1 Topic by sharby (edited by sharby 2009-02-24 04:08:19)

  • Registered: 2008-10-10
  • Posts: 56

Topic: Screen off function via alarm - erratic

I am running the beta control panel. I created a few alarms to wind the Chumby screen down for the night and then get it back up in the daytime.

1. The first, at 9 pm (yes, I go to bed early) puts the screen into night mode.

2. The second, at 10 pm, turns the screen off.  Fantastic. Sweet darkness.

3. Then, at 6 am, I set one to turn off night mode.

4. Finally at 9:30 am, I set one to turn on a pandora radio station.

Steps 1 and 2 execute flawlessly.

HOWEVER, randomly during the wee hours of the night, the display goes full bright, with the default channel on. It's happened twice. Once at 10:46 pm, at 1:35 am.

Any ideas what could be going wrong? Something on my end?

Sharby

  • Duane
  • Duane
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  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
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Re: Screen off function via alarm - erratic

Not sure - I'll take a look and see if there are any circumstances under which that might happen.  It *sounds* like the touchscreen got some spurious events - if the CP had restarted for some reason, it should have at least stayed in Night mode, even if dim rather than off.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2008-10-10
  • Posts: 56

Re: Screen off function via alarm - erratic

ok I'll continue to see on my side as well - the device is far away from the bed so there is no chance it could have been tapped accidentally.

Sharby

  • Registered: 2008-10-10
  • Posts: 56

Re: Screen off function via alarm - erratic

Definitely sporadic. Tuesday night, worked flawlessly. Last night (at 1:30 AM), displays a channel at full brightness.

Sharby

  • Duane
  • Duane
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Re: Screen off function via alarm - erratic

What would be extremely helpful would be a log that captures what's going on when this happens.  Could you try to do that?

SSH into the chumby, issue:

stop_control_panel
start_control_panel

This should output a *lot* of stuff, and when the screen changes, we should be able to see that happening.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2008-10-10
  • Posts: 56

Re: Screen off function via alarm - erratic

ok - I assume I need to have this running before the problem happens. So, leave a PuTTY session running overnight and grab the results in the morning?

Thanks

  • Duane
  • Duane
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Re: Screen off function via alarm - erratic

Yes, that would be the plan smile

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2008-10-10
  • Posts: 56

Re: Screen off function via alarm - erratic

Problem hasn't recurred (so far) after I made a minor modification. I had switched the single widget channel from one that contained the Sky Happenings widget (which occasionally flashes with lightning) to one with a very dark simple clock on it. If this indeed solved the problem, one theory is that in dark mode, underlying widgets are still active and "playing" and some events like screen flashing are not being suppressed by dark mode. Is that possible?

  • Duane
  • Duane
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Re: Screen off function via alarm - erratic

It's true that if you are simply using the alarm action, then the widgets are still playing, because all the action does is turn off the backlight to the display - it's like turning off the monitor, but leaving your computer on.

Not sure how the "lightning" would affect this, however.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2008-10-10
  • Posts: 56

Re: Screen off function via alarm - erratic

Problem has not recurred since I switched to this other widget before going to dark mode. So I'm happy now.

Thanks