Newbie - probably non-standard installation - where to go from here

borpin · 2019-10-29T19:34:30.049Z

Ok, that is fine. Have a look at the docs and see if that solves the issue.

hpeyerl · 2019-10-30T11:05:11.535Z

Ok. So it looks like I figured out how to do the direct serial the hard way instead of finding that wiki page.

I just connected a CT and clipped it around the hot line of a table lamp and emonhub tells me it’s seeing data:

2019-10-30 10:59:53,506 DEBUG    Serial     8382 NEW FRAME : ct1:91,ct2:0,ct3:0,ct4:0,vrms:11222,pulse:0
2019-10-30 10:59:53,508 DEBUG    Serial     8382 Timestamp : 1572433193.51
2019-10-30 10:59:53,509 DEBUG    Serial     8382 From Node : 0
2019-10-30 10:59:53,510 DEBUG    Serial     8382    Values : [91, 0, 0, 0, 11222, 0]
2019-10-30 10:59:53,511 DEBUG    Serial     8382 Sent to channel(start)' : ToEmonCMS
2019-10-30 10:59:53,512 DEBUG    Serial     8382 Sent to channel(end)' : ToEmonCMS
2019-10-30 10:59:53,542 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct1 91
2019-10-30 10:59:53,544 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct2 0
2019-10-30 10:59:53,547 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct3 0
2019-10-30 10:59:53,549 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct4 0
2019-10-30 10:59:53,552 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/vrms 11222
2019-10-30 10:59:53,554 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/pulse 0
2019-10-30 10:59:53,556 INFO     MQTT       Publishing: emonhub/rx/0/values 91,0,0,0,11222,0

and it did appear to create an input but there doesn’t seem to be any data being logged to that input.

When I try to create a feed I get an error:

ERROR: Feed could not be created, could not write meta data file fopen(/var/lib/phpfina/5.meta): failed to open stream: No such file or directory

Maybe I need to tear this down and try to create a new flash card. This one was clearly corrupt from the beginning.

borpin · 2019-10-30T11:38:07.976Z

hpeyerl:

Maybe I need to tear this down and try to create a new flash card.

It did seem not to be overly happy.

I’d get a Raspbian Lite image andtailor the install to suit you so leave out the WiFi stuff.

It will also mean Raspbian sets itself up correctly for the Pi you have.

Keep your config file for emonhub .

hpeyerl · 2019-10-31T11:27:04.607Z

Alright, I’m back to where I was before. There was no corruption. I did have to:

mkdir /var/lib/phpfina
chown www-data:www-data !$

emonhub is getting samples and sending them to emoncms as above. emoncms found an input. I created a feed from said input but nothing is showing up on the graph as though the data is not being kept.

The last 3 samples from my emonhub.log:

