Image viewer with transition between images

[atpost]

Hi Paddy,

I tested with a few pictures, 4, for over 48 hours and all went well.
While slideshow was playing, I added about 2000 pictures to the Pictures folder. The slideshow showed the new pictures without issue. Several hours later I rebooted the pi, and the slideshow won't start anymore.
Thinking that it's because of the large number of pictures, I moved most of the 2000 pictures to a subfolder and only left 3 pictures in the Picture folder - but still no slideshow.

This is the error in the cron log I get since I added the large number of pictures. Still get the error, even after pictures were removed.

Code: Select all

script started
  File "/home/pi/pi3d_demos/PictureFrame.py", line 161
    `    file_list = temp_list_first + temp_list_last
    ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
script finished

[paddyg]

That looks an odd error message. Let me see what the lines around 161 look like in your version of PictureFrame.py, maybe something sneaked in while you were editing. They should be

Code: Select all

    random.shuffle(temp_list_first)
    random.shuffle(temp_list_last)
    file_list = temp_list_first + temp_list_last
  else:
    file_list.sort() # if not suffled; sort by name

i.e. the f of file_list should line up with the r of random. And there shouldn't be any ` characters. (Which might be part of the error message formatting.)

Paddy

[chris9753]

A big thank you to Paddy and others for developing PictureFrame and Pi3d and also to Wolfgang for his organising, motivating and blog. It's a fantastic program and I’ve got it working on a pi3b almost perfectly. The only part not working perfectly is getting it to start automatically and I've tried several ways including crontab and systemd. I have been able to get it to start automatically by informing PictureFrame there is no keyboard connected (unplugging is not enough) but I'm too old fashioned to not have means of attaching a keyboard if needed. I start it with my iPhone or iPad each morning. Takes about a minute....as I said 99% perfect and I'm extremely thankful and grateful!

I may also have found the cause of the two connected conflicts I have: the need to remove the keyboard and not being able to start PictureFrame automatically on reboot. This morning I used my normal terminal command
($ python3 /home/pi/pi3d_demos/PictureFrame.py) to start the display from my ipad but then thought I’d try to autostart again using
ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /home/pi/pi3d_demos/PictureFrame.py. As usual it didn’t work but this time I had a different error. PictureFrame started to load but stopped at line 19…Import Pi3d. There is no Pi3d in the Pi3d_demos folder. I did a search on my computer found a Pi3d folder which I had downloaded (no way would PictureFrame have found it) inserted the pathway and although PictureFrame did open it, sadly it created many more conflicts. It did not seem the correct folder/file.

My next thoughts were that since terminal opens PictureFrame perfectly (somehow bypassing the import Pi3d line) I will just delete that line (line 19) by putting a # before it. Unfortunately, this didn’twork either…..but it did get up to about line 142 where the code stated talking about keyboards before crashing again. So my thoughts are that if we can find what the program was meant to import in line 19 (import pi3d) this may work perfectly??? The version of PictureFrame I have came with pi3d-2.17 and was downloaded late September.

As you can tell from this verbose first post (apologies) I’m a relative pi newcomer so I could have accidently deleted something….but I did triple check. I have no idea why PictureFrame opens through terminal but not by autostarting.

I hope this post comes across as thankful and grateful as I am incredibly pleased with my display as is, my intention is just to add my 2 cents worth just in case someone else can make use of it. Thanks again Paddy, Wolfgang et al!

[paddyg]

Chris, any comments +ve or otherwise are useful. I'm out at moment but will have a look when I get back. Autostart not working is often trying to run from wrong folder, as wrong user, wrong permissions somewhere or at the wrong time (before some dependency has loaded)

[sapnho]

Glad you like Pi3D, @chris9753. Paddy did an outstanding job, indeed!

Two things you may want to do: Update Pi3D (https://www.thedigitalpictureframe.com/ ... -nov-2019/) It's now on version 2.34.

And as Paddy said, make sure that you did exactly as shown here (https://www.thedigitalpictureframe.com/ ... sing-pi3d/) with regards to the Boot Options.

I never attach a mouse or keyboard to my Pi even during setup, everything is done through the Terminal from another computer. I think your issue may have something to do with the autostart attached to a different user. I guess you checked here already (https://www.thedigitalpictureframe.com/ ... h-systemd/).

If that doesn't work, Paddy usually has (the right) answer to anything shortly..

