In the link below I have explained an issue that I am experiencing again. I have taken a clean SD card installed Hassio and put it in my Pi 3b. After a few weeks, the automations stop working and the bot doesn’t send any messages anymore. First thing I have done is to check if the Pi which is connected by an ethernet cable and has a fixed IP is visible in the router, and it is not.
I connected a screen to see if anything is visible, screen stays black, there is no output signal,
I have pinged its IP, time out.
I feel I have to do a clean install again but I do not want this to happen again, is there anything obvious I am missing? Don’t want to be in the same place every 2-3 months.
Hi
get rid of the pi and get yourself some used old Notebook. If you didnt have any there are plenty of non working Win10 notebooks in egay that runs perfectly for mst linux systems.
buy also a 120 GB SSD and start over again.
Using a used notebook costs nearly the same as using a rpi and you didnt get the SDCard trouble.
A notebook still uses considerable amounts more of electricity than a rpi4 though, especially old ones. A pi4 with a USB ssd should do the trick just as well. The only thing you’re missing out on is a battery if there is a power outage.
It’s always best to check the simple things first.
Talking about changing platform because you can’t ‘see’ HA is a bit extreme.
Do as David suggests, look at the PSU and we’ll continue the diagnosis from there.
The connected screen will always be black HA is meant to run headless.
[OT]
is this (uses considerable amounts more of electricity than a rpi4) really true?
A rpi4 with ssd needs a 4A 20W Powersupply
a old asus eee needs a 3A 35W Powersupply
[/OT]
but i agree never change a running system.
I have checked the PSU and it has an output of 5.1V - 2.5A.
It has worked for the first 10 months of 2019.
First time it occured in octobre the SD card was unreadable, when putting it in my laptop. Now there is a pop up that says I need to format the card before using it, which makes sense, so it seems the card isnt totally dead.
rgds
Dennis
Peak power is not relevant in this case, idle power is more interesting. The pi4 runs on a few watts in idle, I’m pretty sure and old laptop needs quite a bit more
But yeah, on-topic: the rpi3/4 really require a stable power adapter, when booting or when e.g. using a lot of WiFi traffic, there can be spikes in current, if your adapter is a Chinese knock-off, it is possible the voltage drops when this happens.
I have bought the adapter togeher with tthe pi, it has a raspberry logo but still is made in china
Th pi is connected via an ethernet cable, there is at certain times definetly a lot of wifi traffic when 2-3 devices are watching/streaming video. but that did not significantly change in say octobre when this happened the first time.
I am using a Sandisk SDcard, are they known to produce these failures?
That, is complete rubbish.
Firstly a recommended pi4 PSU is 3A and at 5.2v (let’s assume max) that’s barely above 15W
Then, a laptop supply is usually around 60W to 90W as they run at circa 17 to 19v
Edit: This is just comparing peaks (as you were doing), as skye suggests ‘normal usage’ will be much lower for both but will by far favour the pi.
The power supply should be fine.
Occasionally, a card will fail (unexpectedly early), hence why you take regular backups.
If you can’t boot the pi with it, it ‘may’ be worth trying Re-imaging the card - but to be honest, I wouldn’t trust it and I’d buy a new one, follow the recommendations on the installation pages.
wait a minute or two…
Your “Laptop” is running windows?
Get a gparted live usb stick \edit any other live linux - maybe a ubuntu desktop is best your you? /edit put the usbstick and sdcard boot from usb and check your card.
A config error in HA could fill the partition and a full partition causes a non working system.
Check the card with something like df -h /dev/sdb2 or df -h /dev/sdb3 or df -h /dev/sdc2 whatever your sdcard is. @mutt stay calm …and dont call me shirley
Not to be argumentative, but parted live CD is definitely not for the faint hearted either! Systeminternals is what I’d try on windows to read a Linux partition…
I’m not a fan of Sandisk sd-cards… if you’re just reusing then card that ‘failed’ I’d get a new one. I’d look at recommended high endurance cards (a little more expensive) or try a Samsung EVO card say 32Gb. As far as power supply is concerned… probably OK but they don’t last forever. I got a 3A power supply when I was running a Pi3B… always better to over specify IMO.