2019-10-31 11:25:36,978 DEBUG    Serial     157 NEW FRAME : ct1:96,ct2:0,ct3:0,ct4:0,vrms:11374,pulse:0
2019-10-31 11:25:36,980 DEBUG    Serial     157 Timestamp : 1572521136.98
2019-10-31 11:25:36,982 DEBUG    Serial     157 From Node : 0
2019-10-31 11:25:36,983 DEBUG    Serial     157    Values : [96, 0, 0, 0, 11374, 0]
2019-10-31 11:25:36,984 DEBUG    Serial     157 Sent to channel(start)' : ToEmonCMS
2019-10-31 11:25:36,985 DEBUG    Serial     157 Sent to channel(end)' : ToEmonCMS
2019-10-31 11:25:37,082 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct1 96
2019-10-31 11:25:37,084 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct2 0
2019-10-31 11:25:37,086 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct3 0
2019-10-31 11:25:37,089 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct4 0
2019-10-31 11:25:37,091 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/vrms 11374
2019-10-31 11:25:37,093 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/pulse 0
2019-10-31 11:25:37,095 INFO     MQTT       Publishing: emonhub/rx/0/values 96,0,0,0,11374,0
2019-10-31 11:25:46,894 DEBUG    Serial     158 NEW FRAME : ct1:96,ct2:0,ct3:0,ct4:0,vrms:11378,pulse:0
2019-10-31 11:25:46,895 DEBUG    Serial     158 Timestamp : 1572521146.89
2019-10-31 11:25:46,896 DEBUG    Serial     158 From Node : 0
2019-10-31 11:25:46,896 DEBUG    Serial     158    Values : [96, 0, 0, 0, 11378, 0]
2019-10-31 11:25:46,897 DEBUG    Serial     158 Sent to channel(start)' : ToEmonCMS
2019-10-31 11:25:46,898 DEBUG    Serial     158 Sent to channel(end)' : ToEmonCMS
2019-10-31 11:25:47,193 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct1 96
2019-10-31 11:25:47,195 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct2 0
2019-10-31 11:25:47,197 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct3 0
2019-10-31 11:25:47,199 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct4 0
2019-10-31 11:25:47,201 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/vrms 11378
2019-10-31 11:25:47,203 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/pulse 0
2019-10-31 11:25:47,205 INFO     MQTT       Publishing: emonhub/rx/0/values 96,0,0,0,11378,0
2019-10-31 11:25:54,587 DEBUG    emoncmsorg Buffer size: 3
2019-10-31 11:25:56,788 DEBUG    Serial     159 NEW FRAME : ct1:97,ct2:0,ct3:0,ct4:0,vrms:11374,pulse:0
2019-10-31 11:25:56,789 DEBUG    Serial     159 Timestamp : 1572521156.79
2019-10-31 11:25:56,790 DEBUG    Serial     159 From Node : 0
2019-10-31 11:25:56,791 DEBUG    Serial     159    Values : [97, 0, 0, 0, 11374, 0]
2019-10-31 11:25:56,792 DEBUG    Serial     159 Sent to channel(start)' : ToEmonCMS
2019-10-31 11:25:56,793 DEBUG    Serial     159 Sent to channel(end)' : ToEmonCMS
2019-10-31 11:25:56,884 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct1 97
2019-10-31 11:25:56,887 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct2 0
2019-10-31 11:25:56,889 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct3 0
2019-10-31 11:25:56,891 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/ct4 0
2019-10-31 11:25:56,894 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/vrms 11374
2019-10-31 11:25:56,896 DEBUG    MQTT       Publishing: emon/0/pulse 0
2019-10-31 11:25:56,899 INFO     MQTT       Publishing: emonhub/rx/0/values 97,0,0,0,11374,0

borpin · 2019-10-31T12:05:33.080Z

hpeyerl:

mkdir /var/lib/phpfina

Did you use the import process?

I think I know why. Need to investigate.

hpeyerl · 2019-10-31T12:13:19.254Z

I think I know why. The “default-settings.ini” file has “/var/lib/phpfina” the “example.settings.ini” has “/var/opt/emoncms/phpfina”. The latter is what actually exists. So I copied “default-settings.ini” to “settings.ini” which caused the problem.

Since I posted that, I’ve changed it to /var/opt/emoncms/phpfina and recreated my feeds/processes.

Still not getting anything logged though.

borpin · 2019-10-31T12:24:03.872Z

hpeyerl:

I think I know why. The “default-settings.ini” file has “/var/lib/phpfina” the “example.settings.ini” has “/var/opt/emoncms/phpfina”. The latter is what actually exists. So I copied “default-settings.ini” to “settings.ini” which caused the problem.

Ah, no that is not the right thing to do.

The default-settings.ini is just that. You then have a more personalised settings.ini file that overrides some parts of the default.

You should not need to edit either on a standard install. The fact you have, may prevent any further updates as git will complain.

The problem actually is that there is probably a settings.php in the folder and that takes precedence.

So what you want is to

cp example.settings.ini settings.ini
mv settings.php settings.php.old

You need to use the /var/opt/ folder as this is optimised for multiple writes of data.

This may also solve other problems as the proper settings.ini will have other changes required as well.

hpeyerl · 2019-10-31T12:29:54.912Z

Question about inputs/feeds.

In emonhub.conf, I have:

[[Serial]]
    Type = EmonHubTx3eInterfacer
    [[[init_settings]]]
        com_port = /dev/ttyAMA0
        com_baud = 115200                        #
    [[[runtimesettings]]]
        pubchannels = ToEmonCMS,
        subchannels = ToRFM12,
.....
[nodes]
[[99]]
    nodename = emontx3-direct-serial
    [[[rx]]]
       names = power1, power2, power3, power4, vrms
       datacode = 0      # not essential as "0" is default datacode for serial interfacer
       scale = 1         # not essential as "1" is default scale for serial interfacer
       units =W,W,W,W,V

and in http://emonpi.local/input/view, I have:

Node: 99
Name: emontx3-direct-serial
Location: Main_Panel

If I click ‘initialize’ it seems to create 3 inputs under 99, that being a “use”, a “use_kwh”, and a “Lamp” (I named it “Lamp” at some point and now it seems to have stuck)… So in my simplistic view, it looks like it should link “power1” (which is Lamp) to node 99 and the data should be recorded. But I don’t know if this is how it’s supposed to work?

