Norns error: SuperCollider fail

[rikrak]

Managed to fix it by uninstalling PedalBoard, restarting and executing:
os.execute("rm -rf /home/we/.local/share/SuperCollider/Extensions/mi-UGens”), from up-thread.

[rebuspop]

Ok, had the infamous supercollider fail, but this time it seems to have bricked the Norns (Shield). It would continually stall out with a black screen, and there was very little info to gather from Maiden, so went ahead and etched in on a new SD card the latest Norns image. This time I got the Awake script playing but again it was stuck there, the ‘not red light’ always on, no access to Maiden as it wasn’t proceeding past this stage to setup WiFi… 321 key combo to restart wouldn’t work, so pulling the power is the only way out. What is the working life of a Shield? is it a power issue, the power suppply seems to be fine, but maybe its that? Any ideas welcome. Again can’t get past the Awake script launch to get any information from Maiden tabs.

[Duksos]

I’ve had these super collider fails for years
thought it was just part of the machine lol

[radian]

Can you get on Maiden if its connected by cable instead of WiFi?

[graymazes]

@rebuspop

supercollider fail

@rebuspop

the ‘not red light’ always on,

taken together, and given that multiple sd cards exhibit same symptom, this sounds to me like an issue with the pi itself and/or (most likely) the GPIO header connections. the header’s connection to the shield is a common point of failure, a site of soldering issues like cold or dry joints which can start out ok but become intermittent with time. this in turn will affect stability of both the codec/audio system, and the SD card / filesystem.

we can certainly diagnose better if you can use SSH or TTY to capture error messages directly. (by establishing a terminal connection and running journalctl.) but given the symptoms i expect this will not be very revealing.

@rebuspop

What is the working life of a Shield?

assembled and treated with care there is nothing stopping the shield components from working for many, many years. (there is e.g. no flash memory on the shield.) eventually the OLED will burn out i guess.

(fwiw, i personally have had no failures with the 3 or 4 shields i have used over the past few years. one shield on pi4 has had nearly continuous uptime since 2021. i have had mysterious deaths of pi3B itself once or twice. i’ve also seen a lot of sketchy shield soldering in photos here.)

@rebuspop

s it a power issue, the power suppply seems to be fine, but maybe its that?

the power requirements are straightforward, quoting from the site:

• Power supply - We highly suggest the official power supply for your model of Raspberry Pi. The Pi3B has a micro-USB power port and requires at least 2A and 5.25V ideally supplied through a cable with 24AWG or less. The Pi4 has a USB-C power port and 3A / 5.1V is recommended. Lower AWG = lower noise & more stable voltage delivery for better performance. Most consumer USB cables do not meet this spec, so please be sure to keep an eye out. You can also use a portable USB battery if it’s sufficiently large.

the AWG requirement is worth paying attention to, thicker is better, lower numbers are thicker. if the AWG is very high (wire is thin) then you get voltage drop and it doesn’t matter that the other specs are great.

[rebuspop]

Hi -

@radian

Can you get on Maiden if its connected by cable instead of WiFi?

as its a Shield, not sure if that is possible, think - ‘Serial / USB-UART connection is only applicable to standard norns**’ but maybe there is a way.

@graymazes

taken together, and given that multiple sd cards exhibit same symptom, this sounds to me like an issue with the pi itself and/or (most likely) the GPIO header connections. the header’s connection to the shield is a common point of failure, a site of soldering issues like cold or dry joints which can start out ok but become intermittent with time. this in turn will affect stability of both the codec/audio system, and the SD card / filesystem.

I was wondering whether the Pi might have failed, assume the Pi board is the main point of connection for all accessories, and I do have a few attached - Grid, OMX-27 and a Micromonsta 2, not all at the same time but 2/3 sometimes. Could the draw of these externals have fatigued the Pi board? I know @dani_derks replaced all the pots for me in the last year and it had been fine ever since, and yes like yourself it has been left on continuously sometimes. I always thought the point of failure was going to come from the micro usb connection, not an ideal power switch… Maybe will pulll it apart and have a look, maybe there’s another pi nearby to try fresh.Thanks for your very informative reply. cheers

[ngwese]

@rebuspop

as its a Shield, not sure if that is possible, think - ‘Serial / USB-UART connection is only applicable to standard norns**’ but maybe there is a way.

serial access is possible on shield devices but requires a header to be installed on the underside of the board (visible on the far left of this photo) and a TTL to usb serial adapter. i don’t know off the top of my head whether the serial header is in the BOM or not.

