Topic by jimmi

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Topic: Pianoteq on Raspberry 4B keep crashing

5 years ago I built a nice appliance using Raspberry 4B and X400 DAC, you may find here the tutorial I wrote.
I wanted now to upgrade the software and installed the last Raspberry Pi OS Lite and Pianoteq 8 Stage 64bit. I installed the system without graphic environment and I use VNC to obtain the interface of Pianoteq on my PC or mobile.
The test was successful initially, but after sometime the OS crashed: VNC and SSH connection got lost.
I thought that the problem could be the 64bit OS and I changed to 32bit but the situation was even worse, the system keep crashing during the initial interface configuration.
I am astonished, not sure how to debug this issue since nothing appears in the log.
Anyone has a clue on how to understand what's going on?

Last edited by jimmi (24-01-2025 03:39)

Reply by dv

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Re: Pianoteq on Raspberry 4B keep crashing

jimmi wrote:

5 years ago I built a nice appliance using Raspberry 4B and X400 DAC, you may find here the tutorial I wrote.
I wanted now to upgrade the software and installed the last Raspberry Pi OS Lite and Pianoteq 8 Stage 64bit. I installed the system without graphic environment and I use VNC to obtain the interface of Pianoteq on my PC or mobile.
The test was successful initially, but after sometime the OS crashed: VNC and SSH connection got lost.
I thought that the problem could be the 64bit OS and I changed to 32bit but the situation was even worse, the system keep crashing during the initial interface configuration.
I am astonished, not sure how to debug this issue since nothing appears in the log.
Anyone has a clue on how to understand what's going on?

If it is the OS to crash, check the /var/log/messages or the dmesg (which IIRC archives the old content at each boot, so you have to dig into where the old content is). Try installing something else (you could do that on a different SD card , so that should not be a big pain) and see if that crashes too. It might be something broken in the hardware. If it does NOT crash, it can still be something related to the hardware, the most likely suspect not knowing anything but what you wrote is a device driver. Those are one of the few things that can make your entire OS crash and the main thing that you (imply) have changed.

Best of luck and by the way thanks for sharing that tutorial back in the day!

Where do I find a list of all posts I upvoted? :(

Reply by jimmi

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Re: Pianoteq on Raspberry 4B keep crashing

Thanks dv. The sistem now use journalctl that I never learn before.

I wandered a bit along the log and I found this message only before restart:

kernel: systemd[677]: memfd_create() called without MFD_EXEC or MFD_NOEXEC_SEAL set

this message appear at least twice from boot to shutdown, and is the last shown. Not many references in the web, nothing meaningful.

I will keep testing in the following days.

Reply by levinite

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Re: Pianoteq on Raspberry 4B keep crashing

You might try to open another ssh session along with the Pianoteq one. They you can inspect the tail of a repeated dmesg or maybe use a tool such as atop to inspect the state of your pi.

In my experience the only time I had Pianoteq "crash" was when the default sound was invalid. Pianoteq would show the audio selection screen but did not allow it to be changed (was frozen). The system sound default was invalid and needed to be changed. Pianoteq was waiting for an event that did not occur. This was early when I was also trying the new pipewire sound system. There has been a lot of changes to piOS, especially audio and video. I also noticed your script used "direct hardware without any conversions" that no longer works for me although I do use an hdmi sound connection.

BTW, this link should help with your kernel message but do you think this is related temporally to Pianoteq?

https://hackage.haskell.org/package/memfd

Reply by jimmi

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Re: Pianoteq on Raspberry 4B keep crashing

I changed the SD and now the version 64bit does not crash, I hope i found the problem. Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

Now the next issue I have to solve is the latency, not good for me.

I will try to built a RT kernel to see if it will improve.