Plexamp headless fails to start after initial install reboot

Systems admining is not my strong suit.

I’ve just installed Plexamp headless based on this guide. The initial install seems to be OK, but fails after a reboot and will not startup.

I’ve searched and searched and have found nothing other than some older threads that don’t seem to apply.

pi@PlexampLounge:/lib/systemd/system $ sudo systemctl status plexamp.service
● plexamp.service - Plexamp
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/plexamp.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: failed (Result: signal) since Sat 2023-01-28 19:59:14 GMT; 100ms ago
    Process: 1659 ExecStart=/usr/bin/node /home/pi/plexamp/js/index.js (code=killed, signal=SEGV)
   Main PID: 1659 (code=killed, signal=SEGV)
        CPU: 2.359s

Jan 28 19:59:14 PlexampLounge systemd[1]: plexamp.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Jan 28 19:59:14 PlexampLounge systemd[1]: Stopped Plexamp.
Jan 28 19:59:14 PlexampLounge systemd[1]: plexamp.service: Consumed 2.359s CPU time.
Jan 28 19:59:14 PlexampLounge systemd[1]: plexamp.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Jan 28 19:59:14 PlexampLounge systemd[1]: plexamp.service: Failed with result 'signal'.
Jan 28 19:59:14 PlexampLounge systemd[1]: Failed to start Plexamp.

When trying to fire off the js manually:

Starting Plexamp 4.6.1
ALSA lib conf.c:1970:(_snd_config_load_with_include) _toplevel_:18:1:Unexpected char
ALSA lib conf.c:3817:(config_file_open) /home/pi/.asoundrc may be old or corrupted: consider to remove or fix it
ALSA lib conf.c:3739:(snd_config_hooks_call) function snd_config_hook_load returned error: Invalid argument
ALSA lib conf.c:4203:(snd_config_update_r) hooks failed, removing configuration
ALSA lib conf.c:1970:(_snd_config_load_with_include) _toplevel_:18:1:Unexpected char
ALSA lib conf.c:3817:(config_file_open) /home/pi/.asoundrc may be old or corrupted: consider to remove or fix it
ALSA lib conf.c:3739:(snd_config_hooks_call) function snd_config_hook_load returned error: Invalid argument
ALSA lib conf.c:4203:(snd_config_update_r) hooks failed, removing configuration
ALSA lib conf.c:1970:(_snd_config_load_with_include) _toplevel_:18:1:Unexpected char
ALSA lib conf.c:3817:(config_file_open) /home/pi/.asoundrc may be old or corrupted: consider to remove or fix it
ALSA lib conf.c:3739:(snd_config_hooks_call) function snd_config_hook_load returned error: Invalid argument
ALSA lib conf.c:4203:(snd_config_update_r) hooks failed, removing configuration
ALSA lib conf.c:1970:(_snd_config_load_with_include) _toplevel_:18:1:Unexpected char
ALSA lib conf.c:3817:(config_file_open) /home/pi/.asoundrc may be old or corrupted: consider to remove or fix it
ALSA lib conf.c:3739:(snd_config_hooks_call) function snd_config_hook_load returned error: Invalid argument
ALSA lib conf.c:4203:(snd_config_update_r) hooks failed, removing configuration
ALSA lib conf.c:1970:(_snd_config_load_with_include) _toplevel_:18:1:Unexpected char
ALSA lib conf.c:3817:(config_file_open) /home/pi/.asoundrc may be old or corrupted: consider to remove or fix it
ALSA lib conf.c:3739:(snd_config_hooks_call) function snd_config_hook_load returned error: Invalid argument
ALSA lib conf.c:4203:(snd_config_update_r) hooks failed, removing configuration
Segmentation fault

Whether or not the above is of any relevance I cannot say.

I can’t seem to find any logging other than the above. One old thread suggested the user line was missing in the plexamp.service file, but not in this case…

[Unit]
Description=Plexamp
After=network-online.target
Requires=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=pi
WorkingDirectory=/home/pi/plexamp
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node /home/pi/plexamp/js/index.js
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Don’t quite know where else to look at this point so open to any and all suggestions.

only suggestion would be to try moving / backing up the /home/pi/.asoundrc file
(i don’t think this file is required or even present on new OS installs, at least not for raspberry pi OS)

Hmm…so that doesn’t actually exist as you suggest.

I’d found another thread that suggested it should be in /etc but that also does not exist.

For the record, this is a Pi 4 B, no hats; just trying to leverage the onboard USB output to an SMSL DAC, which it sees…

pi@PlexampLounge:/etc $ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 152a:85dd Thesycon Systemsoftware & Consulting GmbH SMSL USB AUDIO
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 2109:3431 VIA Labs, Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

The alsa.conf file does exist in /usr/share/alsa but beyond that…

For the record, aplay -l also gives the same output as the ALSA output in my OP.

In this thread, it seems to work…so clearly something is different here but there’s no reference to this anywhere that I can see. I’m a little confused as to what’s missing here given the assumption that the original install steps were accurate and the corresponding packages have everything required.

Apologies for the double post here…

So I have another Pi that I’ve used to reinstall from scratch. For the record, though I’ve largely thought this was irrelevant, but for the sake of completeness, the original install was done with the Pi in an Argon ONE case. While strictly speaking there was no hat, I suppose in some ways there is/was.

At any rate, I’ve installed this in the same way on the other pi sans case. There are possibly a couple of differences here. One, in the original Pi, I manually updated the bootloader. This one I didn’t. I will need to look at the version to confirm.

Secondly, after the initial Raspbian update, I do not think I rebooted before installing node.js nor plexamp itself.

That said, the install on the second Pi seems to have worked OK as everything ALSA related seems to work as it should. No idea what or why in this case. Both Pis are identical models. So just to rule out any HW related oddities, I swapped the SD card to the original Pi…and while I’ve had some initial issues with power cycling the DAC and getting it to play again, it seems OK at the moment.

So, no idea how the original install got borked as it did. I’ll try to recreate the issue, but for the moment, I guess I’m good.

huh … if this is a new system and aplay -l is generating errors, perhaps something went wrong during OS install … maybe time to start again from scratch (might be easier than trying to troubleshoot and fix what’s there)

(ok, guess i should have read your most recent post before replying … good that things are working now :slight_smile: )

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.