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Where did I goof? Run line in Raspberry Pi crontab

Started by MK2wx, July 29, 2017, 01:37:05 PM

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MK2wx

Hello folks,

~/modesmixer2_rpi2-3_20170506/modesmixer2 --inConnect 127.0.0.1:30002 --web 8081 --location XXX:-XXX --silhouettes ~/silhouettes

I am using this, and everything was fine until the last bit in the line, which does not produce the required images in the web page.

Whats' wrong with it?

Silhouettes are indeed in the folder next to ModeSMixer's folder.

Seems to find one folder and use it, but not the other? How can that be? ???

Thanks for any light anyone can shed on this one.
Cheers,
Ian

Triple7

Hello,

I am in no way any sort of Linux expert - you need IanH for that, but I do run ModeSmixer2 on an RPi and have silhouettes working fine.

Looking at your code I think you are trying to reference your silhouettes directory incorrectly. To me that would mean your Silhouettes directory is here:

/home/pi/Silhouettes (assuming you log in as pi and not some other user name)

I am not sure what you mean by "Silhouettes are indeed in the folder next to ModeSMixer's folder."

I have my silhouettes in a sub directory under my ModesSMixer2 directory.

To make it easy I call my directory MM2 and my silhouettes directory is called 'Silos' - saves a lot of typing.

You might therefore be wise to "mkdir" a silos directory as a sub directory under your modesmixer2 directory, copy all the .bmp files into there and amend your code to

--silhouettes ./silos you may or may not need the dot

Here's my MM2 code:

./modesmixer2 --inConnect 192.168.1.112:31003 --filter-nocountry --web 8088 --db basestation.sqb --silhouettes ./silos --frdb flightroute.sqb --location XX:YY

I run mine as a script that auto starts at boot up.

Any help?

Tim
SBS-1eR, FA ProStick + 1090 filter

MK2wx

Thanks very much for the thoughts there,

I'm no Linux expert either, but I have been lead to understand by others who know that in the case of  ~/modesmixer2_rpi2-3_20170506/modesmixer2, then the ~ is explicitly home, and so the /modesmixer2_rpi2-3_20170506/ after it is explicitly a folder in that home directory and it happens to be where modesmixer2 itself lives.

As such that is executed, but it fails to act on the --silhouettes argument, which is probably why they do not show up.

I've tried leading slashes and trailing slashes and both slashes (just in case, because it has not been specifically explained anywhere that I have looked). Of course all of those were also tried with and without ~ too, but to no avail

I did in desperation move the silhouettes folder to the same folder/directory that the executable lives in, and it even ignored all the previous mentioned options in that case too.

My conclusion is that it is either not concisely documented or it is broken in the case of the version I have. I've no idea which.

For now I have discontinued with it's use, sadly. I've commented out it's crontab entry, and might try a few more times manually until such time as it demonstrates clearly that it works reliably. Once that happens I'd have more faith in adding a few more options, and, once reliable, it could go on for further longer term testing. For now it can only be an interesting Work In Progress, and that's a great shame. I think it's beautifully thoughtful in so many places, but this issue is, unfortunately, a show stopper. Maybe the script could help, but frankly if it's ignoring it's own command line options, I'd struggle to be optimistic.

Do we know if the author is currently healthy? I read he'd had some issues, I do hope nothing too serious is keeping him away from the forum for these last few weeks. Can only wish him well for the moment.

Oh well.......

Thanks once again.
Cheers,
Ian

MK2wx

UPDATE:

I've double checked everything I can think of (this is and always was the latest version available here). Further I duplicated your set up, folder wise. I wrote a script to run it as you do.

It's not having any of it. I get the same results. I suspect it is somehow broken. Only other thing which springs to mind is that I am running from a PiAware 3.5.0 image and perhaps you are not? Even if that was it, it's a pretty obscure and inscrutable business.

Looks a lot like game over for MSM2 here. What a huge pity, as it's got so much to offer but it is not happy to offer it this time.  :(
Cheers,
Ian

MK2wx

Finally got it - no DB, sorted now.

However, how can I  get flight route information? Seems the only missing part of the puzzle now (well as far as I can know)

I got it (station.db) on VRS, but getting a copy to MSM2 seems like something that might not be possible.

I'd imagine this will be much the same for the flight route one too?

Oh and the ~ does work!
Cheers,
Ian

IanH

Not had chance to look at this but you seem to have got it working.

I only have a very basic setup of MM2 running on Linux at the moment to combine ADSB and Piaware MLAT into one stream. No messing with silhouettes (check spelling if not working!) or anything else.

There is (or was in previous versions) an option '-frdb' that reads a flight route file. I never use this option so no idea if it work or where you get the required data file from.

MK2wx

Quote from: IanH on July 30, 2017, 10:37:05 PM
Not had chance to look at this but you seem to have got it working.

I only have a very basic setup of MM2 running on Linux at the moment to combine ADSB and Piaware MLAT into one stream. No messing with silhouettes (check spelling if not working!) or anything else.

There is (or was in previous versions) an option '-frdb' that reads a flight route file. I never use this option so no idea if it work or where you get the required data file from.
Yes, it's not too bad now. Only problem now is getting hold of a flight route database; A bit more than a year ago, I found M$ went a bit too far and they lost my trust after what was then 21 years, and I now have only Linux in the household, and a non M$ policy, and oddly I can't find anywhere so far to get said database, not even a blank one. Being Linux only means no plane plotter anymore either. so not even that route to go. M$ own Yahoo groups too, so can't even go there as that is blocked at the router too.

