OSMC Installer hang on Ubuntu

Feature Requests
1

The Installer hangs under certain circumstances, more due to my inexperience with using.
Given that many people will only want to run it once I feel it is appropriate to raise the issues I found even though it is not insurmountable.

I’m using Ubuntu 12.04LTS
$ uname -a

Linux Tosh 3.2.0-89-generic #127-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jul 28 09:28:33 UTC 2015 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

I am new to OSMC and have used the installer a couple of times over a couple of weeks but each time it has tripped me up and resulted in the installer hanging.

I downloaded the Linux Installer and the relevant OSMC image for Raspberry Pi. On opening the Installer I follow the menu through Language and Device selection to the options for ‘what version…’ and ‘use local build…’ . I make the incorrect assumption that by selecting ‘local build’ I don’t have to select the version and click Next at which point the installer hangs and becomes unresponsive. It appears that if I select ‘local build’ before selecting a version the installer simply hangs.

I think the problem is a bit bigger so am going to reboot my machine, retest and add to this later.

2

Local version works OK here on Ubuntu 14.04

A log called ‘osmc.log’ should be created in your home directory when running.

I have never tested the installer on Precise. Does your system log show any crashes (tail /var/log/syslog)

As you can imagine, our Linux installer doesn’t get that much use, so it’s hard for me to track down some issues.

Sam

3

Hello @sam_nazarko

No osmc.log in my home directory or anywhere on my machine…

$ sudo updatedb 
$ locate osmc.log
$

However. there is this…

$ cat /var/log/syslog|grep osmc -i
Sep  1 17:54:48 Tosh gnome-session[2935]: WARNING: Unable to load desktop file '/usr/share/osmc/qt_host_installer.desktop': No such file or directory
Sep  1 17:54:48 Tosh gnome-session[2935]: WARNING: Unable to find desktop file 'gnome-/usr/share/osmc/qt_host_installer.desktop': Valid key file could not be found in search dirs

I can’t be sure exactly what I was doing at the time shown for these so they may/are probably not relevant as they are are not showing up now when I run through the installer to a hang. They may be the result of me killing processes while investigating what I could.

4

Further info…

I’m pretty sure I am on the latest installer…

$sudo apt-get install osmc-installer
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
osmc-installer is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 18 not upgraded.

I have at least one image file on the local machine…

$ ls Downloads/rasp/OSMC/ -hal
total 151M
drwxrwxr-x 2 peter peter 4.0K Aug 31 17:37 .
drwxrwxr-x 9 peter peter 4.0K Aug 31 17:34 ..
-rw-rw-r-- 1 peter peter 151M Aug 31 17:37 OSMC_TGT_rbp1_20150830.img.gz

On running the installer having selected Language and Device I get to version selection screen…

Scenario #1

Version         Selected '201508-1'         # of dropdown list (201508-1, 201507-1, 201506-1)
Local Build     (Not Selected)
Next            Selected
Result          Continues to next Option

Scenario #2

Version         Selected '201508-1'         # of dropdown list (201508-1, 201507-1, 201506-1)
Local Build     Selected
Next            Selected    
Result          Unresponsive

Scenario #3

Version         Selected '201508-1'         # of dropdown list (201508-1, 201507-1, 201506-1)
Local Build     (Not Selected)
Next            Selected
Back            Selected 
Local Build     Selected
Back            Selected      
Result          Unresponsive

Does the selected ‘dropdown’ version have to match an available ‘local file’ version?

I did get the installer to run through and install from local file yesterday but can’t get it to do it today!

I have another machine running 14.04… I will try that shortly and see what happens.

5

In Windows the log file is named log.txt, check for any text or log files in your home directory ( /home/<username>/ )

6

@Dilligaf log.txt from my home directory…

This is the last couple of hours content and shuold contain several attempts…
(OSMC installer currently hung in the background)

 Tue Sep 1 18:34:41 2015 OSMC Installer running on Linux
Tue Sep 1 18:34:41 2015 Detected locale as en_IE
Tue Sep 1 18:34:41 2015 Attempting to load translation for locale en_IE
Tue Sep 1 18:34:41 2015 Could not load translation!
Tue Sep 1 18:34:41 2015 Resolving a mirror
Tue Sep 1 18:34:41 2015 Resolved mirror to http://46.37.189.135/osmc/download/
Tue Sep 1 18:34:41 2015 Enumerating supported devices
Tue Sep 1 18:34:41 2015 Added the following devices
Tue Sep 1 18:34:41 2015 Vero
Tue Sep 1 18:34:41 2015 Raspberry Pi
Tue Sep 1 18:34:41 2015 Raspberry Pi 2
Tue Sep 1 18:34:41 2015 Checking for updates
Tue Sep 1 18:34:41 2015 Checking for updates by downloading http://46.37.189.135/osmc/download//installers/latest_linux
Tue Sep 1 18:34:42 2015 Acquired mirror file
Tue Sep 1 18:34:42 2015 No new update is available
Tue Sep 1 18:34:49 2015 The user has selected English as their language
Tue Sep 1 18:34:49 2015 The user has selected Raspberry Pi as their device
Tue Sep 1 18:34:49 2015 Attempting to download device versions file http://46.37.189.135/osmc/download/installers/versions_RBP
Tue Sep 1 18:34:49 2015 Found a build called  2015.08-1
Tue Sep 1 18:34:49 2015 Found a build called  2015.07-1
Tue Sep 1 18:34:49 2015 Found a build called  2015.06-1
Tue Sep 1 19:47:51 2015 OSMC Installer running on Linux
Tue Sep 1 19:47:51 2015 Detected locale as en_IE
Tue Sep 1 19:47:51 2015 Attempting to load translation for locale en_IE
Tue Sep 1 19:47:51 2015 Could not load translation!
Tue Sep 1 19:47:51 2015 Resolving a mirror
Tue Sep 1 19:47:51 2015 Resolved mirror to http://46.37.189.135/osmc/download/
Tue Sep 1 19:47:51 2015 Enumerating supported devices
Tue Sep 1 19:47:51 2015 Added the following devices
Tue Sep 1 19:47:51 2015 Vero
Tue Sep 1 19:47:51 2015 Raspberry Pi
Tue Sep 1 19:47:51 2015 Raspberry Pi 2
Tue Sep 1 19:47:51 2015 Checking for updates
Tue Sep 1 19:47:51 2015 Checking for updates by downloading http://46.37.189.135/osmc/download//installers/latest_linux
Tue Sep 1 19:47:52 2015 Acquired mirror file
Tue Sep 1 19:47:52 2015 No new update is available
Tue Sep 1 19:48:26 2015 The user has selected English as their language
Tue Sep 1 19:48:26 2015 The user has selected Raspberry Pi as their device
Tue Sep 1 19:48:26 2015 Attempting to download device versions file http://46.37.189.135/osmc/download/installers/versions_RBP
Tue Sep 1 19:48:27 2015 Found a build called  2015.08-1
Tue Sep 1 19:48:27 2015 Found a build called  2015.07-1
Tue Sep 1 19:48:27 2015 Found a build called  2015.06-1
7

