@Techncat - The image was built on a 4GB Pi4 as other models are slow to develop on like you mentioned. It should be compatible with other pi models but you should definitely double check everything is working for the target model of those SD cards before shipping. So if you build an SD with the pi4, put the card in a Pi3b+ or whichever pi and then double check the wifi hotspot, kolibri, etc.
If they’re all going to be the same you may want to just set one 256gb card up and then make an image using Win32diskimager if you have space on your PC, then flash those back to the other cards.
Let me know if you run into any issues and I’ll help fix them.
@jamesk - many thanks for creating the new beta image which I am in the process of testing. I have managed to load several kolibri channels.
I am now getting a consistent 35 second koibri shutdown delay, definiely more repeatable than in the previous image which could last as long as 90 seconds. I wonder if you are able to confirm this.
@Techncat - I’ll take a look now. Can you give me a list of installed Kolibri channels so I can install them here? That would let me test in the same Kolibri setup.
Edit: The shutdown time is 6 seconds for me on the Pi 4/beta image after setting up the facility and installing some content.
@jamesk - I think I found the “red herring” in my testing of your new image this morning - your 6 second result seems to be correct!
All the tests I ran this morning were done with a keyboard, mouse and monitor attached - that’s the configuration that seemed to cause the 35 secs Kolibri shutdown delay.
As soon as I went “headless” without any peripherals attached and cut off power the shutdown delay went down to a few seconds.
The supercap had sufficient charge to allow the shutdown scripts to complete the poweroff process safely…
The server box is completely sealed in normal deployment at the schools, so no user intervention is required other with an on/off pushbutton.
We may be in business - sorry for the false alert!
And thanks again for the quick resonse and all your hard work!.
It’s very strange that using a mouse/keyboard/monitor caused the extra delay. These images are built from Raspios Lite so there shouldn’t really be that much more happening, though I have seen that the boot up is a bit different when the monitor is there. Glad the mystery is solved though, nice catch!
No problem at all on the false alarm. I’m happy to help. It’s much better to be safe than sorry, especially when shipping to remote areas. I’m just glad you’re back up and running and it seems like things are ready to go. It’s great the supercaps are performing as expected when headless. Let me know if anything else comes up and good luck with the deployments!
Hi,
I am having trouble upgrading kolibri on my RACHEL-plus device, the moment i click update index or upgrade kolibri the option to select kolibri again as a module is no longer as it just says “sorry, kolibri is currently unavailable. Please try again later, or restart the RACHEL”. No matter how long i would leave either the index or the upgrade kolibri module downloading it just saying “waiting” or “stalled”. please help.
System Software
Hardware- i686
OS - Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS
RACHEL Installer - 3.0.2
Kolibri- ?
Content Shell- v2.4.0
Hi @Jim - I’m going to continue the post here if that’s okay.
Have you run zz-kolibri-upgrade?
Do you have SSH access to the device and are you familiar with using SSH? If so, can you please run “sudo kolibri --version” and “sudo systemctl status kolibri” and show me the output.
yes i have tried zz-kolibri-upgrade…have also tried deleting it and installing it again. not so sure what is an ssh or how to find it but i can do some research. or can you help or guide me as to how find it that would be really great. thanks
@Jim - SSH is a way to directly access the device and run commands, but if you’re okay with a fresh install I recommend trying that instead.
We currently reset devices using a USB recovery stick which erases all of the data on the internal drive but not the big hard drive. Since your device is currently at 3.0.2, I suggest doing a recovery to 3.0.2, but it is possible to go to 3.1.1 and then try the Kolibri upgrade. All settings will be deleted when you do the recovery. These are the instructions if you’d like to try this method.
Download a recovery image and unzip the .img file inside
Write the image to a 16GB or larger USB stick using win32diskimager by selecting the image and the drive letter for your USB stick at the top, then clicking “write” at the bottom
Power off the RACHEL-Plus
Place the USB stick in the back of the RACHEL-Plus
Hold the power button for 5 seconds until the device turns on and you see the blue power light
Wait until the device powers off and there is no blue power light. This will take about 15 minutes
Remove the USB stick
Power on the RACHEL-Plus
If you’d like me to help you with the other method without a full recovery, please let me know and I’d be happy to help.
hi james, i am really greatful for all the effort in trying to help me solve this issue. i’ve been at it for months and already have a few of my RACHEL servers that cannot access kolibri. so if its not too much of a bother and since you’ve offered i think i can try the other method because it may be simpler?
thanks
Hi Jim - I’m happy to help. Sorry to hear you’ve been having issues for months. I’ll try to get you up and running as soon as possible.
