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[petera]

Edited

[petera]

Well I can announce we have at least one happy camper using HomeGenie on Raspbian Buster after following these installation instructions. He knows who he is so if he wants to share his adventures with you by all means I'm sure we would all like to hear about them 

[edjal]

 Hi All I have just installed the latest RPi Buster with the help of petera and his step by step instructions. I have learned a lot with his expert guidance. I am presently re configuring HG rather than using a backup of previous RPi. I had a couple of problems with previous versions. X10 E2 and E10 were not enabled in HG but were giving sporadic commands, and sometimes modules not scheduled on would turn on could not figure it out. In addition I'm sure some of my issues resulted from improper clearing memory of My CM15 controller. Both Tuicemen and petediscrete provided me with the proper procedure for clearing memory in CM15 in preparation for HG use. I learned the hard way this is a very important step. House codes have to be set to none, memory and history have to be cleared all AHP programs, Macros and schedules have to be deleted and finally most importantly download changes to interface (CM15)

[petera]

Glad to hear you are up and running with HG using the latest Raspbian OS, Raspbian Buster. This is important as the previous Raspbian OS version, Raspbian Stretch will be heading to end of life support so updates available for it will be restricted to security updates for a limited amount of time. You can sit back for at least another three years without worrying about what Raspbian OS version you have.

What you now have is a HG installation unique to you. The problem with using another persons downloaded  image is, that persons image could have corrupted configuration files unknown to them. You then inherit those corrupted files and problems that arise with your installation as a result are very difficult to resolve.

Other than your sources list for Mono which i resolved, you saw how quickly the copy/paste method performed. You used exactly the instructions I outlined above. I think it's best that any user who is serious about exploiting HG fully should use this method. The main thing is that it works.

I hope that your new installation now resolves your Ghost RF commands issue. Maybe you could report back later and let us know if it does.

For any other HG users, you should give the above a try. If nothing else it will give you a basic primer in Raspbian and the Raspberry Pi which I imagine @edjal will clearly agree with.

[bkenobi]

Any idea if the new OS and Mono will require updating as frequently as in the past to keep email functioning?  I have never had it work for more than ~ 2 weeks before having to update it again.  It's really been the biggest disappointment with HG (which is actually a very good thing, everything else works as expected).   

[petera]

Any idea if the new OS and Mono will require updating as frequently as in the past to keep email functioning?  I have never had it work for more than ~ 2 weeks before having to update it again.  It's really been the biggest disappointment with HG (which is actually a very good thing, everything else works as expected).   

To be honest, since installing Raspbian Stretch a while back and keeping current with the Mono project Raspbian release I've had no problems with email notifications. In fact using Raspbian Buster with Mono 6.0.0.327 has made the whole HG experience feel a bit smoother. My install is running on a Raspberry Pi Zero W quite happily 24/7 with no freeze ups and no need for regular rebooting as some users seem to do.

[bkenobi]

I don't have issues with reboots on Stretch like I did on older OS versions.  But, no installation so far has kept email working so I assume it isn't and don't rely on it anymore.  I'll get one of my dusty old HG build cards out and put Buster on it since my home automation season is now starting!

[petera]

I'd really be interested to see why your notification program keeps falling over. When you finally kick back in on the season I'd try to keep your setup as stock as possible. The latest version of Mono from the project page should help too.

Is your email notification program a simple one or do you have the likes of picture attachments. I did find a while back that if there was any delay in fetching images from a camera the notification program fell over and nothing was sent.

Again it might be worth passing some of the older 3rd party C# programs through a compiler to debug them. Have you used Mono Develop at any stage.

[bkenobi]

I've gone through a lot of variations in my setup so I can't say that I don't have a development version of Mono on one of my cards.  I think (from memory) that I'm using Mono complete for my most recent installer script.  My current image should be based on the script I have posted on my github distro.  But, when I get going again I'll scrap things and start from your script adding the features I need.  I'll probably step into it as well to make sure new things don't break working features since the last version I have been using is probably 1-2 years old now.

[petera]

A while back I was installing Mono complete to compensate for a couple of dependency issues I was experiencing particularly the email notification issue. That’s stripped back now to the basic Mono and dependencies install and all seems fine.

You’ll probably have a better idea how this install performs when you get a chance to install it.

Do you normally edit your install scripts to reflect any changes in distributions, links etc or does the install script handle this at execution time.

[bkenobi]

My scripts are just dumb command lists right now and they don't do anything fancy.  I install mono complete for the email certificate stuff as I recall, so if that's now part of the main distro, dropping it would be a good choice.

[edjal]

Hi Petera Does this ver of Raspian buster update automatically or do I have to do it manually every so often??  Edjal

[petera]

Hi Petera Does this ver of Raspian buster update automatically or do I have to do it manually every so often??  Edjal

Do the following :

sudo systemctl stop homegenie.service
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo systemctl start homegenie.service

You should now be good to go with the latest update.

[edjal]

Thank you the upgrade was successful. I did not know it was available.  Do you recommend following same procedure every so often?    Edjal

[petera]

Thank you the upgrade was successful. I did not know it was available.  Do you recommend following same procedure every so often?    Edjal

Absolutely. I find once weekly will keep you up to date with all the security, base and firmware updates that come through the Raspbian repositories and ensures your system remains stable.