[paddyg]

Chris, you will definitely need to have pi3d installed and PictureFrame definitely needs to import it for the program to run. The standard way is to use pip3 as described on Wolfgang's comprehensive instructions. That process 'simply' copies the required files to the standard location on your RPi (/usr/local/lib/python3.7/dist-packages/pi3d/) so that when you put a line in a program ``import pi3d`` it will check the standard location and load all the required apparatus. It is possible to download the module yourself (essentially clone from git or download and unzip from github.com/tipam/pi3d) and the search path can be set in demo.py. However only do this if you want to experiment and do some python coding.

I can't think why the keyboard would make a difference to the autostart but it is quite plausible that it does. The standard keyboard functionality in pi3d uses the python module ``curses`` which depends on the linux ncurses and it can cause issues, for instance if you try to run a program using pi3d from IDLE or other IDEs rather than directly from terminal.

Have a go at using systemd as Wolfgang suggests. I've tried it for other things in the past and struggled but I'm pretty sure Wolfgang will have investigated this pretty thoroughly so it's likely to solve your problems. If not post back here with the results.

Paddy

PS, as of yesterday pi3d is v2.35 - hopefully I've not introduced anything that breaks PictureFrame!

[chris9753]

Wow...amazing responses. Thank you both!

Wolfgang, I have used your blogs extensively and they have been fantastic. The only difficulty I have had is initiating PictureFrame from boot. You’re right, I probably need to update but I’m more than happy with the way it’s working. I have tried your fix using systemd but again PictureFrame crashes on booting. It was after trying your systemd method that I decided to place the ExecStart command straight into terminal. I will describe the effect of this to Paddy as it seems more his area of expertise.

Paddy, I do have Pi3d installed and in the correct place. Because PictureFrame crashed when it hits line 19 (Import Pi3d) I had assumed, incorrectly, that it either wasn’t present or couldn’t be found.

Screenshot 1 shows Pi3d correctly installed…I think

IMG_0005.jpg (28.3 KiB) Viewed 1593 times

After trying and failing to get Systemd installed (using Wolfgang’s blog) I decided to place the line ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /home/pi/pi3d_demos/PictureFrame.py straight into terminal.

This is shown in Screenshot 2.

IMG_0006.jpg (16.77 KiB) Viewed 1593 times

Screenshot 3 shows the error message I received. I have no idea how to use this information but hopefully it may be useful to you or others.

IMG_0007.jpg (23.46 KiB) Viewed 1593 times

As pointed out in my original post I am more than happy placing $ python3 /home/pi/pi3d_demos/PictureFrame.py either straight into terminal or via PiHelper on my iPad or iPhone. Also, strangely, everything works perfectly if I disconnect the keyboard using your instructions.

Thanks again!
Chris

[paddyg]

Chris, that does indeed look very odd! Python sometimes complains that module x isn't installed for various reason (py2 v py3 install, other file with same name in same directory etc.) None of these are applicable because you can run it OK from the terminal. So main culprit would seem to be user. Sometimes autostart seems to run things a root, or pi and if the module was installed using sudo or --user or something else that might cause issues. But that doesn't sound to be your problem because you say it works fine without the keyboard... which narrow the problem down to vanishingly small area. I am busy today and most of tomorrow but I will try to reproduce your problem. Practically it shouldn't be a problem as, long term, you probably won't have the keyboard attached to the RPi running the PictureFrame, but it's frustrating not knowing what the cause is.

Just to clarify (you might have mentioned this but can't spot it now): What RPi are you using. What memory have you allocated. Are you using legacy GPU driver or Fake KMS. When you say disable the keyboard do you mean setting KEYBOARD = False in PictureFrame. Does the problem happen if a keyboard is actually plugged in when the RPi boots.

Paddy

[chris9753]

Morning Paddy (or is it evening there? I’m in Australia) and thanks again for your amazingly quick response and help.

To answer your questions

The model pi I have is a 3b+
Memory = 128 MB
Driver = legacy GPU (GL driver is disabled)
I have added screenshots to confirm this.

IMG_0014.jpg (18.24 KiB) Viewed 1552 times

IMG_0016.jpg (33.7 KiB) Viewed 1552 times

Disabled Keyboard = I did not use setting keyboard = False. The way I disabled the keyboard was by commenting out certain lines in PictureFrame. This was originally suggested by you as a possible solution (thanks again) in this thread (page 9, 21/12/19) and more fully explained (the steps I followed) by atpost in the following post. If I disable the keyboard using this technique everything works perfectly.

If I have a keyboard plugged in, reboot, the problem persists. If I remove the keyboard, reboot (control the pi by either pihelper from ipad or SSH from mac), the problem persists. The only way I have found to get the program working perfectly is to comment out the keyboard using the method described above.

