Minimserver running on Raspberry Pi GUI not responsive

[ADW]

Apologies if this has been covered. I'm a complete newbie to the pi and to Minimserver, though I was pretty familiar with Unix some 30 years ago

I've just bought a Pi 3b, installed the latest version of the Debian OS from the Pi site. I'm running it headless from a MacBook Pro. I've loaded a big bunch of music and just installed 0.8.5.2 as per the (excellent) instructions on the Minimserver site.

I've configured it to integrate with the desktop of the Pi GUI and indeed the Minimserver icon has appeared on the desktop.

However if I try double clicking on the icon, I get an hourglass for a short while, then nothing. There's no indication that Minimserver is running.

If I run it from terminal on the Mac I've been able to start the server, indicate the content directory, and it appears at least to be populating the MinimServer.log file

Apologies if this is a really dim question but what do I need to do to get Minimserver responding via the GUI?
thanks for the help, more dim questions to follow I'm sure

(My ultimate aim is to use this setup with a yet to be delivered Primare amp with built in streaming capabilities, so I'm still ahead of the game!!)

[timster]

What colour is the Minimserver icon? Green means its running, yellow is starting, grey is stopped.
Also - I may be wrong, but I think double-clicking has no effect. Only right-click which opens the menu options.

[simoncn]

When you double-click the desktop launch icon, you should see a small minim icon (single musical note) in the menu bar. Do you see this?

[ADW]

(09-04-2018 16:41)timster Wrote:  What colour is the Minimserver icon? Green means its running, yellow is starting, grey is stopped.
Also - I may be wrong, but I think double-clicking has no effect. Only right-click which opens the menu options.

Hi, it's green - so I guess that's a good thing! Right click brings up up a generic list of options, not associated with Minimserver I'd guess (like Text Editor, Cut, Copy, Move to Wastebasket...

[ADW]

(09-04-2018 16:53)simoncn Wrote:  When you double-click the desktop launch icon, you should see a small minim icon (single musical note) in the menu bar. Do you see this?

No I don't. Unlike if I open, say, Terminal, in which case I get the task tab on the menu bar.

[simoncn]

(09-04-2018 20:34)ADW Wrote:  No I don't. Unlike if I open, say, Terminal, in which case I get the task tab on the menu bar.

This means that MinimServer has failed to start for some reason. Please try the following:

1) On the Pi, open a Terminal window
2) cd to the directory where you installed MinimServer (if this isn't your home directory)
3) Enter the command: minimserver/bin/starti

What messages are displayed in the Terminal window?

[ADW]

(09-04-2018 21:50)simoncn Wrote:  

(09-04-2018 20:34)ADW Wrote:  No I don't. Unlike if I open, say, Terminal, in which case I get the task tab on the menu bar.

This means that MinimServer has failed to start for some reason. Please try the following:

1) On the Pi, open a Terminal window
2) cd to the directory where you installed MinimServer (if this isn't your home directory)
3) Enter the command: minimserver/bin/starti

What messages are displayed in the Terminal window?

Sorry Simon, I've been away a few days. If I do as you've said I simply get the $ prompt returned, nothing else.

[ADW]

(09-04-2018 21:50)simoncn Wrote:  

(09-04-2018 20:34)ADW Wrote:  No I don't. Unlike if I open, say, Terminal, in which case I get the task tab on the menu bar.

This means that MinimServer has failed to start for some reason. Please try the following:

1) On the Pi, open a Terminal window
2) cd to the directory where you installed MinimServer (if this isn't your home directory)
3) Enter the command: minimserver/bin/starti

What messages are displayed in the Terminal window?

Hi Steve, so I've tried doing a reinstall. I removed Minimserver and reinstalled it, ran setup which did as the instructions led me to believe it would. Then ran Minimserver/bin/startc which set off scanning the library. The log contains a bunch of warnings conflicting values in the odd music but it seemed to run to completion and eventually ended and stopped.

When trying to run minimserver/bin/starti I got the following

/home/pi/minimserver/bin/startd: 100: /home/pi/minimserver/bin/startd: cannot create /home/pi/minimserver/data/minimserver.pid: Permission denied
/home/pi/minimserver/bin/startd: 130: /home/pi/minimserver/bin/startd: cannot create /home/pi/minimserver/data/minimserver.pid: Permission denied
/home/pi/minimserver/bin/startd: 125: /home/pi/minimserver/bin/startd: cannot create /home/pi/minimserver/data/minimserver-out.log: Permission denied
Failed to start MinimServer

I tried the same instruction using sudo and simply got
Failed to start MinimServer
I don't know if it's any help but after this I found the content of Minimserver-out.log to be
Missing value for property watch.iconDisplay=

Well and truly bemused! :-)

[simoncn]

These "permission denied" messages probably mean that you haven't installed MinimServer as the pi user. To receover from this, do the following from your home directory:

1) Run the command: minimserver/bin/uninstall (and select the option to remove the configuration file)
2) Run the command: sudo rm -rf minimserver
3) Check that the minimserver directory has been removed
4) Reinstall the MinimServer 0.8.5.2 archive, making sure you are doing this as the pi user and you are not using sudo
5) Run minimserver/bin/setup to enable desktop integration, making sure you are doing this as the pi user and you are not using sudo
6) Run minimserver/bin/starti, making sure you are doing this as the pi user and you are not using sudo

[ADW]

(14-04-2018 17:56)simoncn Wrote:  These "permission denied" messages probably mean that you haven't installed MinimServer as the pi user. To receover from this, do the following from your home directory:

1) Run the command: minimserver/bin/uninstall (and select the option to remove the configuration file)
2) Run the command: sudo rm -rf minimserver
3) Check that the minimserver directory has been removed
4) Reinstall the MinimServer 0.8.5.2 archive, making sure you are doing this as the pi user and you are not using sudo
5) Run minimserver/bin/setup to enable desktop integration, making sure you are doing this as the pi user and you are not using sudo
6) Run minimserver/bin/starti, making sure you are doing this as the pi user and you are not using sudo

Excellent, thanks Simon. That seems to have done the job. I can now see the minim symbol in the menu bar and open with right click. Right, now on to find some UPnP Control point to test it out :-)