Not sure why it is hanging. Let me know if it works on Ubuntu 14.04

Sam

8

Ubuntu 14.04 Works!
seems to be working fine, when I get to and select local build it opens the file manager and allows me to navigate to a file.

Ubuntu 12.04
I have done
$apt-get --purge remove osmc-installer and
$apt-get install osmc-installer

and it still hangs when I select local build

I cleared the log so this is a full ‘from open to hang’

$ cat log.txt
Tue Sep 1 21:04:55 2015 OSMC Installer running on Linux
Tue Sep 1 21:04:55 2015 Detected locale as en_IE
Tue Sep 1 21:04:55 2015 Attempting to load translation for locale en_IE
Tue Sep 1 21:04:55 2015 Could not load translation!
Tue Sep 1 21:04:55 2015 Resolving a mirror
Tue Sep 1 21:04:57 2015 Resolved mirror to http://46.37.189.135/osmc/download/
Tue Sep 1 21:04:57 2015 Enumerating supported devices
Tue Sep 1 21:04:57 2015 Added the following devices
Tue Sep 1 21:04:57 2015 Vero
Tue Sep 1 21:04:57 2015 Raspberry Pi
Tue Sep 1 21:04:57 2015 Raspberry Pi 2
Tue Sep 1 21:04:57 2015 Checking for updates
Tue Sep 1 21:04:57 2015 Checking for updates by downloading http://46.37.189.135/osmc/download//installers/latest_linux
Tue Sep 1 21:04:57 2015 Acquired mirror file
Tue Sep 1 21:04:57 2015 No new update is available
Tue Sep 1 21:05:09 2015 The user has selected English as their language
Tue Sep 1 21:05:09 2015 The user has selected Raspberry Pi as their device
Tue Sep 1 21:05:09 2015 Attempting to download device versions file http://46.37.189.135/osmc/download/installers/versions_RBP
Tue Sep 1 21:05:09 2015 Found a build called  2015.08-1
Tue Sep 1 21:05:09 2015 Found a build called  2015.07-1
Tue Sep 1 21:05:09 2015 Found a build called  2015.06-1

htop filtered on ‘osmc’ shows these processes…

htop while hung after reinstall.png1345×553 127 KB

the working 14.04 has one extra peter - gksu… qt_host_installer and one extra root - qt_host_installerprocess

9

Ah

gksu is needed to elevate privileges I believe.

Sam

10

For the life of me I can’t remember (old age) what (if anything) I did differently yesterday because I did get it to run through once and image a card from a local file but I’m trying all variations I can think of to no avail.

11

That hit the nail on the head Sam! When I run

$sudo osmcinstaller

then follow through to the build options screen and click on local build it opens a file manager!
but I definitely didn’t run it that way yesterday.

12

Our source is here. Unfortunately packaging for all the distributions is tricky. If you are able to fix it, it would be great to get a PR.

Sam

13

If I’m not mistaken all the code is in C++ ?

I only recently completed some online courses in Python and believe me Sam I am no more than a novice.

Nothing would give me more pleasure than to be able to add something to this or any Open Source project but when I look at a git repository like this one, it’s a bit overwhelming. I can see dozens of individual files that I assume all make up the package (or part of) but its never obvious how they all hang together and usually the code is using advanced techniques I’ve not seen before.

Are there any Python elements I could at least look at to build some familiarity and is there is any area a novice Python programmer could get involved (with some mentoring from some patient others)?

By the way what’s a PR??

14

PR is a pull request and is how you submit code to review on GitHub.

We probably need to adjust the packaging rules for Ubuntu: osmc/debian.control at master · osmc/osmc · GitHub, rather than the application itself

Sam

15

While following your links and reading Debian’s documentation maybe I came across a small discrepancy that probably is not impacting anywhere and doesn’t warrant a PR but here goes…

This code references 'Section: tools"

am I right in saying that the Debian doesn’t have a section called “tools” but does have a section called “utils”
https://packages.debian.org/testing/