Can't start minimenu - any ideas?

[Macguyver]

Hi folks, recently I noticed that I was not getting any luck choosing minimenu on the boot GUI menu.  It would start into XFCE4 fine but if I chose minimenu it would pause for a while then just kick back to the choose GUI screen.  I can't even go into minimenu when I click on switch GUI from inside XFCE4. 

I even reflashed to R1.55.  Still no success at booting into MiniMenu.  Any suggestions?

System specs:  Pandora classic. 256 megs RAM

Firmware:  SuperZaxxon R1.55

Kernel:  Linux version 3.2.45

Thanks

 

[freamon]

You could try running from a terminal inside XFCE. Just type 'mmenu' and see it loads. If it does, choose the Quit (beware) option to exit. If not, it should give you some info on why not.

Also, have a look at /etc/pandora/conf/gui.conf - maybe that has become corrupted (minimenu's entry should be: "Minimenu;A very simple but flexible menu;startmenu;stopmenu")

 

[mcobit]

Also try without a sdcard in the slots.

 

[Macguyver]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Tried it without any SD cards in the slot.  No minimenu still.  Darn.

However I was able to get it to run from the Terminal.  Here's a list of what was shown on the screen after I exited.

pandora:~$ mmenu
mmenu 1 0    X11 seems to be present [pid 2067]
mmenu 1 0    Found pnd_run.sh at '/usr/pandora/scripts/pnd_run.sh'
mmenu 0 0    application rescan is set to: auto
mmenu 1 0    Skin falling back to: 'default'
mmenu 1 0    Skin path determined to be: '/etc/pandora/mmenu/skins/default'
mmenu 0 0    Pixel format:
mmenu 0 0    bpp b: 16
mmenu 0 0    bpp B: 2
mmenu 0 0    R mask: 0000f800
mmenu 0 0    G mask: 000007e0
mmenu 0 0    B mask: 0000001f
mmenu 0 1    Looking for pnd applications here: /media/*/pandora/mmenu:/usr/pandora/mmenu
mmenu 0 1    Checking pndnotifyd disco lock pndnotifyd-disco.lock
mmenu 0 1    Lock is all clear pndnotifyd-disco.lock so no need to wait
mmenu 0 1    Found pnd applications, and caching icons:
mmenu 2 1    PXML Fail Qsynth: Cat request AudioVideo (parent Audio) -> bad cat
mmenu 2 1    PXML Fail Qsynth: Cat request Midi (parent n/a) -> bad cat
mmenu 2 1    App Fail: app (Qsynth qsynth-fluidsynth-26479) is already in cat Other
mmenu 2 1    PXML Fail Qsynth: Cat request X-Alsa (parent Midi) -> bad cat
mmenu 2 1    App Fail: app (Qsynth qsynth-fluidsynth-26479) is already in cat Other
mmenu 2 1    PXML Fail PNDManager: Cat request PackageManager (parent System) -> bad cat
mmenu 2 1    PXML Fail Switch GUI: Cat request X-Xfce-Toplevel (parent n/a) -> bad cat
mmenu 2 1    PXML Fail Mousepad: Cat request Application (parent n/a) -> bad cat
mmenu 2 1    PXML Fail Mousepad: Cat request Office (parent Application) -> bad cat
mmenu 2 1    App Fail: app (Mousepad mmenumousepad) is already in cat Other
mmenu 2 1    PXML Fail Evince Document Viewer: Cat request Viewer (parent Office) -> bad cat
mmenu 2 1    PXML Fail Calculator: Cat request Application (parent n/a) -> bad cat
mmenu 2 1    PXML Fail Calculator: Cat request Office (parent Application) -> bad cat
mmenu 2 1    App Fail: app (Calculator mmenugcalctool) is already in cat Other
mmenu 0 1    Applications scan done.
mmenu 0 1    Setting up dbusnotify
 

I did look at /etc/pandora/conf/gui.conf
It was as you said it needed to be:  "Minimenu;A very simple but flexible menu;startmenu;stopmenu"

I wonder why it doesn't work when booting to the menu or when pressing the Choose GUI icon?
 

