Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting
When a Slowboard isn't doing what you expect: each symptom, its cause and the fix.
Find the symptom, read the cause, apply the fix. Each entry links to the page that explains the behaviour.
The board won’t boot
The Lyra never reaches the SD card
The factory bootloader on the Lyra’s onboard flash runs before the card, so a Lyra that has never booted from SD ignores the card. Erase the flash once: hold BOOT while plugging in USB so the board appears in Loader mode, then run rkdeveloptool ef. See Set up a Slowboard 1085.
Wi-Fi
The screen says “no Wi-Fi device (rfkill?)”
The board has no wlan0, so slowd shows this screen and doesn’t start Wi-Fi setup. On the Lyra the Wi-Fi chip’s power pin is wired as the Bluetooth rfkill line, which starts blocked; the board’s aic8800-power.service unblocks it (rfkill unblock bluetooth), so check that the service ran. See slownet.
The hotspot comes back with an error after you entered the password
The join failed, most often because of a wrong password. slownet restores the saved networks, returns to the hotspot and shows the error. Join the hotspot again and re-enter the password. See slownet.
The internet is down but no hotspot appears
That is on purpose: Wi-Fi setup never starts because of “no internet”. A router that is up but cut off from the internet keeps the board on your network. See slownet.
Your network isn’t in the list
The Lyra’s Wi-Fi is 2.4 GHz only, so a 5 GHz network never appears. Pick a 2.4 GHz network, or turn on 2.4 GHz on the router.
The screen
A strip says “as of HH:MM”
The cards in that slot are past their valid_until plus stale_grace_min (15 minutes by default), so slowd marks them as old. The card itself is never blanked. The note goes away when new cards arrive, so check that the app is running (see Apps). See slowd.
A strip says “waiting”
The slot has no cards yet. After a layout change slowd keeps the old layout until every new slot has cards, and after 15 minutes switches anyway and shows “waiting” in slots that are still empty. Check that the slot’s sources name a feed the app really produces. See Layout and preferences.
A key press does nothing
A key works only when the strip shows what it does. Right after a press, a slot rests: its strip offers nothing until that part of the screen may refresh again, about three minutes later on the Slowboard 1085. Presses on a resting slot are ignored, not queued. Wait until the strip offers the next card again. See slowd.
Nothing refreshes during part of the day
Inside quiet_hours nothing refreshes, key presses included. Outside active_hours scheduled updates stop but keys still work. If the clock isn’t synced yet, keys work but scheduled updates, quiet hours and questions pause until it is. slowd status shows the current state.
The hub
App cards say “waiting for clock”
Until the hub’s clock is synced, it doesn’t run scheduled work. Give the machine a route to an NTP server and wait for the sync.
A command to the screen never takes effect
Commands from the hub (update, heal, Wi-Fi setup) are picked up the next time slowd checks in. If one never takes effect, slowd isn’t reaching the hub: check that it is running with slowd status. See the protocol.
The hub’s page loads by IP address but not by name
Every hub listener checks the requested host name against host_allow in slowhub.toml: exact names, any case. IP addresses and localhost always pass. Add the name you use to the list and restart slowhub.
Apps
An app shows “needs config”
The job exited with code 5: a required secret or setting is missing, or the service it talks to refused its credentials. The hub doesn’t retry until a setting, secret or grant changes. See Install a slowapp.
An app keeps backing off
The job exited with code 4, a temporary failure. The hub retries after 1, 2, 4 … up to 30 minutes, never later than the screen’s next update. While the internet is down, apps with network = "egress" aren’t started at all and show waiting_network; they resume when it is back.
An app is paused
The hub checks the size of each app’s data folder after it runs, and pauses an app that grows past its manifest’s max_mb. Free space under /var/lib/slowhub/apps/<id>/data, or raise max_mb in the app’s manifest.
Commands that help
On the screen’s computer, slowd status prints its state, deck, counts and warnings, and slowd selftest exercises the panel. On the hub, slowhub status prints the hub’s state and slowhub runs lists recent runs with their outcomes. The slowd reference and slowhub reference have the full lists.