I spent a lot of time this weekend trying to figure out what happened to my Maslow.
Most of this post is to help anyone who might run into a similar issue and save them the time of digging blindly for the simple fix!
TLDR: check your log.txt file.
My wife is the main user of our Maslow. I am in charge of; building, initial set up, and keeping it running for her. Our Maslow only has the common modifications. It has a “taller/wider” frame, Meticulous-Z, automatic relays for cut+vac power, and Z axis touch plate. The Maslow is used at least 2x a week! She will go through at least 1 to 2, 4’ x 8’ PVC sheets each time it is used. My wife cuts a lot of outdoor items. It has been running great overall! We have had this thing for almost two years at this point . There have been minor issues along the way but nothing too crazy.
This last weekend, my wife let me know that she could not access WebControl. I then spent the last 2 days trying to figure this thing out. I am slightly familiar with Raspberry but will admit that most of my knowledge comes from reading online about other people’s setups and then adapting as need to fit my needs (Think: copy & paste + tweak basic settings ).
I do have a few Pi setups (5 total) on other things around the house. I run all of my other Pi setups “head-less” with web based interfaces. I also have an extra Raspberry Pi module so I can swap the memory card out and run it in the house with a screen and keyboard for testing if there is an issue.
I took the 32G card from the Pi on the maslow and put it in my spare Pi. When I booted the system up inside with a monitor and keyboard connected, I found I was unable to do anything on the Pi once logged in. I kept getting an “access denied” error or similar. After searching online and trying different things for a few hours, I figured was dealing with a corrupt SD. I ended up getting a new 256G card and putting a fresh copy of WebControl on it. I set everything up as outlined here on this site " WebControl RaspberryPi Install from Image file ". I verified it was working inside my house. I then took it to the garage and put the new card in the “Maslow-Pi”. I learned the hard way that if you change a MAC address by changing physical hardware, your IP address may change as well (few hours and lot of back-fourth to figure that one out). I was able to get the Maslow fully functional and determined it was not an issue with the Pi itself. I was not looking forward to resetting ALL of the Maslow settings again. The Maslow was left in the center position so I was hopeful that I would be able to recover something from the original settings on the old SD card.
I ended up running another SD with a with a fresh install of a desktop environment on it. I put the original “Maslow” SD in a reader and stuck it in a USB port as an external drive. I was able to access that file system without issue. I did notice that it showed up as having 0 freespace. I just assumed this was from a corrupt card and was the cause of the original failure. I spent several hours searching this card as well as looking online for the location of the “.ini” file. I felt “extra smart” when I realized that it was a “hidden file” and I simply had to check a box to “show hidden files”. I was able to use the browser on the desktop to send over the .ini file. I noticed that did not bring over a few settings and then decided to try sending over the .json file… BOOM! Back in business!
I ran a calibration cut just to verify and it is all back as it was!!!
Before I walked away from this adventure, I decided to make a backup of the ini and json files(and make a backupWebControl.zip). I also figured it would be good to just copy-paste the entire /media/pi/rootfs/home/pi/.WebControl folder just in case I missed something. This is when I found the issue that could have saved me ALL of this time and frustration! I went to the WebControl folder and did a “copy”. I went to “paste” it on the desktop, I noticed that I was moving a 25.3 GiB file to the desktop!
I dug through the WebControl file and that is where I found that it contained a log.txt file that was 25.1GiB according to the file browser. I deleted the txt file and decided to put the card back in the Maslow. Everything works as it should.
I spent a good part of this past holiday weekend chasing a bloated log file!
Was there a setting somewhere I changed to create this file when I did my original setup of WebControl? Can this file be deleted without issues? Is there a way to expose this file (or at least clear it occasionally) from within WebControl? I will now try to take the SD card out from time to time and delete that file (as long as it will not cause issues)!
I do want to thank everyone here for this AWESOME machine and its great support!