I’m on my first day with Balena. I may be sharing this in the wrong spot, but I thought someone should know.
I did my first build and clicked the link after “[Info] Dashboard link:” in the CLI but that produces a “Not Found”. The link is to a url like this: balena dashboard. I actually don’t have any devices yet, so that could be the issue, but I think the link should end with ‘releases’ instead of ‘devices’.
I hope that helps. I’m happy to report any other stuff I see as I get started, so please let me know the best way to do that if this isn’t the way.
Hi, welcome to the forums! I believe the issue is actually related to a rename we made several years ago. We used to only have the concept of apps, but we split that up into fleets, apps, and blocks. I assume you were actually pushing a release to a fleet, not an app. Only fleets have devices, so the URL https://dashboard.balena-cloud.com/fleets/xxxxxx/devices would have worked (regardless of whether you actually have any devices yet). So it looks like the link you were given by the build is based on outdated concepts. Could you please share the CLI command you ran and what you were trying to build?
The command was ‘balena push <my_fleet>’ with source and registry-secrets options.
This is not a big issue for me as I had the portal already open in a tab, but it’s a simple fix that seems like it ought to get done. It was the second item I found in my early use that was basically out of date. The other was a screenshot with an option that was removed in '22.
That said, I’m super happy with how things work and am moving my other four devices into Balena Cloud. I have two more Pis on the way and expect to add 2-3 a month going forward.
I started on this IoT path about seven months ago and built some basic management capabilities in those first devices (which are at remote locations, so painful when I mess up). I wish I’d known about Balena Cloud and that it was free to start back then. It would have saved a good chunk of time.
I’ll just add, in case it helps, that when I started out, I did come across and use your wifi-connect open source (probably via an LLM recommendation). I have not gone back to look at the GitHub page for that, but it sure seems like whoever does your marketing might want to take a look because that was the point at which I first heard the word ‘balena’ but I did not understand then that I should have jumped into Balena Cloud. It would have been good for both of us if I’d received the message at that point.
I’m glad to hear things have started to work well for you now, though I do wish your journey starting out would have gone smoother. We’re continuing to look into ways to make the benefits of our offering clearer, so hopefully future users will be able to learn about them sooner.
I agree we need to fix the link, we just need to understand where it is coming from. What was the source you were pushing? Was it wifi-connect as you noted in your other reply? What CLI version are you running?
The other was a screenshot with an option that was removed in '22.
Could you please point to this screenshot as well? Unfortunately we do have several outdated screenshots but we have been trying to get on top of that, so I would be happy to update it.
Thank you for this feedback and for sharing how you discovered us! I’ll definitely raise this to our marketing team.
The screenshot is on this page: Getting started with Raspberry Pi 5 & CM5 | balena docs
Fleet type was apparently removed back in 2022.
On the command, it was what I wrote above (balena push with my fleet and some options specified).
When you say, “what was the source,” I was pushing, I’m a little unclear.
The source parameter is set to a ‘balena’ directory that has a balena.yml in it. That file has just four lines (name, type, description, version). Probably the only relevant one is ‘type: sw.application’.
The actual images I was pushing are on an Azure Container Registry that is accessed using info in a ‘registry-secrets.yml’ in the same directory.
The CLI version is the latest Windows install (I installed it yesterday).
I hope that gets you the info you need to track it down. If not, let me know a bit more about what you need to find the issue.
Thank you for sharing the page. I see quite a few outdated screenshots there. I’ll try to get them updated.
When you say, “what was the source,” I was pushing, I’m a little unclear.
I meant to ask what is the project you are pushing: one that you made or did you clone a repo and push that. I assumed it may have been some stale code in one of our example project repos. But I just found something indicating that the log you saw with the dashboard link is coming from somewhere else. I’ll look into it and I’ll share any updates here.
I’m happy to report any other stuff I see as I get started, so please let me know the best way to do that if this isn’t the way.
Apologies for not answering this previously. We’re happy to hear anymore feedback about bugs or odd UX. You could let us know via the forums like you have with this thread. If you sign up for a paid plan (or are signed up), you could also let us know via our zendesk support channel.
Hi, I have found the source of the issue of the broken link and merged a fix. It should be available soon. I have also updated the screenshots and text in the getting started guides. Thank you for bringing these issues to our attention. Please let us know if you notice anything else
That’s great! I appreciate you taking the feedback and acting on it. I’ll let you know if I see any similar items.