Regenerate?

[jerryk]

Hello,

   I have been using SIP for some years now.  It runs on a RPI 3B, using the "Opensprinkler PI" hardware.  This evening, my wife said "My plants are dry!".   OK, I tried to access the SIP web page on the PI.  Whups, nothing there.  Going up to the shed where the computer is, I popped it out of its grey PVC box, hooked it up to a keyboard, mouse & display, and .... Whoo.  It's really slow & unresponsive.  High load averages.  Something is borked.  No WLAN IP address either - at least no valid one.  I do have command line access via the Linux console.  

  Looks like I need to regenerate the system.  Honestly, I forget how to do that.  I guess I can download an image from the raspberry pi website...   And is there any way to get the configuration out of the SIP program so I don't have to figure out all the station names & schedules again?

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As a fallback - just for now - I am clipleading each station to the 24VAC for 20 minutes on the kitchen timer....

[astrogerard]

Well, if you have still access to the system, first make a backup of  SIP/data and store it outside the Pi. This includes  programData.json and snames.json where programs and station names are stored. But do make a backup of all files there.

If linux is running for several years without reboot you might have a disk or memory full issue. Check that first and if you are brave enough you could try a reboot, but only after safing the data.

Most likely the SD-Card is end of life. In that case you could go the easy route and create an image backup of the SD-Card and write a new card with it. I usually use Win32DiskImager for it but there are other programs too.

Better is a brand new install of Linux, Python3 and SIP to have all upgraded to the latest versions. Dan made a thread of how to upgrade the SIP config files and the Wiki explains the entire installation.

--Gerard

[jerryk]

I used "top" and "free" to verify that the RAM not full. Also, the swap is unused. Brave? I'm a retired software engineer, and have been playing with Linux since 1991 . I have the sd card mounted in one of my servers right now. Can't find programData.json or snames.json. I suspect that my installation is so old that those files were not being used yet. I guess I'll just bite the bullet and build a new system. And tromp my hilly acre re-figuring out which station is which .

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I found an interesting directory: /home/pi/src/ospy/ospy/data. In there is a file: options.db - which is surely where the settings are kept. It is alas not easily human-readable, although it is ASCII. Looking at the source, I find "options.py" which I could possibly modify to read the options file an display its contents. Probably quicker to just tromp the hill.

[astrogerard]

I must be doing something very wrong then, I started in 1984 and I'm still not retired 

For reading options.db you could use python shelve.

[jerryk]

Starting up the new OS, I tried to connect to my backyard wifi access point. It was not successful. Yet it connected properly to my indoor access point. So the problem MIGHT be the outdoor access point.

[jerryk]

Two problems. At least. I have installed Linux & SIP on a new SD card. It comes up nicely & runs. The outdoor access point came up with a simple power cycle. Hoping that was *the* problem, I reinstalled the old SD card. No joy - it's still slow as glue.

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A major change has happened with the latest versions of Raspberry PI OS ( aka "raspbian" ). Specifically, user pi has gone away. So I installed it in /root/SIP instead. I also had to edit the systemd file, which had the directory hardcoded. It was no problem for me; but a novice user might have trouble.