FPP Homescreen on Pi 3 B+

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EMKLLK

Member
Hi there - I've been running my lights with a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ for quite a few years with no real issues, along with very solid 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' FPP v2.4 (it could be 2.3, I don't have a screenshot of the home page). I use all 4 USB outlets - two are connected via Renard Protocol to 176 channels (6 ss24s and 1 Ren32); a third USB port is used for a DMX controller for some RGB flood lights; a fourth USB port connects to an external sound card to clean up my audio a bit. I connect the ethernet port to an ethernet switch, that's also connected to a couple sandevices e682s, and a wifi access point. The Pi has a wifi config and a lan config, and I usually communicate with it through the wifi (because that side is connected to the rest of my home network). I can also communicate with it through the LAN side, either ethernet connection into the switch or connecting to the wireless AP. With some recent heavy rains, I've had everything powered down the last two days, but when I powered things up this morning, I wasn't able to access the FPP/Pi. I eventually pulled it inside to have a look thinking maybe something got wet - I can see that when I power it up it connects to wifi, and I can also see it's LAN ethernet address replying to pings on the LAN side, but when I navigate to the home screen (from either wireless or LAN side) I get a generic 'couldn't connect to the server' notice - the same i would get if I tried to navigate to a website and had no internet access. Interestingly enough, since I'm not able to navigate to the FPP homescreen, I haven't been able to reset the time - and when powered and connected it is clearly running the show from the scheduler - it's driving two pixels trees correctly, and also broadcasting audio from the player. So - everything seems to be working except my ability to navigate to the FPP homescreen. That won't really work for me because I can't adjust the date/time... and I also have some odds and ends to clean up such as resetting output port assignments for the renards because those output ports must've gotten juggled around during the powerup/powerdown testing I was doing. Any ideas about how I might be able to find access back to the FPP home screen? I've not experienced this before. The FPP version as I said is pretty old, it's not done any auto updates since I keep the show on it's on standalone network, without an internet connection. I just ordered a new Raspberry Pi today (and stuck with the same model to enable a simple replacement), but not 100% certain I'll be able to simply plug in the microSD and go... but also not 100% giving up on this one since it seems to be working. Thanks for any advice!
 
Are you able to access the FPP using SSH on Port 22? That would give you a command line and the FPP devs may be able to dig around and figure out what is going on. Or you could configur the FPP to use a network time source so it would always be correct.
 
Thanks Martin - I haven’t tried SSH, but was just reading about that, I may give it a try. I now wish I had set up a network time source, and that would actually probably work but not sure how to get to the config to set that up.
 
I didn't have any luck with SSH, however I hooked up a monitor and keyboard and booted up. I can see during the bootup 'Failed to start The Apache HTTP Server, but other than that no errors showing. I was able to login to the FPP console, currently sitting at a screen that says 'This FPP console is for advanced users, debugging, and developers...' and I'm at a $ prompt fpp@FPP: $ It does say at this screen that I can access the UI by typing http://fpp.local/, but that isn't working for me (perhaps because of the apache http server failure. Is there anything I can do from here to troubleshoot the apache server? Or, is my best bet to rebuild the fpp (fresh OS, initialization, etc) Thanks for any advice!
 
Failed to start The Apache HTTP Server - This is a HUGE error. The Web ui is served to your browser by the apache server. No server, no web ui. There are ways to fix this, but they requie a reasonable skill level in Linux command line and apache debugging. You would strat by looking in the Apache and system startup logs to see if you can see why apache failed to start, Fix the issue etc. For a non linux apache guru, I would say a reinstall is the safest thing you can do.
 
A bit more info - noticed a comment to 'See systemctl status...' related to apache service. When I run that from the $ prompt, I get some messages:

Starting the Apache HTTP Server...
/usr/sbin/apachectl: 1: /etc/apache2/envvars: Syntax error: ")" unexpected
apache2.service: Control process exited, code = exited status=2
Failed to start The Apache HTTP Server (this was in red)
apache2.service: Unit entered failed state.
apache2.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
 
Thanks - I'm not a linux guy, but spent lots of years in VMS. I can navigate, etc - just not super familiar with the various commands. If it's as simple as cleaning up some extra symbols in a file, I'd be comfortable with that. I can see the apachectl in usr/bin - but it doesn't seem to be an editable file - was hoping it was a bat file or the like, but I don't see extensions
 
thanks for the advice!

The apachectl configtest shows: /usr/sbin/apachectl: 1: /etc/apache2/envvars: Syntax error : ")" unexpected (possibly a file needs to be cleaned up?)
The systemctl status gives the same summary I typed a bit earlier (including the syntax error line)
The journalctl command gives pages of log - I scrolled through and see an several errors in red:
- 'the name net.comman.vpn was not provided by an .service files';
- then a few pages later I see the 'Failed to start the Apache HTTP Server' error,
- then a few pages later I see 'Network SSID not set' under the Unit smbd.service has begun starting up log;
- then an error for gbscan simple: Failed to enable signal strength monitoring
- then a 'Failed to start Configure Bluetooth Modems connected by UART'
- then a couple brcmfmac: brcmf_run_escan: error (-25) and brcmfmac: brcmf_cfg80211_scan: scan error (-25)
I'm assuming some of these are normal.

The netstat command returns a comment that not all processes could be identified, you would have to be root to see it all, but I get a permission denied when I try to navigate to root.

If anything here sticks out, for example a file that I could target to see about the syntax error, I could take a look at that.

Is there any way to set the system date/time from this developer console? If so I could have a fallback to get things running. I think I'm going to go ahead and create a new install anyway but I may not get that done by tonight because I need to get a new microSD card.

Thanks again for taking the time to help!
 
OK thanks - really appreciate your feedback. I was able to get another sd card quickly, so I'm already flashing it now. I should be good now after I get everything reinstalled. Thanks again.
 
EMKLLK said:
Thanks - I'm not a linux guy, but spent lots of years in VMS. I can navigate, etc - just not super familiar with the various commands. If it's as simple as cleaning up some extra symbols in a file, I'd be comfortable with that. I can see the apachectl in usr/bin - but it doesn't seem to be an editable file - was hoping it was a bat file or the like, but I don't see extensions
Click to expand...
Linux has the ability to use extensions and some developers are good about adding them, but they are not a requirement. ANY file can be marked executable in the file permissions and away you go. The various scripts add some special strings at the top of the file to identify the parser you need to use. Python scripts are passed as variables to the Python interpreter. etc
 
I went ahead and re-initialized things, took me a few minutes to remember what I was doing since this has worked rock solid for the last few years:) Anyway, everything is back up and running, and I'm now in the process of building a backup since I ordered a new raspberry pi yesterday just in case. Thanks for the help - everything is working as it should now:)
 
For kicks, I went ahead and loaded FPP v9.3 on my spare, it worked like a charm, along with quite a few updates to make life easier (no surprise there considering I've been on 2.3 forever)! I may go ahead and run with it - the UI is so much nicer:)
 
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