The other method, using SSH, may be a bit more complicated as we’ll have to diagnose the issue/fix it, but I’ll give you the instructions and help you through that.
Download Putty from this website to a PC and install it
Connect your PC to the same network as the RACHEL-Plus. If you have wifi on your PC you can connect to the RACHEL-Plus’ RACHEL wifi hotspot
Once connected, open Putty and put in the IP address of your RACHEL-Plus under the "hostname ( or ip address ), If you’re connecting to the RACHEL wifi use 192.168.88.1, if your RACHEL-Plus is connected to the same router as your PC you can use the IP address that your router assigned to the Plus device. This is the “LAN” IP address on the main page of RACHEL.
Click open at the bottom of the Putty window to start a connection
When you’re connected and asked for a login/password, use the login and password I’ve provided to you in a private message
Now that you’re connected and logged in, you can run commands on the device. The first command will give us some information about Kolibri on your device.
sudo systemctl status kolibri
The next command will tell us the version of Kolibri you have installed
sudo kolibri --version
If you would like to try, the command to restart the Kolibri service is
sudo systemctl restart kolibri
That should give us a good start to see what’s going on. Feel free to ask any more questions while you’re trying this way.
@jamesk, I have a similar problem. I am trying to get my Rachel Server 3 updated so I can use it to update the other Rachel Servers in Uganda when I am there in October. When I try tp update Kolibri, I get the following message:
Here is my version info:
I have tried to reboot the Rachel Server and it always says that it is stalled. How do I fix this?
Hi @LarryDT - Did you wait a minute or two before restarting when you first saw the stalled message? The stalled message can be normal for the Kolibri upgrade process on 3.0.2, but it’s possible restarting too early can cause issues.
I do have a user recovery image your can try that will bring your device up to the latest 3.2.0 which includes Kolibri 14.7. This will erase all settings and content on the RACHEL as it sets the hard drive up as new.
@jamesk, the server I am upgrading is really a backup server that I will be taking to Uganda in October to update a couple servers that are already over there. I don’t care about losing anything on this server, so do you think it is best I use your image to make sure everything is current? Right now, my Kolibri version (in the Version tab) simply has a “?”. The Rachel installer shows 3.0.2 and the Content Shell shows 2.4.0.
Hi @LarryDT - I have seen this before and it sounds like the Kolibri update failed and possibly corrupted the Kolibri database. It’s hard to say why this happened without looking at the device directly.
If you have the time, I suggest bringing the device up to 3.2.0. It has Kolibri 14.7 as well as other updates like support for new Kiwix content. This is a new process that wipes everything on the hard drive and restores the default files. Since the Kolibri database is on the hard drive, I think this will solve the problem.
If you email me at james@worldpossible.org I will provide you a link to the recovery with instructions
We are hearing from teachers at two schools in Uganda that received our servers recently using the latest June 7 image on Raspberry Pi 3B+'s. It appears that if more than 9 or 10 students try to connect with WiFi at any one time they get automatically disconnected. This seems to be a new limitation; our experience with the older model Pi’s was that they were able to handle a larger number of users, even up to 12 or 15, without dropouts.
While testing the problem here I find that when I run the larger Kolibri videos created by the Ugandan Ministry of Education videos simultaneously (some are 5 minutes long) on more than 5 devices I also see the last device dropout with an error.
I am wondering if this is a limitation of the Pi’s internal WiFi running AP mode. I would like to attach an external TP-Link TL-WN725 USB dongle that I have here capable of AP mode to see if I can get better results. Could you provide some help with this?
I have been trying out a Kingston 240GB USB 3.0 SSD with a Raspberry Pi 4… I am getting signficantly faster results with less frequent dropouts, but because of the USB 3.0 interference with the 2.4GHz WiFi band, it only works on the 5GHz band. This is a serious limitation since many older devices do not operate on the higher band. I am hoping that an external WiFi dongle can work here as well.