The only “unusual” aspect of using my method to start (python3 /home/pi/pi3d_demos/PictureFrame.py directly into terminal) is that terminal adds b’GLES2’ before carrying out the command. I have shown this in a screenshot.

IMG_0017.jpg (16.21 KiB) Viewed 1552 times

Thanks again Paddy for all your help.
Chris

[chris9753]

I guess you checked here already (https://www.thedigitalpictureframe.com/ ... h-systemd/).

Thanks again Wolfgang and yes I have tried to implement this. I was able to correctly install the file, and change permissions but I was unable to enable it due to it being a bad message? I have attached screenshots to show this. In the script the PictureFrame did have a .py attached, I accidently cut it off when I took the screenshot.

IMG_0010.jpg (34.35 KiB) Viewed 1542 times

IMG_0013.jpg (27.22 KiB) Viewed 1542 times

I hope I'm not coming across as too demanding, as stated previously I'm incredibly pleased with the program. Even if a solution is found I will probably continue to start using my iPad. I'm just trying to help others by making a very small contribution to add to the amazing work you, paddy and others do.

Thanks again,
Chris

[chris9753]

Practically it shouldn't be a problem as, long term, you probably won't have the keyboard attached to the RPi running the PictureFrame, but it's frustrating not knowing what the cause is.

Hi again Paddy,

I won’t have the keyboard physically attached but I won’t disable it either by commenting out the appropriate lines in PIctureFrame using the previously described method. This means that the problem will persist but again stressing, that for me, it’s a very minor problem. I’m more than happy to control the program with my iPad or mac.

The reason I won’t is that when I did disable it completely, and although the program worked perfectly, I was unable to get out of it and reconnect the keyboard. If I rebooted it went straight back into the slideshow. This was a couple of months ago and although my programming/script/skills are weak they were much weaker then. In the end I just removed the SD card, wiped it and did a full reinstall. I’m sure that there are much easier ways!!

Could I have just killed PictureFrame or python, physically re-attached the keyboard and removed the marks from PictureFrame that had previously commented the keyboard out??? Or even easier have two PictureFrame scripts, one with keyboard attached, one with it disabled and then just switch between the two depending on my needs?? If I did this what commands would I write into terminal (using ssh on my mac or iPad) to kill PictureFrame and/or python and get back to the desktop gui??

Something for me to play with one day perhaps but, as stated previously, I’m more than happy just starting it with my iPad at the moment.

Thanks again,
Chris

[paddyg]

Chris, lots of info (great) which I will read properly later but just a quick note: If I start python apps running on a RPi without a keyboard I usually:

Code: Select all

- ssh in to it
- run ``top`` from the terminal prompt
- make a note of the ID (left hand column) for the line with python3 as the name of the job
- quit top by pressing q
- sudo kill 43512 #or whatever the ID is I noted down

Also if you take the SD card out you can actually put it into your PC and edit the files directly i.e. to stop the autoboot functionality (there may be some access limitations, depending on what OS is on your PC)

Paddy

[chris9753]

Chris, lots of info (great) which I will read properly later but just a quick note: If I start python apps running on a RPi without a keyboard I usually:

Code: Select all

- ssh in to it
- run ``top`` from the terminal prompt
- make a note of the ID (left hand column) for the line with python3 as the name of the job
- quit top by pressing q
- sudo kill 43512 #or whatever the ID is I noted down

Paddy

Thanks Paddy, that worked perfectly. I'm much more confident disconnecting my keyboard now and relying on ssh.

As an aside, I thought I had a brainwave and had discovered another, easier work around for this problem. Sadly, it didn't work. When I put python3 /home/pi/pi3d_demos/PictureFrame.py into terminal, terminal adds b’GLES2’ and it works perfectly. My plan was to follow Wolfgang's instructions for setting up a crontab but add b’GLES2’ at the end. That would mean my pi would receive exactly the same input as i was putting in terminal. I've shown this the screenshot below. Sadly, PI3D didn't launch automatically at reboot. The best laid plans ....

IMG_0002.jpg (18.74 KiB) Viewed 1493 times

Thanks again for your help,
Chris

[chris9753]

OK I think I’m all sorted. I ended up with two problems, one I managed to solve with help from here, and the other, I managed to solve with a solution I hadn’t seen mentioned before.

Problem 1 – Was the keyboard conflict and the solution to this was discussed in a previous post. However, when I implemented this solution, it didn’t work. This surprised me as this solution had been successful in the past. The chron.log (shown below) introduced me to the second problem.