Given the rise and rise of the Raspberry Pi for 1090 tracking, then it's probably about time there were more decent sources for these database things. If not then enthusiasm from content providers could wain a bit earlier than is helpful for this hobby. I'm not sure which software might actually write these databases, many use a source, but don't particularly write it out like they do "looked up" data.

In other areas I use VRS under mono on my MX-15 Linux box, and it's not bad at all. I tried MSM2 on there yesterday, 64 bit does not work as it has an unfilled dependency, actually it's not fill-able either, so that's a bit of a strange one, The 32 bit version did work for a bit but eventually it locked the machine solid, so no good for 24/7 machine. It's fine on the Raspberry Pi 2 though and a mate has it on a PI 3 with no incident so far. These are running off PiAware 3.5.0 card images and are pretty well behaved sitting right next door on that machine/card combination.

Over all it's not bad for almost a month.  ;)
Cheers,
Ian

IanH

Planeplotter runs fine on Linux under Wine (at least on Debian).

And the latest release https://radarspotting.com/forum/index.php/topic,7547.msg34848.html#msg34848 mentions flightroute.sqb updates.

So collect data using a Pi and display on a PC running Linux.

Not tried connecting to the PlanePlotter server (can only do that when registered) but can't see why it shouldn't work.

Even BaseStation works so long as you include the MS wingding_0.ttf font.

IanH

And a quick search for flightroute.sqb leads me to this site:

http://planeplotter.pbworks.com/w/page/17117301/Databases

which indicates the file is regularly updated and available from here (sadly a Yahoo group):

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/PP-logs-and-routes/info

Triple7

SBS-1eR, FA ProStick + 1090 filter

MK2wx

#10
Quote from: Triple7 on July 31, 2017, 02:10:01 PM
The latest file is also here:

https://goo.gl/oGtkyg

Tim

Thanks for that, it really might help me figure some of the rest of this stuff out on the PI.  ;)

It's MSM2 that has a config option for it, and I'd be interested to see if it improves further once it has a copy to read. As far as I know there seems to be a dearth of concise instructions for that software.

It's challenging & frustrating but sometimes rewarding to figure out what's meant to happen with it all.  ;)
Cheers,
Ian

MK2wx

Quote from: IanH on July 31, 2017, 11:36:23 AM
And a quick search for flightroute.sqb leads me to this site:

http://planeplotter.pbworks.com/w/page/17117301/Databases

which indicates the file is regularly updated and available from here (sadly a Yahoo group):

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/PP-logs-and-routes/info

Thanks Ian,

Yes, the M$ thing is a problem, I just have no faith in M$ at any level these days.

I feel like I am looking for something that plane plotter can't deliver, and maybe never will, not that i could tell you what that is! Not to slur the software either, as it was fine when I last ran a wintel box, I feel it's just about having gained a new mindset about tracking in general. Time for me to let that one go and move forward.

Pi feeding a Linux desktop is good. I'm constantly amazed by both these days. Linux feels a bit Victorian in it's outlook on the world, "none of that sort of thing in here me laddo" and that goes for almost anything you might be trying to achieve within it!  ;) But when it works it really can do some thing very well indeed. When forced to sit at a windows box, I can take about 5 mins max, then I just have to move away from it in disdain. Of  course that often meas it's still trying to hide the fact that it has not quite fully booted yet!  :P

Oh well, been a long day, shall look it all over again in the morning.
Cheers,
Ian

Triple7

There's some useful information on running Dump1090 on the RPi here:

http://www.satsignal.eu/raspberry-pi/dump1090.html

I used parts of that to assist in getting my Dump1090mutability working alongside MSM2.

Tim
SBS-1eR, FA ProStick + 1090 filter

MK2wx

Quote from: Triple7 on August 01, 2017, 07:39:33 AM
There's some useful information on running Dump1090 on the RPi here:

http://www.satsignal.eu/raspberry-pi/dump1090.html

I used parts of that to assist in getting my Dump1090mutability working alongside MSM2.

Tim
Yes, agreed, he's one of the best, just wish he'd explore it all more in his style, as it would help so much with the more twisty bits. Mostly it's good info for MSM2 that I would like to see. That page has been a bit of a gold mine.  :)
Cheers,
Ian

evangel

#14
hi MK2
dont know if you solved the ModeSMixer problem, but I will provide my setup that works.

system   : RPi3
decoder : dump1090-mutability (adsbreceiver debian jessie lite based image)
feeder    : piaware 3.5.0
mixer      : ModeSmixer (raspbian ver May 2017)
remote access : putty, tightvncserver, mobaXterm

a. created in root folder /xdeco and sub folders /xdeco/db/ and /xdeco/db/silhouettes
    in /xdeco created the configuration/parameters file modex
    after creation run  chmod 755 modex to make it executable.   
    in /xdeco/db have the basestation.sqb and flightroute.sqb
    in /xdeco/db/silhouettes all the .bmp files

b. to start mixer automatically I added one line in /etc/rc.local as follows
    sudo /xdeco/modex &

c. and the modex file has the following line
   /xdeco/modesmixer2 --web7788 --inConnect 127.0.0.1:30005 --outServer beast:40005 --inServer 40006 --outServer beastmlat:40007 --globes 31008:table2:pwd --location lat:long
--db /xdeco/db/basestation.sqb --frdb /xdeco/db/flightroute.sqb --silhouettes /xdeco/db/silhouettes &

   mixer gets data from dump1090 on 30005 and creates 3 sockets to output data to VRS, PP etc.

FYI cron,rtlsdr etc dependencies are all done during mutability and piaware setup.
     and yes m$ sucks ;=)

HTH

brgds/evangel