31%20AM862×354 24 KB

My graph(s) are still empty. Feeling kind of dumb here.

borpin · 2019-10-31T12:32:19.492Z

~~I think the maximum node number you can use is 32.~~ Ignore that, you are using MQTT to pass the data.

What does your ‘Inputs’ page look like?

hpeyerl · 2019-10-31T12:42:15.991Z

I have MQTT because it was already there by default but also because I figure that’s how I will get the data into my HomeAssistant but that’s for later. I don’t care about that right now.

I only have ‘99’ because that’s what’s in my emonhub.conf which I got from the bottom of this README.md:

github.com

emonhub/conf/interfacer_examples/directserial at emon-pi ·...

emon-pi/conf/interfacer_examples/directserial

Python service linking and decoding input to MQTT & Emoncms - emonhub/conf/interfacer_examples/directserial at emon-pi · openenergymonitor/emonhub

21%20AM805×209 19.7 KB

05%20AM857×282 14.5 KB

borpin · 2019-10-31T12:45:08.648Z

Because this says null, no data is getting to the input

So not going to the Feed.

Have you fixed your settings.ini (as per above)? It might be the MQTT credentials are wrong for emoncms to use.

hpeyerl · 2019-10-31T12:58:49.395Z

There was no ‘settings.php’. I guess that’s good.
I copied example.settings.ini to settings.ini but:
2a) mqtt was “enabled=false” so I set it to true. I systemctl started emoncms_mqtt.service
2b) sql password was “password” instead of “emonpiemoncmsmysql2016” from my old settings.ini and thus the web frontend couldn’t connect to the database.

No change in behavior however. Still have a red “n/a " and NULL” in inputs.

hpeyerl · 2019-10-31T13:00:31.860Z

My settings.ini now looks like:

[sql]
server = "localhost"
database = "emoncms"
username = "emoncms"
password = "emonpiemoncmsmysql2016"
dbtest   = true

[redis]
enabled = true

[mqtt]
enabled = true
user = 'username'
password = 'password'

[feed]
engines_hidden = [0,6,10]
redisbuffer[enabled] = false
phpfina[datadir] = '/var/opt/emoncms/phpfina/'
phptimeseries[datadir] = '/var/opt/emoncms/phptimeseries/'

[interface]
feedviewpath = "graph/"

[public_profile]

[smtp]

[log]
level = 2

borpin · 2019-10-31T13:02:54.581Z

That is very wrong - not sure what has gone on here. Let me look.

borpin · 2019-10-31T13:06:17.300Z

Ok so, I see.

The normal default are part of the install repo.

I am doing this from memory but I think you will find it in the folder /opt/openenergymonitor/EmonScripts/defaults/emoncms/ and the file is called emonpi.settings.ini

so

cp /opt/openenergymonitor/EmonScripts/defaults/emoncms/emonpi.settings.ini /var/www/emoncms/settings.ini

hpeyerl · 2019-10-31T13:14:15.267Z

Much better.

55%20AM854×374 13.2 KB

So it seems my problem was that after I rebuilt the flash card, I copied my previous emonhub.conf and (more importantly) my previous settings.ini overtop of the one that came on the flash card. It would probably have ‘just worked’ had I not done the latter.

Awesome! Thanks for your help!

I think I can probably fumble my way through it from here.

hpeyerl · 2019-10-31T13:21:58.712Z

hmm. Not quite. When I try to create a feed, it looks like EMONCMS_DATADIR is not being expanded. Appears that that is post-edited by an install script.

27%20AM

I guess I’ll just manually correct it. Leaving this here in case someone else stumbles upon this thread.

borpin · 2019-10-31T13:30:08.151Z

Yes you are correct. /var/opt/emoncms

and

openenergymonitor_dir=/opt/openenergymonitor

Bill.Thomson · 2019-10-31T20:12:31.008Z

hpeyerl:

I just connected a CT and clipped it around the hot line of a table lamp

After you get everything else worked out…

Bear in mind the numbers you’ll get by using a table lamp as a load will more than likely not
be the values you are expecting.

You’ll want to use a larger load e.g. kettle, space heater, etc to do/check the unit’s calibration.

If you don’t have a larger load handy, you can pass multiple turns through the wire window of
a CT. e.g. a 100 Watt lamp with 10 turns through the CT is equivalent to a 1000 Watt load
with a single pass through the CT.

hpeyerl · 2019-11-01T12:06:56.825Z

Thanks. Now that I have brought the whole kit and kaboodle to the site where I’ll be using it, I’ll actually put it in a panel and try to figure out how many more emontx’s I’ll need to buy and plan out my CT’s. I have 3 panels from two separate feeds.