IMG_0003.jpg (26.06 KiB) Viewed 1440 times

Problem 2 – I hadn’t touched my digital display (then working) for about a month as I set about building a frame, organizing an electrician to install power points, painting the bathroom etc. During that time the only change I could recall making was taking the picture folder from the SD card containing the Rasbian image, transferring it to an external usb memory stick and attaching it to the pi with a 1 metre lead. This was so I had easy access to add/remove/edit the photos I was displaying. I suspected this introduced a time delay which interfered with the working of crontab. I knew my start_slideshow.sh executed so that wasn’t the problem. But that got me thinking, why did I need a slideshow script at all, why couldn’t I start Pi3d/PictureFrame directly from the crontab? I then deleted the start slideshow script and entered start pi3d/pictureframe directly into the crontab.

IMG_0004.jpg (20.33 KiB) Viewed 1440 times

After I did this it worked perfectly. I still get a slight error, due to I think, an extra forward slash after PictureFrame.py but as it works perfectly I haven’t bothered to change this. I also commented back in the keyboard to see if this solution solved my original problem. It didn’t….that’s what makes me think there were two separate problems.

IMG_0006.jpg (30.25 KiB) Viewed 1440 times

You may notice the extra power point next to my display, this is because my house is fairly open plan and this is the only vertical wall with space I have. I would like two displays so I am about to begin this process all over again. Hopefully, it will be a lot easier and faster second time around.

Again apologies for the verboseness of these posts, but I know how much I appreciated detail when I began this journey.

And finally another big thank you to Wolfgang and Paddy for their unbelievable generosity and incredible knowledge. And Wolfgang, apologies but I had to try and imitate the “jumping” picture from your blog.

Chris

[sapnho]

Hi Chris, that's great news!!

Would you mind sending me a few high res photos of your frame in action, especially how you integrated it into your house setting? I am compiling user feedback on the digital frame that they have built to inspire others. Email is on my blog. Thanks much!

[start78]

Hello,

is it possible to write-protect the sd-card after setting everything up? My plan is to use the image viewer in a shop-environment (behind a tv screen) where the main power will be switched off for the night. I want to prevent damages to the image.

(Hallo Wolfgang, wir sind gar nicht so weit voneinander entfernt. Gibt es Einwände, wenn ich Deine Arbeit quasi kommerziell nutzen möchte?)

[sapnho]

is it possible to write-protect the sd-card after setting everything up? My plan is to use the image viewer in a shop-environment (behind a tv screen) where the main power will be switched off for the night. I want to prevent damages to the image.

There are log files written all the times, so this won't work. Use an industrial strength SD card and keep a backup, that's probably the easiest option.

(Hallo Wolfgang, wir sind gar nicht so weit voneinander entfernt. Gibt es Einwände, wenn ich Deine Arbeit quasi kommerziell nutzen möchte?)

Ist ja nicht "meine" Arbeit, sondern alles public domain, was wir hier machen. Ich freue mich, wenn die Lösungen eingesetzt werden.

[paddyg]

Also something here https://medium.com/@andreas.schallwig/h ... c0f7be7353 that might be helpful (diverting logging etc to tmpfs etc) in prolonging SD card life and avoiding corruption.
PS not tried any of this so it would be interesting to hear if/how it works with python and PictureFrame
PPS pi3d subscribes to the MIT license which pretty much says you can do what you want with it but has the potential issue, that you have to pass that on to your customers if you include modified versions of it in your code.

[sapnho]

Amazing, I wouldn't have thought that this is possible! He even updated his article for Buster: https://medium.com/swlh/make-your-raspb ... 558694de79

[chris9753]

Would you mind sending me a few high res photos of your frame in action, especially how you integrated it into your house setting? I am compiling user feedback on the digital frame that they have built to inspire others. Email is on my blog. Thanks much!

Some photos have been sent Wolfgang. Not 100% sure exactly what you were after so if you were interested in something else let me know. My frame's fairly secularly attached to the wall and not easy to remove. The top is open both to allow heat to escape and to allow me ready access via a variety of means. I've tried to show this in the photo below.

Chris

DigitalDisplay4.jpg (31.95 KiB) Viewed 1344 times

[chris9753]

I now have my second digital picture frame up and running and again I had many issues getting the program to start automatically from boot. This time, however, I’m confident that I have found the cause, and part solution, to some of these issues. Please ignore my earlier posts as they were workarounds, with one exception, to the central issue I will describe below.

The one exception is commenting out the keyboard, I cannot get PictureFrame.py to run automatically from boot without doing this.

All my other problems were caused by the difference between ' and '. These are single quotation marks. The first one is from the font used in PictureFrame.py…NotoSans-regular from memory and the second is from the font used by safari to write in this forum, but it could be from any number of sources.

