or removing news sources based upon what interests you.

{
	disabled: false,
	module: "MMM-NewsFeedTicker",
	position: "bottom_bar",
	//classes: "day_scheduler",
	config: {
	    feeds: [
		{
			title: "New York Times",
			url: "http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml",
			encoding: "UTF-8", //ISO-8859-1
			className: "myClass",
			defaultLogo : ""
		},
		{
			title: "USA Today",
			url: "http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories",
			encoding: "UTF-8", //ISO-8859-1
			className: "myClass",
			defaultLogo : ""
		},
		{
			title: "BBC World News",
			url: "http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml#",
			encoding: "UTF-8", //ISO-8859-1
			className: "myClass",
			defaultLogo : ""
		}
    	    ]
	},

Now you can reload the MagicMirror via Ctrl-R (I find that the system automatically reloads the module once it detects a changed config.js). You should see the new news feed at the bottom.

@justjim1220 said in MMM-earth:

@striiker

Try rebooting your system

I have found that sometimes that is what it takes to get some modules to work after first install, and load and not working.

Yeah, this solved it. Thanks again! Rebooting was always my goto with Microsoft stuff but I got spoiled with Linux…

@hakupapa

I have been having this issue as well. I discussed this in another thread

I have always had this issue as I am new to running a Magic Mirror. It looks like there may have been a memory leak introduced in version 2.4.0 which persisted to version 2.5.0 . My only solution has been to implement a cron job to reload magic mirror every 5 hours (suggested by @MadScientist ). I’ve considered downgrading to a pre-2.4.0 build (haven’t checked to see if it’s even available). For now I’ll deal with it via the reloads.

@lavolp3 said in module calendar showing full day events one day to long:

@striiker
I need to disagree here.
MagicMirror does not need kludge hacks!
It needs development!

I am 100% sure your 5-hours-restart-hack can be solved without the workaround.

I absolutely agree that it needs development. Unfortunately that’s outside of my realm of expertise (and others who have these types of issues). In the absence of someone actively developing a solution to a defect which should be widely known (I have had this crash happen on multiple fresh, new base installs) we are left with using what we can to work around the issues.

The only responses I had to my query around the crashing was from others who had this happen and one person who suggested the cron restart. There was another post by someone else with the same issue as well.

Beggars can’t be choosers and I’m not complaining about this. I am hopeful that these issues will get addressed some day but in the mean time, here we are.

@AnduriI I agree that this is a kludge to get the calendar working. I had tried out MMM-MyCalendar which didn’t appear to have this issue (all day events like holidays and birthdays displayed the correct date). It’s a great module BUT, I decided not to use it because I can’t change the colors of the calendars and I could not use a custom icon for different calendars. For example, on my calendar, I have three calendars (US Holidays - white, Birthday calendar - purple with cake icon, and appointments - green). It helps to highlight the different events showing up in the list. I didn’t reach out to the module developer to request this yet. Give it a look, it might be what you are looking for.

Unfortunately Magic Mirror has issues which need a kludge hack to resolve (I need to cron a restart of the Magic Mirror application every 5 hours otherwise it goes black (not a screen saver or power saving thing). This has been present for since at least the previous build. Still, I love the Magic Mirror platform and the community is amazing! I am grateful every time I come here and see people helping each other out…

Per @Nilnik 's comment, have a look at that thread. I was having the same issue as well (that’s the thread I had started). Ultimately, it came down to adding the showEnd: false, to the config for the calendar.

timeFormat: 'absolute',
showEnd: false,

@hakupapa

I have been having this issue as well. I discussed this in another thread

I have always had this issue as I am new to running a Magic Mirror. It looks like there may have been a memory leak introduced in version 2.4.0 which persisted to version 2.5.0 . My only solution has been to implement a cron job to reload magic mirror every 5 hours (suggested by @MadScientist ). I’ve considered downgrading to a pre-2.4.0 build (haven’t checked to see if it’s even available). For now I’ll deal with it via the reloads.

@justjim1220 said in Change newsfeed title to image/logo?:

@striiker

Add this to custom.css, Make the changes you want in it…

.MMM-NewsFeedTicker {
    height: 100px;
    background-color: maroon;
    opacity: 1.0;
}

.MMM-NewsFeedTicker .headline {
    padding-top: 15px;
    font-size: 100%;
}

.MMM-NewsFeedTicker .image {
  height: 100px;
  background-color: #FFF;
}

Let me know if you have any problems with this.

I am glad that you like it!

Concerning adjusting the opacity of the colored bar, how to I set it to 50%? I tried 0.5 and it didn’t seem to make any difference. Thanks again!

@justjim1220 said in Change newsfeed title to image/logo?:

@striiker

Another apology…

When I was working with this module I had the font set to xlarge or large in the MMM-NewsFeedTicker.js file.