[radian]

But the Pi has a normal network port?

[rebuspop]

@graymazes

we can certainly diagnose better if you can use SSH or TTY to capture error messages directly. (by establishing a terminal connection and running journalctl.) but given the symptoms i expect this will not be very revealing.

Ok, I have managed to SSH into Shields, re-etched again, install some scripts but then start getting the fails. I am not a code person, just enuff to break things.

Summary

compiling class library…
Found 738 primitives.
Compiling directory ‘/usr/local/share/SuperCollider/SCClassLibrary’
Compiling directory ‘/usr/local/share/SuperCollider/Extensions’
Compiling directory ‘/home/we/.local/share/SuperCollider/Extensions’
Compiling directory ‘/home/we/norns/sc/core’
Compiling directory ‘/home/we/norns/sc/engines’
Compiling directory ‘/home/we/dust’
numentries = 1146192 / 13952214 = 0.082
4527 method selectors, 3082 classes
method table size 8627084 bytes, big table size 55808856
Number of Symbols 13117
Byte Code Size 398308
compiled 503 files in 0.84 seconds
Info: 4 methods are currently overwritten by extensions. To see which, execute:
MethodOverride.printAll
compile done
localhost : setting clientID to 0.
internal : setting clientID to 0.
register a FxDelay initOnce is false
register a FxGrains initOnce is false
register a FxResonator initOnce is false
WARNING: ‘lame’ executable not found. Please modify the MP3:lamepath class variable.
WARNING: ‘oggdec’ executable not found. Please modify the MP3:oggdecpath class variable.
Class tree inited in 0.85 seconds
Execution warning: Class ‘MiPlaits’ not found
WARNING: keyword arg ‘pitch’ not found in call to Object:doesNotUnderstand
WARNING: keyword arg ‘engine’ not found in call to Object:doesNotUnderstand
WARNING: keyword arg ‘harm’ not found in call to Object:doesNotUnderstand
WARNING: keyword arg ‘timbre’ not found in call to Object:doesNotUnderstand
WARNING: keyword arg ‘morph’ not found in call to Object:doesNotUnderstand
WARNING: keyword arg ‘trigger’ not found in call to Object:doesNotUnderstand
WARNING: keyword arg ‘fm_mod’ not found in call to Object:doesNotUnderstand
WARNING: keyword arg ‘timb_mod’ not found in call to Object:doesNotUnderstand
WARNING: keyword arg ‘morph_mod’ not found in call to Object:doesNotUnderstand
WARNING: keyword arg ‘decay’ not found in call to Object:doesNotUnderstand
WARNING: keyword arg ‘lpg_colour’ not found in call to Object:doesNotUnderstand
WARNING: keyword arg ‘mul’ not found in call to Object:doesNotUnderstand
ERROR: Message ‘ar’ not understood.
RECEIVER:
nil
ARGS:
PROTECTED CALL STACK:
Meta_MethodError:new 0x785b20
arg this = DoesNotUnderstandError
arg what = nil
arg receiver = nil
Meta_DoesNotUnderstandError:new 0x786f20
arg this = DoesNotUnderstandError
arg receiver = nil
arg selector = ar
arg args = [ ]
Object:doesNotUnderstand 0x41d2a0
arg this = nil
arg selector = ar
arg args = nil
a FunctionDef 0x10a7ea0
sourceCode = “{
|out, pitch=60.0, engine=0, harm=0.1, timbre=0.5, morph=0.5, fm_mod=0.0, timb_mod=0.0,
morph_mod=0.0, decay=0.5, lpg_color=0.5, mul=1.0, aux_mix=0.0, gain=1.0, pan=0.0, sendA=0, sendB=0, sendABus=0, sendBBus=0|
var sound = MiPlaits.ar(
pitch: pitch,
engine: engine,
harm: harm,
timbre: timbre,
morph: morph,
trigger: Impulse.kr(0),
…etc…”
arg out = an OutputProxy
arg pitch = an OutputProxy
arg engine = an OutputProxy
arg harm = an OutputProxy
arg timbre = an OutputProxy
arg morph = an OutputProxy
arg fm_mod = an OutputProxy
arg timb_mod = an OutputProxy
arg morph_mod = an OutputProxy
arg decay = an OutputProxy
arg lpg_color = an OutputProxy
arg mul = an OutputProxy
arg aux_mix = an OutputProxy
arg gain = an OutputProxy
arg pan = an OutputProxy
arg sendA = an OutputProxy
arg sendB = an OutputProxy
arg sendABus = an OutputProxy
arg sendBBus = an OutputProxy
var sound = nil
SynthDef:buildUgenGraph 0x11253e0
arg this = a SynthDef
arg func = a Function
arg rates = nil
arg prependArgs = [ ]
var result = nil
var saveControlNames = nil
a FunctionDef 0x11244a0
sourceCode = “”
Function:prTry 0x813ce0
arg this = a Function
var result = nil
var thread = a Thread
var next = nil
var wasInProtectedFunc = false

