[PROBLEM] Some settings not saved correctly

[kurt1970]

Booted this morning and everythign ok.

Only diffrence today compared to the boot yesterday is that:
* Yesterday I did a shut down listening to a radio station -> OK
* The day before I did a shut down when listenng to a playlist on a SMB share, which was not there anymore when booting the day after -> Settings/Mods gone

TBC...

[the_bertrum]

What do you mean by "a SMB share, which was not there anymore"? Did the config mounting the share get forgotten as well as the other settings?

[philrandal]

This thread reminds me of the sorts of problems I had with faulty SD cards and Moode.

[the_bertrum]

This thread reminds me of the sorts of problems I had with faulty SD cards and Moode.

Yup, I suspect something like that myself, or some other device in the chain messing things up.

[kurt1970]

* It's a brand new SD card. After writing the moOde image, the verification marks it as ok. Furthermore, no OS crashed, no kernel messages that could indicate an issue with the SD card.

* "SMB mount not there anymore". My music collection is stored on a device exposing a SMB interface. So moOde is connected to that device via a SMB share. That evening, I was listening to a playlist on that SMB device. At the end of the day I did a shutdown of both the moOde device and the SMB device.
The day after, I booted the PI, but not the SMB device. My remaining playlist appeared on the screen. This was when settings (see first post) were gone.

[Nutul]

The day after, I booted the PI, but not the SMB device

What was your expectation, then...?!?

[kurt1970]

It's niot because the SMB device not being up that settings like the SMB Monitor, Check for new version and Worker response should be reset to defaults. This is what happened. Although not sure if it's related.

[TheOldPresbyope]

@kurt1970 

So far, nothing about this situation makes much sense. 

I, for one, have not experienced any problem with these settings on any model Pi, with or without local music drives or remote NAS shares attached, with various official power supplies, with I2S or USB DACs, etc.

I am not a PHP programmer and have only a dilettante's knowledge of the use of PHP session variables. I do know that the settings you are talking about are not saved in moOde's SQL database, but rather in moOdes PHP-session save file  /var/local/php/sess_<a_long_identifier>.

This text file persists between boots unless something else is interfering with it. We don't have enough information to guess what that something else might be in your case.

I'm particularly perplexed by your comment that "It always happens on my PI3. A PI4 with the same config never gives an issue." What is different (besides the Pi model number) between these two systems?


Regards,
Kent

[kurt1970]

Hi @TheOldPresbyope ,

I'm just monitoring the context when it happens in the hope to identify a case I can reproduce...
Thanks for pointing me to the session file. Indeed, I found the prefs in that file.

The two moode deivices I've are:
* PI3B+, Micro SD boot and HifiBerry Pro S/PDIF hat to the DAC.
* PI4, SSD boot, using USB to connect to the DAC

At the moment of writing, the system is up for 18h and 2min and is working ok. AFAIK, I never got an issue with a running system. It only happens between a shutdown and a boot (the day after).

The /var/local/php/sess_ho7vk67sqrjua8sme0pqhsjgdq file (in my case) is 68125 bytes and seems to be written at least every minute. 

So, the cause could be corruption of the session file? But how?

[kurt1970]

It went fine for some days, but when booting this morning, settings were gone again.
I thought the session file may be corupted, but it's not. Values are actually re set to defaults in the session file. Yesterday, before shutdown, I checked, and they weren't reset yet.

In the links below, you can find the session file with the correct settings, and the one of this morning with changed settings.
* Settings ok: Link
* Settings wrong: Link

If you search for "worker_responsiveness" in the file, you'll see that in the OK file it's "Boosted", and in the WRONG file it's "Default".
Same for "updater_auto_check", where in the OK file it's "On", and in the WRONG file it's "Off".

As a dirty hack, I copied over the "ok" session file in the /var/local/php dir, rebooted and settings are back. However, this doesn't seem the solution, I guess.

Any thoughts @Tim Curtis ?
Tx,
Kurt