Starting a patch automatically on boot vs. starting from the IDE

nuromantix

What is the difference in behaviour between these two ways of starting a patch?
Because I have noticed something quite strange.
I am using LibPD.
I am using analogue outs to control a 16x2 LCD and using analogue and digital ins to sense button presses.
I am also using a pair of analogue outs for audio (as well as the main audio outs) (with caps to remove the DC offset and no filter because I like the sound of aliasing).

When I start my patch from within the IDE it works perfectly and nothing I can do will cause any problems.

When I auto run my patch from within Bela, pressing any buttons that are detected by the analogue inputs causes loud clicks on the audio outs that I'm running from Bela's analogue outs, even if no audio is routed to them. The LCD crashes extremely often, especially if I am pressing keys quickly or pressing keys when a lot of other stuff is going on (ie when the sequencer in my patch is playing or recording a lot of info).

I thought that the USB cable might be somehow giving me better grounding or something, but I tried autorun with the USB connected and still got the same problems. Conversely, if I start the patch from within the IDE and then remove the USB cable, everything runs perfectly.

Weird!
Why could this be?

giuliomoro

The IDE and the startup script should run the program in a very similar way, so I am not sure how to explain this behaviour, but there are a few things we could investigate.

Start the program at boot, make sure the glitches occur. In the IDE console, type:
cat /proc/xenomai/stat
Check whether there are mode switches (the MSW column) in the audio thread (line ending with bela-audio.
Start the program at boot, make sure the glitches occur. Stop it by pressing the "stop" button in the IDE. Now run the program manually as if it was run on boot, by typing the following in the Bela console:
/root/Bela_startup.sh
(note that the "run" button will not spin). Can you reproduce the glitches while the program is running this way?
Start the program at boot, connect the board over USB, wait a few seconds and then open the Terminal app on your Mac and type:
ssh -tt root@192.168.7.2 screen -r Bela
Once you do this, you will be able to see any text output that your program will have generated. Anything interesting there?

nuromantix

OK here goes:
1

CPU PID MSW CSW PF STAT %CPU NAME
0 0 0 378402 0 00500080 72.8 ROOT
0 2057 2 2 0 00b00380 0.0 drumworks
0 2175 1 2 0 00300380 0.0 MidiInput
0 2176 1 2 0 00300380 0.0 MidiOutupt
0 2178 2650 5484 0 00300380 0.1 OSCReceiveTask 8675
0 2179 0 148770 0 00300181 0.9 scopeTriggerTask
0 2180 0 1 0 00300181 0.0 scopeSendBufferTask
0 2243 2 376018 1 00300184 24.5 bela-audio
0 0 0 475701 0 00000000 1.4 IRQ67: [timer]

nuromantix

2
yes!

nuromantix

3
seems to be nothing unusual (first line is an error I always get since I followed your instructions on how to stop the LEDs flashing all the time):

gpio/led-set-trigger: No such file or directory
Reading from Midi port 0
Writing to Midi port 0
Bela digital: channel 0 is set as input at message rate
Bela digital: channel 1 is set as input at message rate
Bela digital: channel 2 is set as input at message rate
Bela digital: channel 3 is set as input at message rate
Bela digital: channel 4 is set as input at message rate
Bela digital: channel 5 is set as input at message rate
Bela digital: channel 9 is set as input at message rate
Bela digital: channel 11 is set as input at message rate
Bela digital: channel 12 is set as input at message rate
Bela digital: channel 13 is set as output at message rate
Bela digital: channel 14 is set as input at message rate
Bela digital: channel 15 is set as output at message rate

giuliomoro

In 1), are those 2 MSW inbela-audio always there also when you run it from the IDE?

To test for this, run the program from the IDE and then type

cat /proc/xenomai/stat

Other question: what blocksize are you using for your patch? The default of 16 or something else?

giuliomoro

Also, can you run the following and send over the output ?

cat /root/Bela_startup.sh

/root/Bela_startup.sh is the file which is executed at startup, so we can see if there is anything weird there.

It occurs to me that, if you increased the blocksize of your program in the IDE AFTER you set it to start at boot, then this change will note be automatically reflected in the startup script.
In order for the currently active "Project settings" to be applied to the startup script, you have to change the "Run project on boot" option to a different project (e.g.: "none") and then back to the current project. Doing so, the startup script /root/Bela_startup.sh will be re-generated with the current project settings.

nuromantix

Hi, here's the output from "cat /proc/xenomai/stat" starting from the IDE, I'm afraid I don't know what it means!

CPU PID MSW CSW PF STAT %CPU NAME
0 0 0 3211591 0 00500080 68.0 ROOT
0 3869 2 2 0 00b00380 0.0 drumworks
0 3871 1 2 0 00300380 0.0 MidiInput
0 3872 1 2 0 00300380 0.0 MidiOutupt
0 3873 692 1385 0 00300380 0.1 OSCReceiveTask 8675
0 3874 0 10521 0 00300181 1.0 scopeTriggerTask
0 3875 191 387 0 00300181 0.0 scopeSendBufferTask
0 3880 2 29624 1 00300184 29.8 bela-audio
0 0 0 3657366 0 00000000 0.8 IRQ67: [timer]

I am using a block size of 64 at the moment.

nuromantix

Here is the output from "cat /root/Bela_startup.sh"

#!/bin/sh
#
# This file is autogenerated by Bela. Do not edit!
echo Running Bela...
cd /root/Bela/projects/drumworks && screen -S Bela -d -m /root/Bela/projects/drumworks/drumworks

nuromantix

I was careful about the order of setting blocksize / project to run on boot..... doesn't make a difference.

However, I did some experiments with the IDE and block settings lower than 64 cause the same behaviour even when running from the IDE. So maybe the blocksize isn't getting set for autorun?

As I mentioned in the other thread, I am using the Bela-master.zip from 5/8/16 because the newest one seems to not install properly.

giuliomoro

Ok, back then the startup parameters did not work properly.
So here's what's happening;
the reason why you get glitches at startup is because it runs with the default blocksize of 16. This is because the old version you are running does not set the parameters correctly at startup.

So, I would strongly encourage you to upgrade to the latest version of the code.

Alternatively, you could type this in your IDE, this will replace the content of the startup script ( /root/Bela_startup.sh) so that it adds the -p 64 command line option to set the block size to 64:

echo "echo Running Bela... && cd /root/Bela/projects/drumworks && screen -S Bela -d -m /root/Bela/projects/drumworks/drumworks -p 64" > /root/Bela_startup.sh

nuromantix

OK FIXED!