CALL STACK:
DoesNotUnderstandError:reportError
arg this =
Nil:handleError
arg this = nil
arg error =
Thread:handleError
arg this =
arg error =
Object:throw
arg this =
Function:protect
arg this =
arg handler =
var result =
SynthDef:build
arg this =
arg ugenGraphFunc =
arg rates = nil
arg prependArgs = nil
< FunctionDef in Method Meta_Emplaitress:initClass > (no arguments or variables)
Function:doOnStartUp
arg this =
ArrayedCollection:do
arg this = [*7]
arg function =
var i = 2
List:do
arg this =
arg function =
Meta_StartUp:run
arg this =
Main:startup
arg this =
var didWarnOverwrite = false
^^ ERROR: Message ‘ar’ not understood.
RECEIVER: nil

from Maiden SuperCollider

Summary

*** WARNING *** The program ‘matron’ uses the Apple Bonjour compatibility layer of Avahi.

*** WARNING *** Please fix your application to use the native API of Avahi!

*** WARNING *** For more information see http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/avahi-compat.html

Cannot lock down 107350048 byte memory area (Cannot allocate memory)

init oracle…

OSC rx port: 8888

OSC crone port: 9999

OSC ext port: 57120

OSC remote port: 10111

init weaver…

starting main lua vm

running lua config file: dofile(‘/home/we/norns/lua/core/config.lua’)

MATRON

norns version: 0.0.0

git hash: 42961b9

platform: 3

init dev_monitor…

setting cleanup…

init input…

running startup…

error loading keyboard layout, using old value: us

start_audio():

scanning devices…

handling pending events…

_norns.midi.add: 1, virtual, userdata: 0x416178

running post-startup…

_norns._post_startup

script clear

norns.startup_status.timeout

SCRIPT ERROR: SUPERCOLLIDER FAIL

from Matron

[jaseknighter]

@rebuspop the sc error messages reference miplaits and emplaitress, indicating emplaitress was installed but there was an issue with installation. here are some things to try:

1. confirm you are connected to your wifi network and restart the norns once or twice to give emplaitress a chance to get itself installed properly (it needs to grab miplaits code from github after it is run initially)
2. turn off the emplaitress mod in the mod menu and restart
3. remove the emplaitress mod and restart

[rebuspop]

The patient has recovered, thanks to this prescription.

[Igor_Temel]

Please, help!
I got Error: Supercollider Fail on Norns Shield
and this is SC report from Maiden -

*** ERROR: dlopen ‘/home/we/.local/share/SuperCollider/Extensions/PulsePTR/PulsePTR_scsynth.so’ err ‘/home/we/.local/share/SuperCollider/Extensions/PulsePTR/PulsePTR_scsynth.so: file too short’

. . .
dlopen error SOLVED!

First it was - PulsePTR_scsynth.so
I removed it with rm command from Cyberduck,
and then it showed another error - TrianglePTR_scsynth.so
After I removed this one also, everything is fine again.

Thanks to everyone for the insights!
Keep the Norns community alive and kicking!
Greetings from Macedonia