Just can't get the Make a Web Frame in 30 minutes to work on the new Pi 3a+

Project help
1

I’ve followed the instructions exactly including using git instead of the CLI so that the Windows line endings problem doesn’t mess things up and everything seems to work until you increase the memory to 396 MB. Then it just crashes or gets stuck on a reboot cycle with the WPE, scheduler and wifi services never starting up ever again. It was supposed to be easy! So far it’s taken me 3 days, not 30 minutes. Does anyone have the same problem?

4

I found this same thing that if you increase memory to 396MB like in the instructions then it crashes…I have noticed that 192MB is good enough for me, then video and slides are running smoothly without crashing

5

@Jaakkoo and @davidhit what version of the RPI are you running on? I have found on the RPI3 A+ that only has 512MB RAM, if you set it too high, the OS struggles and starts killing things. It usually needs about 200+ Mb RAM to be safe.

7

I have RPI3 B+
balenaOS 2.29.2+rev2, SUPERVISOR VERSION 9.0.1

8

Yes, I too am trying to set it up on the RPI3 A+ . How stupid they cut the RAM down - how much more space would be taken up by keeping the RAM the same as the RPI3 B+ ? They could charge another $5. I’ve already wasted hundreds of dollars in time on trying to get it to behave. I did manage by declaring the allocation for graphics to just 128MB but it was all so painfully slow. Have bought a RPI3 B+ now and will try again soon on that. It does appear to be a shortage of memory problem. Thanks.

9

Great @davidhit, keep us posted with updates.

Cheers

10

Well it’s a case of chalk and cheese. Having received my RPI 3B+ , I set up the application very quickly
and it worked like a dream - everything went about ten times faster! So the conclusion is, AVOID THE RPI 3A+ like the plague. It just doesn’t have the grunt. I predict it will fail because it is not reliable for anything but the most basic programming.
However, there is still a problem with the Web Frame on the RPI 3B+. When I change the URL to something else apart from Youtube the boot sequence sometimes hangs. The little led flashes green 4 times and it never reboots. You have to pull the power out of the pi then plug it in again and then …hey presto! … it works again! (???) This is not something very convenient if your device is on the other side of the world is it? Will continue to look into this erratic behaviour.