If I comment out the keyboard and I am careful about only replacing numerals and letters (leaving all other characters untouched) Picture Frame works perfectly every time. If, for example, I alter '/home/pi/Pictures' #'textures' and retype any of the four ' character’s in line 29, it doesn’t work. The problem this causes, and the required workaround to fix, varies with where in the program (ie which line) the “ single quotation mark error” occurred.

This is reproducible, if I retype the ' character, PictureFrame.py doesn’t work. However, if I replace the ' I retyped with a ' copied and pasted from elsewhere in the program it works perfectly. This problem occurred if I altered PictureFrame.py from the RaspberryPi GUI or from my mac using text edit, SSH and samba.

I hope this makes sense and is useful to somebody.

Wolfgang, I will send you another email today with my current set up and the details you were after…I have made a number of changes since the last.

Thanks to everybody in this thread for their knowledge and helpfulness, particularly Paddy and Wolfgang…I have learnt a lot and now have two digital picture displays working perfectly!

Chris

[sapnho]

Thanks to everybody in this thread for their knowledge and helpfulness, particularly Paddy and Wolfgang…I have learnt a lot and now have two digital picture displays working perfectly!

That's great to hear. And yes please, send me your updates, I will share them with Paddy, so that we can do some bug hunting.

[paddyg]

Chris, glad that your problem seems to be sorted. But it is rather strange! The font being used for displaying with pi3d shouldn't make any difference: In python strings are created by putting characters between quotation marks where the opening and closing quotes are the same. The options are limited to ' (apostrophe) or " (quotation mark) which are chr(39) or chr(34). You can start and end multi-line strings by using three i.e. ''' or """. However there are characters that look similar. ` chr(96) is the only one available on my keyboard but others include ʹ,ʺ,ʻ,ʼ,ʽ,ˈ,ˊ,ˋ,ʹ etc etc. If you open up a python3 terminal and copy paste those characters like this:

Code: Select all

>>> [ord(c) for c in "ʹ,ʺ,ʻ,ʼ,ʽ,ˈ,ˊ,ˋ,ʹ".split(',')]

you will see that they are not chr(39) or chr(34)

To make the situation even more confusing the last apostrophe in the list is chr(884) the Greek numeral sign that has notoriously been used for SQL injection. So some browsers or web servers or web sites slyly swap it over to chr(697) - which is what you will see (something's already swapped it over while I was typing) but you can see what it looks like by typing into the python3 terminal chr(884).

So it's not entirely clear why you would be suffering this problem but it might be because of the way your keyboard is set up though that does seem unlikely. You can test it by printing out the chr() value:
>>> print(ord("`"))
where you type from the keyboard the ` character or copy paste it from different places in PictureFrame.py. It's also very odd that anything after the # on line 29 would make any difference at all as it's just a comment!

Paddy

[chris9753]

Wow Paddy…..as always your knowledge astounds me!

This is what I have done this morning
1. Tested Keyboards – I commented back in the keyboard, attached an old corded usb pc keyboard I have, changed a single quotation mark in PictureFrame.py using the keyboard, commented back out the keyboard and tested. PictureFrame.py worked perfectly. Next assumption – It’s only mac keyboards (which I only ever use) that have this issue!
2. Tested Mac Keyboards. First Check…using SSH, samba and a 12’ macbook I set out to reproduce the error I encountered yesterday. I couldn’t….this astounded me because I triple checked this yesterday before posting!!! Then I recalled yesterday I was using TextEdit…the default text editor that comes with the mac. Today, I was using IDLE, the text editor that ships with python. I switched to TextEdit and I was able to reproduce the problem described yesterday. Assumption – It’s TextEdit that’s causing my issues…not the choice of font or keyboard.

I did a quick google search and there appears to be a known issue with TextEdit and quotation marks.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questio ... r-textedit

The above thread only discusses double quotation marks but it could well be similar for single quotation marks. I have no understanding of the technical issues discussed in this thread but I suspect you will Paddy!

My learning from this experience has been if you’re a mac user, don’t use TextEdit for editing scripts….although I should point out that I’m still using mac OS 10.11.6. More recent versions may have had this issue fixed.

Thanks again Paddy!

[chris9753]

Morning Wolgang...from reading your blogs it sounds like you use a mac...at least part of the time. If so have you ever had a problem with TextEdit and "smart quotes" or do you have "smart quotes" turned off?? It sounds like "smart quotes" only work in native mac applications so if you use any other editor on a mac there shouldn't be any issues??