USB mount has interfered with DOTHAT startup

Hello all,

I recently mounted a USB drive on my pi to store backups of my home folder. After fiddling around I decided to bin the mount and removed the fstab entry etc.

After this I noticed that a much-used python script to run my DOTHAT now has a 2-3 second delay, and fails to run from crontab reboot. Prior to the USB mount it all worked perfectly.

Has anyone run into this problem?

Philip

you do not say what’s in that script, that’s likely to be relevant I think. can you post it here (use the triple backquote to retain indentation:

code enclosed in between ``` 

thanks - will do when I get back home tonight. it’s basically a Pimoroni Menu/MenuOption framework, with a few tweaks.

here it is - it is based on a Pimorni library. The imported modules datapi and temp_rgb are simple scripts I wrote to provide data (temp and weather). The only change that has affected the running was the USB mount

my crontab entry is: @reboot sudo python /home/pi/scripts/menu.py


#!/usr/bin/env python


import sys
import signal
import subprocess

sys.path.append("/home/pi/Pimoroni/displayotron/")

import dothat.touch as touch
import dothat.lcd as lcd
import dothat.backlight as backlight
import psutil as ps
from dot3k.menu import Menu, MenuOption
from plugins.utils import Backlight, Contrast
from plugins.graph import IPAddress, GraphTemp, GraphCPU, GraphNetSpeed
from plugins.clock import Clock
from plugins.wlan import Wlan
from plugins.text import Text
import time

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import datapi as dp
import urllib2
import temp_rgb as tm

#helper functions

def reset():

    backlight.off()
    lcd.clear()
    backlight.graph_off()

def signal_term_handler():
        global running
        running=0

#set signal to catch kill process command

signal.signal(signal.SIGTERM, signal_term_handler)

lcd.set_contrast(50)

#

class Trains(MenuOption):

	def __init__(self):

		reset()
		self.trains=dp.rail_times()
		self.select()
		MenuOption.__init__(self)

	def begin(self):

		reset()
		backlight.rgb(100,100,100)

	def select(self):
#		print ("updating")
		try:
			self.trains=dp.rail_times()
		except:
			self.trains=["offline    ", "offline    ","offline     "]

	def redraw(self, menu):

		menu.write_option(
	 	        row=0,
        	        text=self.trains[0],
	        	scroll=False
		)

		menu.write_option(
			row=1,
			text=self.trains[1],
			scroll=False)
		menu.write_option(
			row=2,
			text=self.trains[2],
			scroll=False)


class Idle(MenuOption):

    def begin(self):
	
	self.timenow=self.millis()
	self.started=True
	backlight.rgb(0,0,0)
	self.cycle=5
	self.mode=0
	self.SWITCH=5

    def cleanup(self):
	backlight.rgb(0,0,0)

    def redraw(self, menu):

	if (self.millis()-self.timenow>5000) or self.started==True:

		cpu=(tm.get_temp())
		cpu=int(float(cpu))
		r,g,b=tm.temp_rgb(cpu, 25,70)
#		print r,g,b
		backlight.rgb(r,g,b)	
		

		self.started=False
		self.timenow=self.millis()

		#check cycle through modes

		if self.cycle==0:
			 self.mode+=1
		         self.cycle=self.SWITCH

		if self.mode>2:
			 self.mode=0
			 self.cycle=self.SWITCH
		
		#system monitoring mode

		if self.mode==0:
		
			try:
				signal=subprocess.check_output(['iwconfig wlan0 | grep -i quality'], shell=True)
			except:
				signal="                      Offline"

	    		menu.write_option(
			row=0,
			text="wifi:"+signal[22:30],
			scroll=False)		

			menu.write_option(
			row=1,
			text="Temp "+tm.get_temp()+"C",
			scroll=False)

			menu.write_option(
			row=2,
			text="CPU "+str(ps.cpu_percent()),
			scroll=False)

			self.cycle-=1

		#clock mode

		elif self.mode==1:

			lcd.clear()
			menu.write_option(
			row=0,
			text=time.ctime(),
			scroll=False)

			self.cycle-=1
		
		elif self.mode==2:
			lcd.clear()
			self.cycle-=1	
			


#weather widget uses datapi.py

class Weather(MenuOption):

    def __init__(self):

	self.mode=0	
	self.active=False
	MenuOption.__init__(self)

    def begin(self):

	reset()
	self.timenow=self.millis()
	self.started=True
	self.day=0
	self.days=["Today", "Tomorrow"]
	backlight.rgb(0,0,0)

    def right(self):
	self.day=1

    def left(self):
	self.day=0
	return True

    def cleanup(self):
	backlight.rgb(0,0,0)

    def select(self):
	return False

    def redraw(self, menu):
	
	if (self.millis()-self.timenow>5000) or self.started==True:
		self.started=False
		try:
			self.temp=int(dp.weather_forecast(self.day)[2])
			r,g,b=tm.temp_rgb(self.temp, 0,30)
		except: 
			r,g,b=(100,100,100)
		backlight.rgb(r,g,b)

	        menu.write_option(
	            row=1,
	            text=dp.weather_forecast(self.day)[0],
	            scroll=False
	        )

		menu.write_option(
		row=0,
		text=self.days[self.day]+" "+dp.weather_forecast(self.day)[2]+" C",
		scroll=False
		)

		menu.write_option(
		row=2,
		text=dp.weather_forecast(self.day)[1]+" chance rain",
		scroll=False
		)
		
		self.timenow=self.millis()		
        """
        If you're not going to use a row, you should clear it!
        """

#menu structure

menu = Menu(
    structure={
       	'Weather': Weather(),
	'System': Idle(),
	'Trains': Trains(),
    },
lcd=lcd,
idle_handler=Idle(),
idle_timeout=30,
input_handler=Text(),
backlight=backlight.rgb(50,50,75)

)

touch.bind_defaults(menu)

#main loop 

def main():
	

	print ("running")	
	global running
	running=1

	while running==1:
	    menu.redraw()
	    time.sleep(0.05)


#error handling and system interrupt

if __name__ == "__main__":

        try:

                main()

        except KeyboardInterrupt:
                pass

        except:

                print ("exiting")
        finally:
                reset()
                GPIO.cleanup()
                sys.exit()

I’m not sure, could it be that PYTHONPATH contains traces of that mount recently removed?

In [1]: import sys
In [2]: print(sys.path)

what you can also check is the output of dmesg, although I doubt that it would contain much about what is preventing the cron event to resolve.

it’s odd - the script is executing as I checked its output, but the dothat does not fire up. I will try having the crontab sleep a tad before launching the script, see if that helps.

a sleep 30 && in the crontab seemed to do the trick. I’m still baffled why i had the problem

thanks for suggestions!