It makes it easier for these old eyes to see changes,

So, in the following section of the js file…

 var headline = document.createElement("span");
                headline.setAttribute("style", "padding-bottom:25px");
                headline.className = "bold xlarge bright";
                headline.innerHTML = "<font color= #ffaa00>" + moment(new Date(this.newsItems[this.activeItem].pubdate)).fromNow() + ": &nbsp;" + "</font>" + this.newsItems[this.activeItem].title + "&nbsp; || &nbsp;" + this.newsItems[this.activeItem].description;
                tickerBody.appendChild(headline);

Change the ‘xlarge’ to small

This has resolved the issue I had. I tried small and it was a little too small so I set that value to medium and it’s perfect for me. Thank you for pointing this out and providing the solution! Now this will stream my news.

@justjim1220 said in Change newsfeed title to image/logo?:

@StrIIker
@cyberphox

My Apologies for the issues you are having, but, I am looking over the code to make these fixes and I am not seeing any of the problems you are describing…

Any way you could show me the specific places these errors are occurring?

I ran it through an error checker and it’s not finding any errors…

Th example config on your git page is missing a trailing ‘}’ This is why people have had issues adding to their config.js

@justjim1220 said in Change newsfeed title to image/logo?:

@striiker

Add this to custom.css, Make the changes you want in it…

.MMM-NewsFeedTicker {
    height: 100px;
    background-color: maroon;
    opacity: 1.0;
}

.MMM-NewsFeedTicker .headline {
    padding-top: 15px;
    font-size: 100%;
}

.MMM-NewsFeedTicker .image {
  height: 100px;
  background-color: #FFF;
}

Let me know if you have any problems with this.

I am glad that you like it!

I added the lines to the custom.css and adjusted as follows. I still see the scrolling text as full size / cut off (screenshot of section included…

.MMM-NewsFeedTicker {
    height: 50px;
    background-color: maroon;
    opacity: 0.5;
}

.MMM-NewsFeedTicker .headline {
    padding-top: 15px;
    font-size: 50%;
}

.MMM-NewsFeedTicker .image {
  height: 50px;
  background-color: #FFF;
}

@cyberphox

Yeah, I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out where I was missing something… Generally it was a missing comma at the end of a config line which had additional content following it or misplacing the { or }.
Also, the modules are loaded in order as they appear in the config so if you want a couple of things in the top left (denoted by the location parameter “position”: “top_left”, the first module will be the top left and the second module read would be just below that.

@cyberphox said in Change newsfeed title to image/logo?:

Ok so to remove the old one and install this, let’s review the steps!
Anyone…??

Sure! I assume this is what you want…

Refer to: https://github.com/justjim1220/MMM-NewsFeedTicker for the full install details etc.

Install new news ticker:
Log into your Raspberry Pi as pi and:

cd ~/MagicMirror/modules
git clone https://github.com/justjim1220/MMM-NewsFeedTicker.git

This installs the requisite module into the correct directory.

Remove old news and enable new news
The nice thing with this is that enabling or disabling modules is done simply by adding or deleting entries in the config.js file. The only catch is that it’s touchy with proper syntax so make sure you aren’t missing something simple (like a trailing comma or a misplaced ‘}’ or ‘{’. I suggest backing up your current config.js so that you can revert to it if needed. This is generally a good policy when modifying any config files. To check your config for errors, reference the following article:
https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/5399/how-to-check-your-config-for-errors-for-absolute-beginners/2
So, onto making that backup copy…

cd ~/MagicMirror/config
cp config.js config.bak01

Increment the trailing number if you want to retain multiple backup copies. If you make a mistake and want to start over, copy the backup to overwrite the current version of config.js…

cp config.bak01 config.js

Now edit the config file…

nano config.js

To disable the default news reader, delete the following: (you may have additional feeds if you added anything).

{
			"module": "newsfeed",
			"position": "bottom_bar",
			"config": {
				"feeds": [
					{
						"title": "New York Times",
						"url": "http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml"
					},
				],
				"showSourceTitle": true,
				"showPublishDate": true
			}
		},

Now to add the new feed, add the following somewhere in the config (maybe where the old new feed was?) You can customize this by adding or removing news sources based upon what interests you.

{
	disabled: false,
	module: "MMM-NewsFeedTicker",
	position: "bottom_bar",
	//classes: "day_scheduler",
	config: {
	    feeds: [
		{
			title: "New York Times",
			url: "http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml",
			encoding: "UTF-8", //ISO-8859-1
			className: "myClass",
			defaultLogo : ""
		},
		{
			title: "USA Today",
			url: "http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/UsatodaycomNation-TopStories",
			encoding: "UTF-8", //ISO-8859-1
			className: "myClass",
			defaultLogo : ""
		},
		{
			title: "BBC World News",
			url: "http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml#",
			encoding: "UTF-8", //ISO-8859-1
			className: "myClass",
			defaultLogo : ""
		}
    	    ]
	},

Now you can reload the MagicMirror via Ctrl-R (I find that the system automatically reloads the module once it detects a changed config.js). You should see the new news feed at the bottom.