 

[_jr_]

Just to clarify: does it show the minimenu loading screen before going back to the chooser?

 

[Macguyver]

No, the minimenu screen never shows.  Only works when using the terminal.

 

[_jr_]

Was your gui.conf copied or typed? There should be 2 'm' each in startmmenu and stopmmenu.

 

[skeezix]

The important note is..

If it wonmt' start, and SD cards are ejected, then theres something futzed up in NAND.

I'd hit up the homedir and purge .mm* files.. such as ..mprefs or whatever I called it   Its fairly hard to muck it up in NAND, but were you mucking with themes in NAND or altering confs/artwork by hand?

Its possible of course some combination of options could be causing a blow up, but wiping out the prefs file should remove that possibility (going back to vanilla.)

I must apo9logize for not promoting the code that watches for crashes and automatically removes the pref file though :/ Worked on that, never got around to merging that into the public release :/

The other alternative is. the NAND is corrupted somehow, a reflash would fix it, though a trifle annoying.

jeff

 

[_jr_]

But interestingly mmenu on it's own seems to start fine. Only the gui switcher fails. And since startmmenu and mmwrapper do little more than running mmenu, I think only gui.conf is actually relevant here.


@MacGuyver: please try to run startmmenu from the terminal. If that works, most probably gui.conf is broken. Did you reflash or use the os upgrader? The latter does not actually replace gui.conf, but leaves the original gui.conf-opkg around. Compare these.

 

[skeezix]

Oh, I didn't read carefully above; if it starts with 'mmenu' then yes, fully agreed; mmwrapper just runs mmenu (to minimize memory footprint when apps are running). Very curious

gui.conf is only used for the switcher menu, not during bootup; when the switcher is used, I think it just sets the profile to use startmmenu .. so a gui.conf, or profile or xinit type issue.

For average joe, I'd reflash; for hacking types, I'd go fiddling with scripts.. shouldn't be too ahrd a fix, but I worry.. if somethign goit corrupted in NAND, its generally by monkeying; if he monkeyed, he can unmonkey it or reflash; if he didn't monkey.. then it occured by radiation from the moon bouncing off an invisible turtle.. what else got impacted? -> reflash to avoid the question.

jeff

 

[_jr_]

You are right, of course

 

[Macguyver]

_jr_: yes, I typed what I saw in gui.conf instead of copying it, so the correct item was actually

"MiniMenu;A very simple but flexible menu;startmmenu;stopmmenu"

skeezix:  I haven't been mucking with anything in nand as far as I know.  No theme adjustments or anything like that.  I noticed for the past few weeks that minimenu was not suddenly not working.  I did an upgrade through the OS upgrader first and that didn't solve it. But as far as I know I also did a correct reflash by downloading the latest image, doing the whole right front button hold with the image file in the left SD slot, and choosing the file, and it appeared to go through the normal flash procedure.   The boot screen now says Kernel 3.2 and Release 1.55 so I'm guessing that it did in fact install the latest.   I was pretty flabergasted when minimenu STILL didn't work.  I wish I could pause the screen when I try to start minimenu from the GUI chooser when I boot.  There's a lot of text on the screen with possibly some errors, but it disappears too fast for me to see. 

_jr_:  Yes, typing "startmmenu" from the terminal does start minimenu just fine.  I guess gui.conf is broken, then? 

I checked the home dir and I don't seem to have any mm files at all in there...

I'm really confused why a reflash wouldn't solve this.

 

[skeezix]

yeah, a reflash should pretty much have solved it (a reflash without SD cards inserted during boot anyway .. the system will look for a bunch of things on SD as overrides .. but ejecting them and a flash solves _Everything_ pretty much -- except for persistant nand problems or other weird stuff like that. Sounds like you've covered the bases ... hmm.

