Hi,
I want to add multiple Raspberry Pi devices to my cloud FlowFuse application and be able to play audio through their audio jack port without openening the dashboard in the browser. My question is, what nodes can I use to do this?
I am also open to other/better alternatives that enables me to play different audio on multiple different speakers without opening the browswer/dashboard.
Best regards,
Magnus
Hello
Iāve not tried this myself but by the looks of it there are various CLI tools which can play from a library of audio files. You can call that CLI tool using the Exec node in Node-RED Raspberry Pi Command Line Audio - Raspberry Pi Spy
Please let us know how you get on with this, itās an interesting project.
Hi Rob,
Thhank you for answering, not a bad idea at all! I will let you know when I move on with the project.
Magnus
So I just realised that Flowfuse has disabled the Exec node on the cloud instance. Any idea for a work around anyone?
Hi Magnus, you can actually use āDeveloper Modeā and āRemote Accessā for this, via FlowFuse.
If you select the device within FlowFuse, enable Developer Mode, then on the āDeveloper Modeā tab, enable Remote Access.
You can then build your flow through FlowFuse, and it will live update and run on the device itself.
When ready, create a Snapshot from the Device directly. This will then be available on your Instance, you can set it as target, and consequently, it will be sent to all other devices assigned to that Instance.
I see, thank you. However, I now encoutered other issues.
I want to play a mp3 file located on a raspberry pi. I am able to do it succesfully when entering this is in the command line on the raspberry pi:
mpg321 /home/room1/bubbling_water_1.mp3
However, when I try to run the command from the Exec I see this erro:
āCanāt find a suitable libao driver. (Is device in use?)ā
This is the my very simple Node-RED flow to test:
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Hello, does the command work when you input it directly on the command line rather than via the Exec node? If not the problem is not Node-RED related. Iād look up what the error āCanāt find a suitable libao driverā tells you.
Hi, yes it works when I input it directly on the command line on the Raspberry Pi. However, not when I run it through the Exec node. I have tried with these two commands commands:
mpg321 /home/room1/bubbling_water_1.mp3
cvlc /home/room1/bubbling_water_1.mp3
The first one results in the above descriped error. The second one outputs nothing to the debugg node and also does not play the audio file.
I also tried to with this node that also results in an error:
Error playing back file /home/room1/bubbling_water_1.mp3: 1
I also tried to see if there was anything wrong with permissions which it does not at first at least seems like. This is a short resume of what I have tried in relation to this provided by chatgpt:
/dev/dsp and /dev/snd/* permissions:/dev/dsp and /dev/snd/* to ensure read and write access.ps command.cvlc (VLC media player), to play audio files, providing an alternative to mpg321.Are you running the device agent in Docker?
Can you try running this command via EXEC and tell me what happensā¦
ls /home/room1/
Please let me know if any of you find a solution to this problem! Iāve not been able to solve it yet on my own and I would really like to find a solution within this week.
Hi Magnus, Iāve not had time to replicate your set up so I donāt have any further suggestions at this time.
This sort of project is really interesting to me but not something that I can work on as part of my Node-RED job. If I get time to take a look at this and have any useful feedback I will let know. From your comments I think you have as good of an understanding of Linux as me, you probably know more.
Generally, when working with the Exec node Iāve never found a command which I can run on the CLI which doesnāt work in Exec so I donāt think you are wasting your time in this approach but I donāt have any more suggestions at this time.
I understand, thanks for looking into it anyway. The Exec node not working never happened to me either which made me thank this was related to Flowfuse and not Node-red directly. Let me know if you figure something out!
Can you try something for me
If you are starting the device agent on the CLI stop it (ctrl-c) then run the following command and start it again:
export FORGE_EXPOSE_HOST_ENV=true
if you are running it as a service add the following line after the existing Environment line to the /etc/systemd/system/flowforge-device-agent.service file
Environment=FORGE_EXPOSE_HOST_ENV=true
You will need to run systemctl daemon-reload and then restart the service with service flowforge-device-agent restart
Then start the device agent again and test the commands once more.
Thanks.
Thank you, Ben!. This works (i start the agent manually on the CLI btw)! Do you have any idea why this resolves the issue?
We found a bug in the device agent late on Friday to do with what environment variables get passed through from the host to the Node-RED instance.
This flag passes all env vars.
There will be a new Device Agent release this week that includes the fix.
Hmm, I now wanted to run the agent as a service. I editet the service file to include Environment=FORGE_EXPOSE_HOST_ENV=true, however, I now get this issue when trying to run the command through the Exec node: High Performance MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 Audio Player for Layer 1, 2, and 3. Version 0.3.2-1 (2012/03/25). Written and copyrights by Joe Drew, now maintained by Nanakos Chrysostomos and others. Uses code from various people. See 'README' for more! THIS SOFTWARE COMES WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY! USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! tcgetattr(): Inappropriate ioctl for device /home/room1/bubbling_water_1.mp3: Permission denied
That is likely to be a file permissions thing. Check that the user listed in the service can read those files
I see, forgot to provide the right permissions. However, now that I solved this the same thing happens as before resulting in the original error
Canāt find a suitable libao driver. (Is device in use?)
. This was previously fixed when I started the agent manually and ran the ocmmand
export FORGE_EXPOSE_HOST_ENV=true
Although as I mentioned I now want to run the agent as a service. My modified service file looks like this, did I make any mistakes?
# systemd service file to start FlowForge
[Unit]
Description=FlowForge Device Agent
Wants=network.target
Documentation=https://flowforge.com/docs
[Service]
Type=simple
# Run as normal pi user - change to the user name you wish to run FlowForge Device as
User=room1
Group=room1
WorkingDirectory=/opt/flowforge-device
Environment="NODE_OPTIONS=--max_old_space_size=512"
Environment="FORGE_EXPOSE_HOST_ENV=true"
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/flowforge-device-agent
# Use SIGINT to stop
KillSignal=SIGINT
# Auto restart on crash
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=20
# Tag things in the log
SyslogIdentifier=FlowForgeDevice
#StandardOutput=syslog
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Run ps -efc | grep node-red from that find the process id (pid) of the node-red instance
Then show us the content of the file /proc/<pid>/environ