Resetting problem (What is that vWML70SL process?)

How to avoid this infinite series of log entries?

2018-10-22 10:09:37 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.core] Timer got out of sync. Resetting
2018-10-22 10:14:45 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.core] Timer got out of sync. Resetting
2018-10-22 10:19:52 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.core] Timer got out of sync. Resetting
2018-10-22 10:25:00 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.core] Timer got out of sync. Resetting
2018-10-22 10:30:08 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.core] Timer got out of sync. Resetting
2018-10-22 11:11:08 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.core] Timer got out of sync. Resetting

These are caused by your computer being too busy at this point for HA to do all the processing it needs in the appropriate time. This could be because of a component in HA, or something else running on the machine. For instance, I get the errors once a day when HA does its database purge and clean up.

Occasional errors like this aren’t really a problem, but you are getting them sufficiently often to be worth investigating. I would start by running the top program and see if any programs leap to the top of the process list (indicating they are using more cpu) when the message occurs. If that program is hass, then there is something in hass that is using the processor, and you will have to diagnose that.

Ok, i get this also when purging the database, but also when i was doing nothing manually on my raspberry… so how to begin to check which processes are causing that ? What you mean with top program?

HA is generally doing something, even when you are not touching it manually. It could be checking sensors, web sites, receiving MQTT messages. You could be running other programs that may also be doing something.

Log in through a terminal and type top.

Ok, getting this:

26

What’s the meaning?
What is vWML70SL?

I don’t know what vWML70SL is, but it is using 99% of your cpu, so is certainly the cause of your problem.

I didn’t find it on an internet search, and is run as root, so I don’t think it has anything to do with HA. Do you run anything else on this Pi?

No, only HASS

Try running
ps -eaf | grep vWML70SL

to get the full path to the binary. Maybe that will give a clue to what its doing.

root 480 477 98 ott17 ? 4-18:10:12 /bin/bash /opt/vWML70SL

This tells a couple of things. /opt is a place for user installed things, rather than system programs, so it is likely that you have installed this at some point. 480 477 are the pid and ppid. The low numbers indicate that this was started when the Pi started, so restarting isn’t likely to make it go away.

Just as a wild guess, try

grep vWML70SL /etc/systemd/system/*

To see if the program is being run as a systemd service. Otherwise, I’m not sure how to find out exactly what is starting it. I’ll have to hunt around.

If you are sure that you don’t want the program to run, you might try

sudo mv /opt/vWML70SL /opt/vWML70SL.old

and reboot, that should stop the program starting, but enable to move it back if you find out that you actually need it.

Ok, thanks for the tips
I get this:

pi@hassbian:~$ grep vWML70SL /etc/systemd/system/*

grep: /etc/systemd/system/bluetooth.target.wants: È una directory

grep: /etc/systemd/system/dhcpcd.service.d: È una directory

grep: /etc/systemd/system/getty.target.wants: È una directory

grep: /etc/systemd/system/[email protected]: È una directory

grep: /etc/systemd/system/halt.target.wants: È una directory

grep: /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants: È una directory

grep: /etc/systemd/system/network-online.target.wants: È una directory

grep: /etc/systemd/system/poweroff.target.wants: È una directory

grep: /etc/systemd/system/printer.target.wants: È una directory

grep: /etc/systemd/system/rc-local.service.d: È una directory

grep: /etc/systemd/system/reboot.target.wants: È una directory

grep: /etc/systemd/system/remote-fs.target.wants: È una directory

grep: /etc/systemd/system/sockets.target.wants: È una directory

grep: /etc/systemd/system/sysinit.target.wants: È una directory

grep: /etc/systemd/system/timers.target.wants: È una directory

Nothing there of interest. I would wait for a bit to see if anyone recognizes this process (may be even change the title of the thread).

If not, try moving the binary and restarting. Something may throw up some error messages that give a clue.

Had same/very similar issue. I run HA in docker and had limited memory to 1GB.

Increased to 2GB and now no issue.

I followed the tip from @gpbenton and moved the file to _old, rebooted the RPi and that process disappeared…