In your homedir, look for .mm (dot at the beginning) -- they're "hidden", like .desktop and .rc files and so on. Should be ~/.mmpref.conf as the full path.

Everything _else_ works fine though right? (ie: so no general corruption..)

I dunno .. something must've been tried and missed by mistake; try another reflash? (*swallow* .. lame advice, but.. guessing

Starting okay from terminal, but not from boot; that would suggest a timing or environment issue ..

Well wait, you can't boot into minimenu ("switched to" minimenu) or do a gui change temporarily to minimenu (within session from xfce to minimenu) right? but you can launch it with startmmenu from terminal. (working through a touch.. if you can't boot into it, thats one thing.. something might not be ready yet for whatever reason.. but if you can't run it from a switch via the gui switcher from xfce, but can from terminal, then it is very likely the gui switcher gui,.conf ... but you've checked it.)

What about dos line endings or something? did you prepare a gui.conf from Windows and copy to SD and then into nand? (did you get permissions and ownership right?) Maybe you had D?OS line endings and borked it subtly but invisibly, though line endings likely wouldn't be a problem there anyway...

jeff

 

[_jr_]

If you haven't given up yes, we might test one level further.


Run the following in the terminal (and choose Minimenu in the popup):

~$ cd /tmp
/tmp$ mv gui.stop gui.stopx
/tmp$ /usr/pandora/scripts/op_switchgui.sh 
MiniMenu
startmmenu
MiniMenu will be started
/usr/pandora/scripts/op_switchgui.sh: line 15: /tmp/gui.stop: No such file or directory
/tmp$ cat gui.load 
startmmenu
/tmp$ cat gui.stopnew 
stopmmenu
/tmp$ mv gui.stopx gui.stop

Your output should be similar.

 

[skeezix]

Thanks cor keeping at it .. I'm totally killed for free time .. No PC time at all at home lately ::

 

[Macguyver]

Hi _jr_, thanks for continuing to throw out ideas.  I typed in everything you suggested and everything happened exactly as you predicted.  Mminimenu did start fine.  However after this I tried running switchGUI from the menu and minimenu still does not open.

Skeezix, yes everything else is working fine.  There is no general corruption.  Also I did not prepare a gui.conf and copy it from windows.  I did not modify it at all, just that one day it stopped working.  Maybe something got messed up with permissions and ownership of that file although I am not sure how exactly to fix that.  (or why the reflash would not have fixed it)

I guess I will reflash it again.  I will let you know what occurs.

 

[Macguyver]

OK did a 2nd reflash, was very careful to use a new SD card with just the reflash files, restarted unit, held down right button, chose reboot from SD1, reflash went smooth.  Re set up the device.  Chose no password upon boot (more on that later). Then chose chooseGUI as my default boot state.

Upon rebooting and choosing minimenu, I get bumped into the username / password login (which should not be happening), and then even after entering the info correct, I get pushed back to the choseGUI screen.  Only way the unit will boot is if I choose XFCE4. Once in XFCE4, choose GUI still does not work.

What possibly could be going wrong here?

Any idea on how I can freeze the pandy while it tries to load up minimenu?  Reason being is that I can see some error messages but they only stay on the screen for like 1 second, and there is no way to know what it says.

Damn.   No minimenu for you!

 

[TrashyMG]

Do you have any PNDs on the SD card? I know that was a problem a while ago, it wouldn't start if you had none.. but thought that would of been resolved by now.

 

[sebt3]

So no minimenu without any sdcard in just after a full reflash ?

I just re-read mmenu sources, and I just cant get how that's possible.

Just a *wild* guess : does pewpew2 works on your unit ?

 

[ingoreis]

OK did a 2nd reflash

Have you redownloaded the Files?

Maybe there was a Download Error in your Files :huh: