r/raspberry_pi • • 12h ago

2026 Oct 26 Stickied -FAQ- & -HELPDESK- thread - Boot problems? Power supply problems? Display problems? Networking problems? Need ideas? Get help with these and other questions!

3 Upvotes

Welcome to the r/raspberry_pi Helpdesk and Frequently Asked Questions!

Link to last week's thread

Having a hard time searching for answers to your Raspberry Pi questions? Let the r/raspberry_pi community members search for answers for you!† Looking for help getting started with a project? Have a question that you need answered? Was it not answered last week? Did not get a satisfying answer? A question that you've only done basic research for? Maybe something you think everyone but you knows? Ask your question in the comments on this page, operators are standing by!

This helpdesk and idea thread is here so that the front page won't be filled with these same questions day in and day out:

  1. Q: What's a Raspberry Pi? What can I do with it? How powerful is it?
    A: Check out this great overview
  2. Q: Does anyone have any ideas for what I can do with my Pi?
    A: Sure, look right here!‡
  3. Q: My Pi is behaving strangely/crashing/freezing, giving low voltage warnings, ethernet/wifi stops working, USB devices don't behave correctly, what do I do?
    A: 99.999% of the time it's either a bad SD card or power problems. Use a USB power meter or measure the 5V on the GPIO pins with a multimeter while the Pi is busy (such as playing h265/x265 video) and/or get a new SD card 1 2 3. If the voltage is less than 5V your power supply and/or cabling is not adequate. When your Pi is doing lots of work it will draw more power, test with the stress and stressberry packages. Higher wattage power supplies achieve their rating by increasing voltage, but the Raspberry Pi operates strictly at 5V. Even if your power supply claims to provide sufficient amperage, it may be mislabeled or the cable you're using to connect the power supply to the Pi may have too much resistance. Phone chargers, designed primarily for charging batteries, may not maintain a constant wattage and their voltage may fluctuate, which can affect the Pi’s stability. You can use a USB load tester to test your power supply and cable. Some power supplies require negotiation to provide more than 500mA, which the Pi does not do. If you're plugging in USB devices try using a powered USB hub with its own power supply and plug your devices into the hub and plug the hub into the Pi.
  4. Q: I'm trying to setup a Pi Zero 2W and it is extremely slow and/or keeps crashing, is there a fix?
    A: Either you need to increase the swap size or check question #3 above.
  5. Q: Where can I buy a Raspberry Pi at a fair price? And which one should I get if I’m new? Should I get an x86 PC instead of a Pi?
    A: Check stock and pricing at https://rpilocator.com/ — it tracks official resellers so you don’t overpay.
    Every time the x86 PC vs. Pi question comes up the answer is always if you have to ask, get a PC. If you're sure want a Raspberry Pi but not sure which model:
    • If you don’t know, get a Pi 5.
    • If you can’t afford it, get a Pi 4.
    • If you need tiny, get a Zero 2W.
    • If you need lowest power, get the original Zero.
    • For RAM, always get the most you can afford; you can’t upgrade it later.
      That’s it. No secret chart, no hidden wisdom. Bigger number = more performance, higher cost, higher power draw. Also please see the Annual What to Buy Megathread
  6. Q: I just did a fresh install with the latest Raspberry Pi OS and I keep getting errors when trying to ssh in, what could be wrong?
    A: There are only 4 things that could be the problem:
    1. The ssh daemon isn't running
    2. You're trying to ssh to the wrong host
    3. You're specifying the wrong username
    4. You're typing in the wrong password
  7. Q: I'm trying to install packages with pip but I keep getting error: externally-managed-environment
    A: This is not a problem unique to the Raspberry Pi. The best practice is to use a Python venv, however if you're sure you know what you're doing there are two alternatives documented in this stack overflow answer:
    • --break-system-packages
    • sudo rm a specific file as detailed in the stack overflow answer
  8. Q: The only way to troubleshoot my problem is using a multimeter but I don't have one. What can I do?
    A: Get a basic multimeter, they are not expensive.
  9. Q: My Pi won't boot, how do I fix it?
    A: Step by step guide for boot problems
  10. Q: I want to watch Netflix/Hulu/Amazon/Vudu/Disney+ on a Pi but the tutorial I followed didn't work, does someone have a working tutorial?
    A: Use a Fire Stick/AppleTV/Roku. Pi tutorials used tricks that no longer work or are fake click bait.
  11. Q: What model of Raspberry Pi do I need so I can watch YouTube in a browser?
    A: No model of Raspberry Pi is capable of watching YouTube smoothly through a web browser, you need to use VLC.
  12. Q: I want to know how to do a thing, not have a blog/tutorial/video/teacher/book explain how to do a thing. Can someone explain to me how to do that thing?
    A: Uh... What?
  13. Q: Is it possible to use a single Raspberry Pi to do multiple things? Can a Raspberry Pi run Pi-hole and something else at the same time?
    A: YES. Pi-hole uses almost no resources. You can run Pi-hole at the same time on a Pi running Minecraft which is one of the biggest resource hogs. The Pi is capable of multitasking and can run more than one program and service at the same time. (Also known as "workload consolidation" by Intel people.) You're not going to damage your Pi by running too many things at once, so try running all your programs before worrying about needing more processing power or multiple Pis.
  14. Q: Why is transferring things to or from disks/SSDs/LAN/internet so slow?
    A: If you have a Pi 4 or 5 with SSD, please check this post on the Pi forums. Otherwise it's a networking problem and/or disk & filesystem problem, please go to r/HomeNetworking or r/LinuxQuestions.
  15. Q: The red and green LEDs are solid/off/blinking or the screen is just black or blank or saying no signal, what do I do?
    A: Start here
  16. Q: I'm trying to run x86 software on my Raspberry Pi but it doesn't work, how do I fix it?
    A: Get an x86 computer. A Raspberry Pi is ARM based, not x86.
  17. Q: How can I run a script at boot/cron or why isn't the script I'm trying to run at boot/cron working?
    A: You must correctly set the PATH and other environment variables directly in your script. Neither the boot system or cron sets up the environment. Making changes to environment variables in files in /etc will not help.
  18. Q: Can I use this screen that came from ____ ?
    A: No
  19. Q: If my Raspberry Pi is headless and I can’t figure out what’s wrong, do I need to plug in a monitor and keyboard?
    A: If you cannot diagnose the problem remotely, you must connect a monitor and keyboard. That is the only way to see boot output and local error messages, and without that information the problem cannot be diagnosed.
  20. Q: My Pi seems to be causing interference preventing the WiFi/Bluetooth from working
    A. Using USB 3 cables that are not properly shielded can cause interference and the Pi 4 can also cause interference when HDMI is used at high resolutions.
  21. Q: I'm trying to use the built-in composite video output that is available on the Pi 2/3/4 headphone jack, do I need a special cable?
    A. Make sure your cable is wired correctly and you are using the correct RCA plug. Composite video cables for mp3 players will not work, the common ground goes to the wrong pin. Camcorder cables will often work, but red and yellow will be swapped on the Raspberry Pi.
  22. Q: I'm running my Pi with no monitor connected, how can I use VNC?
    A: First, do you really need a remote GUI? Try using ssh instead. If you're sure you want to access the GUI remotely then ssh in, type vncserver -depth 24 -geometry 1920x1080 and see what port it prints such as :1, :2, etc. Now connect your client to that.
  23. Q: I want to do something that already has lots of tutorials. Do I need a Raspberry-Pi-specific guide?
    A: Usually no.
    • Raspberry Pi (Linux computer): Use any standard Linux tutorial. A Raspberry Pi runs a normal Linux OS, not a special cut-down version. See Question #1.
    • Raspberry Pi Pico (microcontroller): Use Arduino tutorials. The Pico works with the Arduino IDE and can be used the same way as other Arduino-class boards.
  24. Q: Which Operating System (OS) should I install?
    A: If you aren’t sure, install Raspberry Pi OS. It’s the officially supported OS, it has the best documentation, the widest community support, and it’s what most guides and troubleshooting help assume you’re using.
  25. Q: How can I power my Raspberry Pi from a battery?
    A: All Raspberry Pi models run at 5 V. To choose a battery, first add up the maximum current of your Pi plus everything you attach to it (USB devices, screens, HATs, etc.). Then multiply that current by the number of hours you want it to run to get the required battery capacity in mAh. If you can’t find listed current values, use a USB power meter to measure the actual draw over 12–48 hours. Every battery question comes down to this simple math: the model, brand, or special setup doesn’t change the calculation.

Before posting your question think about if it's really about the Raspberry Pi or not. If you were using a Raspberry Pi to display recipes, do you really think r/raspberry_pi is the place to ask for cooking help? There may be better places to ask your question, such as:

Asking in a forum more specific to your question will likely get better answers!

Wondering which flair to use on your post? See the Flair Guide


† See the /r/raspberry_pi rules. While /r/raspberry_pi should not be considered your personal search engine, some exceptions will be made in this help thread.
‡ If the link doesn't work it's because you're using a broken buggy mobile client. Please contact the developer of your mobile client and let them know they should fix their bug. In the meantime use a web browser in desktop mode instead.


r/raspberry_pi • • Dec 01 '25

Community Annual December Pi Purchase Megathread: What Will Make the Perfect Gift for My Dad/Nephew/Granddaughter (Because I Don’t Know Nuffin ’Bout These Electronic Gadget Things)

7 Upvotes

Welcome to the Annual December Pi Purchase Megathread!

It’s that time of year when we get a flood of “Which Raspberry Pi kit/accessory/model should I buy?” posts. There’s no universal perfect kit or accessory, and these questions always get the same vague answers.

Before posting:

  • If you already know what you want to build, pick a project or tutorial — it will list the exact parts needed.
  • If you still want a kit, choose one that includes those parts.
  • If you want to know what a Raspberry Pi is, what it can do, or need project ideas, read the r/raspberry_pi FAQ.

To keep the forum sane:

  • All “what do I buy?” questions belong here.
  • Focus on what you want to do with the Pi or what projects you plan to try — not just “which kit is best.”
  • This thread can help with:
    • How to evaluate kits for your project
    • Features/components required for a particular setup
    • Tips, lessons learned, and project ideas

Which model of Pi should you get and where from?

Check stock and pricing at https://rpilocator.com/ — it tracks official resellers so you don’t overpay.

Which Pi to buy:

  • If you don’t know, get a Pi 5.
  • If you can’t afford it, get a Pi 4.
  • If you need tiny, get a Zero 2W.
  • If you need lowest power, get the original Zero.
  • For RAM, always get the most you can afford; you can’t upgrade it later.

That’s it. No secret chart, no hidden wisdom. Bigger number = more performance, higher cost, higher power draw.

Should you get an x86 PC instead of a Raspberry Pi? Every time the x86 PC vs. Pi question comes up the answer is always if you have to ask, get a PC.

Do not post “what should I buy?” anywhere else — it will be redirected here.

Think of this as a holiday sandbox for Pi gift chaos. Share your questions, experiences, and guidance without cluttering the rest of the community.


† If any links don't work it's because you're using a broken reddit client. Please contact the developer of your reddit client. You can find the FAQ/Helpdesk at the top of r/raspberry_pi: Desktop view / Phone view


r/raspberry_pi • • 2h ago

Show-and-Tell My Pi 5 has been running an evolution simulation 24/7 for 11 days and streaming it live. One species took over because of my bug lol

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80 Upvotes

So I had a Pi 5 (8gb) sitting in a drawer and I wanted to see if it could run a full evolution sim AND stream it to twitch at the same time, all day, without dying. Turns out yes.

What it does

3 species (hunters, fast explorers, plant eaters) living on a map with lakes, forest, desert.

every creature has ~24 genes (speed, size, fur, fat, swimming, immune type etc). babies get the genes from the parents with small random mutations

seasons, droughts, floods, diseases that spread by contact, new species that branch off

nobody controls them. rounds are 5 min, the survivors start the next round, so nothing ever resets

The Pi part:

- python + pygame, renders 1280x720 at 30fps, pipes the frames to ffmpeg -> twitch

- around 35% cpu, 55-59°C with the official active cooler

- ethernet, falls back to my phone hotspot if the network dies

- systemd service with autostart. we had 2 power cuts this week and it just came back on its own both times (I really need a small UPS tho, sd card is scaring me)

- 3000+ rounds so far, saves are only ~20mb

Funniest thing so far: the weakest species (the green plant eaters, they won 3% of rounds at the start) evolved to swim, hid in the lakes and then won 94% of the rounds. I thought evolution found the perfect animal. Nope, it was a bug in my code, a rule that kept pulling them back to their "perfect" ancestor. Fixed it and now it's a real fight again.

It's live right now if you want to look: twitch.tv/edenevolutionwars (you can type S, N or R in chat and a creature with your name joins that species, it's free, no money stuff).

Happy to answer questions about the setup, the streaming part was the hardest to get stable on the Pi.


r/raspberry_pi • • 6h ago

Show-and-Tell The_Groove.sh has been installed

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11 Upvotes

r/raspberry_pi • • 16h ago

Show-and-Tell Building a Pi Zero W replacement for my car's dead Bluetooth module (CAN bus, A2DP, hands-free calls with the car's own mic)

22 Upvotes

The Bluetooth module of my 2011 Alfa Romeo Giulietta died, and it never did music anyway, only calls. A Pi Zero W now lives in the module's original case and does both. The factory radio stays and treats the Pi as the original part.

The Pi-specific parts, in case they help someone:

  • **CAN:** MCP2515 + TJA1050 board on SPI. The board needs its supply rails split, or MISO drives 5 V into a 3.3 V GPIO. One cut track and one wire.
  • **Audio:** a USB sound card soldered to the test pads under the Pi. Music uses A2DP; calls use HFP with bluez-alsa built with mSBC, so call audio is 16 kHz instead of 8. Calls work with the unit fully installed, but the other person still hears a slight echo and the Pi has no echo cancellation yet.
  • **One radio:** Wi-Fi and Bluetooth share it on the Zero W. With Wi-Fi up, the music lost a few hundred audio packets a minute. A small service turns Wi-Fi off while audio plays.
  • **Boot time:** the car checks its modules in the first three seconds after it wakes. On the measured cold start, the application reached the bus about 53 s after power-on, so the Pi uses a measured 0.63 W standby. The configured 72-hour halt and long-parking restart have not yet been tested in the car.
  • **Power:** the first buck converter dropped to 0 V out at 10 V in, so the Pi reset on every engine start. The Zero has no under-voltage detection, so `get_throttled` told me nothing.
  • **Wake:** CAN traffic wakes the Pi from standby. An optional GPIO3 ignition circuit was bench-tested to restart a halted Pi, but it is not part of the installed behavior proved in the car.

Full write-up with diagrams and measurements:

https://duzgun.org/blog/giulietta-blue-me/

The CAN side builds on fmntf's fiatcan project. Happy to answer questions

Processing img 7w10bkvf4wxh1...


r/raspberry_pi • • 20h ago

Show-and-Tell My Raspberry Pi 5 runs my smart home. But controlling its own case was surprisingly difficult.

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27 Upvotes

I've been running Home Assistant Container on my Raspberry Pi 5 for a while now, along with a few other Docker services.

The Pi is inside a SunFounder Pironman 5 case, which has a fan, RGB lighting and an OLED display.

One thing that always bothered me was that I could control pretty much everything in my smart home through Home Assistant, except the case my Pi was sitting in. 😅

I looked into the Pironman's local REST API and started building a custom Home Assistant integration.

Initially, I just wanted to monitor the hardware and control the fan. Eventually, I added RGB lighting, OLED display controls and more system sensors.

Since I'm using Home Assistant Container, I also wanted it to work over the network without needing Home Assistant installed directly on the Pi.

I've since added support for the Pironman 5 Max and spent quite a bit of time fixing bugs, testing things and improving the integration.

A few days ago, it was accepted into the default HACS repository, so it can now be installed directly through HACS without adding a custom repository.

That was pretty cool, especially since I originally built it just to solve an annoyance with my own setup.

Here's the GitHub repo if anyone wants to have a look or try it:

https://github.com/ChristophKomenda/pironman5-homeassistant-container

I'd be interested to know if anyone else is running Home Assistant Container on a Raspberry Pi and how you're handling hardware monitoring or fan control.


r/raspberry_pi • • 1d ago

Show-and-Tell My pi powered flock camera Halloween costume!

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1.5k Upvotes

YOU WILL BE MONITORED. THIS IS MANDATORY!


r/raspberry_pi • • 22h ago

Troubleshooting Issues running a command

0 Upvotes

Hello! I am trying to run Openvpn on my pi5. I have the openvpn command calling a .conf file with my user/pass. I am getting an "AUTH_FAILED" error. I am logged in as myself (pi has been renamed to my username) the permissions on the user/pass .conf file are "-rw-r--r-- 1 root root" Could this be the problem? I did see an error a few days ago about accessing this .conf file with the user/pass. How can I fix this? I can't understand how whomever is logged in can't access that user/pass file. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!


r/raspberry_pi • • 20h ago

Topic Debate Yesterdays power cut taught me a few things

0 Upvotes

No not to buy a UPS - I have one 😂 Though only a small one it runs the load for around an hour and talks via USB to a Pi Zero to control things. Visit https://networkupstools.org if you are not using this - way better than some of the 'free' manufactures software (inc DSM on my Synology box).

Though most kit shut down and restarted fine, I had forgotten that a couple of smart switches come back in the off position and one of these was on the DNS server (Pi 4B 2GB running unbound) so a couple of services needed restarting to come up cleanly.

UPS control (Pi Zero with Ethernet HAT) and NUT ran fine (as per testing) and the card survived me manually turning the UPS off after 45 minutes of power outage.

WiFi AP came up before the router and falls back to a lousy flaky WiFi connection and not the faster SOLID Ethernet link (stupid or what) - I think it times out checking the Ethernet port and then just looks for the WiFi to come up from any other device to create a mesh.

Bits learnt / re-enforced:

  • Pi boxes are so handy on a UPS compared to the bigger X86 boxes / NAS. Only the N95 and N150 boxes here matches them for power consumption and the UPS run time is way longer now I have moved a fair number of services to the Pi boards in the rack.
  • Practise a full power restore rather than dry running it. My shutdown was OK but coming back was a bit of a pain
  • Finish the family documentation - the notes I have are not up to date and my wife / son would be stuck without me. NO EXCUSES on this ❤️
  • My ISP does not have any long term power backup - they dropped before I had to power off the NTU... Real issue as our mobile signal here rates "pathetic" on a good day and we rely on WiFi calling.

Things to ponder over:

  1. Changing the NUT server to a read only overlay rather than just risking the manual power off and relying on a 'hot' backup card taped to the box!
  2. May be add a soft shutdown button to the NUT server rather than just killing power from the UPS.
  3. Check the boot sequence of the Pi boards - the USB should be first and the SD card in the built-in reader should be up to date. Big thanks to Jeff Geerling for keeping https://github.com/geerlingguy/rpi-clone/ running.
  4. Think about adding a 'Smart switch' control Pi (with a small screen / buttons) to control the rack power sockets - I was lucky this time but if I need to manually control the switches a 'phone may not have WiFi and they are a pain to reach in the cabinet.
  5. Making the NUT server control the power on sequence for all devices not just the rack
  6. Add a DNS server to the UPS Pi Zero (or get another Pi Zero set up) to act as a backup to the 'lan support' Pi (this runs DNS, some days DHCP, Reverse Proxy, MQTT server, Cloudflare tunnel and lan monitor - not bad for a 2GB Pi).
  7. RSYNC (running in a tmux session) is a life saver - I was copying 3.4TB of files between boxes and the systems shut down after 3.8TB. Rsync just carried on from the last successful file once I restarted it and though tmux looses the bash history in this situation the command was easy to reconstruct - tmux is so handy for ssh when you are running long tasks or have a host that sleeps and easy to install on the Pi with apt). 2 minutes to learn the very basic use.
  8. No WiFi is a pain with smart sockets / switches - possibly use a Pi as a backup AP or look at power line ethernet for the access points. Maybe limit devices that can connect (with static IP addresses matching the main router allocation) and swap over once the main system are up??? Currently I need WiFi to be able to turn the WiFi access point on 🤔
  9. Review the start up of Docker containers rather than the default 'just restart' - make sure a DNS server is up first and lan connection is available (esp on WiFi)...
  10. Decide if I close the last big i5 power eater down and move the jobs to a couple of Pi boards / N95 boxes. Fortunately I had just moved Jellyfin to my NAS so that box was not eating UPS power.
  11. Decide what is handling DHCP . Currently it is my router but it maybe better if I take this over once TP-Link have investigated / fixed the curious errors we are seeing on the web console.

r/raspberry_pi • • 1d ago

Show-and-Tell Raspberry Pi Pico Driving a robot arm

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13 Upvotes

Source code and more info here: https://github.com/AdrianCX/picohive-robotarm

Controlled via internal web page (gamepad, keyboard), LLMs, MQTT, with an openGL visualizer


r/raspberry_pi • • 1d ago

Troubleshooting A little help on my project please.

2 Upvotes

Hello y'all! Hope you are good. I have asked the same question on the Discord server 15 days ago, no answer, not that i'm mad or anything, just put the project on hold, anyways, I hope I can get one from here.

I have a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 w (Trixie, version 13.6, flashed it the third time an hour ago), a Camera module 3 NoIR (the second one, the first one I returned it under warranty and they sent me this one) and the Standard to Mini 200mm Camera ribbon (official) (also have misc. stuff, sd card heatsink etc). Now, the problem is that the pi doesn't want to detect/recognise the camera, I have tried everything, I went PERSONALLY and searched online for forums and tutorial, tried with Claude, Claude Code, nothing. On the hardware side, I have reseated the ribbon cable many times (IT IS CORRECTLY ORIENTED AND EVENLY PLACED), did a continuity test on it with my multimeter, measured 3.3v across the data and power lines (which Claude told me that they are from pin 15 to pin 11, I THINK.). I have to admit, unfortunately, I don't know how it happened but a little leg from the Pi's connector snapped (it still fits in place, stays in place, the pins have good contact, just the little pull tab doesnt stay in place when I dont have the camera attached or when it the tab is out, this isnt the reason, I hope and I believe..). It is the second camera I've gotten and I dont believe it's the camera either, like... the second time too? Can it be the power source? I had it connected from my pc and from a 5v 1.2a power supply (dont have the official one).

It's copy-pasted from the Discord post, but its the same problem so yeah. I want to build a monocular NVG device and the camera is the only thing that doesn't work.

Thanks so much,

Pilot.


r/raspberry_pi • • 2d ago

Show-and-Tell Repurposing an old Google AIY Voice Kit into a talking Halloween skull

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74 Upvotes

tl;dr I resurrected my old Google AIY Voice Kit. Details below.

---

I had an old Google AIY Voice Kit lying around that I hadn’t used in some time, so I decided to make use of it for Halloween. For those who don't recall, Google bundled a cardboard case with an audio HAT, a mic daughterboard, a speaker, an arcade-style button and you supplied the Raspberry Pi for use with it.

I named the project called AlsaGeist, and configured a personality named Grimjaw who sits by the candy bowl and listens for trick-or-treaters. When kids walk up, Grimjaw recites scary quotes, makes jokes, and reacts to a selection of different costumes if they tell him who they're dressed as.

The engine is modular and designed so different personalities can be created, loaded, and configured. Custom prompts can be created easily by editing a single file. Only the Grimjaw personality is bundled at the moment but others can be added.

For the enclosure, I printed the Halloween Skellington Pumpkin by serev3d from MakerWorld. In the slicer, I added a blank cube matching the exact dimensions of the AIY cardboard case. The entire original cardboard box slides right in, so the speaker, mic, and Pi stay snug without needing extra brackets or glue. I designed two perforated eye inserts and hot glued them in.

Alsageist can be configured to run completely offline (using Vosk for speech-to-text and Piper for local voice synthesis with zero lag or API fees) or online with cloud speech-to-text and Gemini LLM fallback. Holding the button down for 10 seconds says "Powering off" and safely shuts down the Pi so it can be unplugged cleanly. It also responds to a short list of password-protected superuser commands (like Shutdown.) All of this is documented in the respective guides within docs/.

While I created Alsageist for my AIY kit, you don't need the AIY kit to use it. It runs on any Raspberry Pi (tested on 3+) with a regular USB speaker with a mic.

If you want to build one, I've bundled a Docker setup script that automates the full install on a vanilla OS. See the getting_started guides in docs/ for more detail.

git clone https://github.com/sancheza/alsageist.git
cd alsageist
./scripts/setup_docker.sh

GitHub: https://github.com/sancheza/alsageist
Pumpkin STL: MakerWorld Model 623029

Disclaimer: I used both Claude Sonnet and Google Antigravity to assist with coding, testing and documentation.


r/raspberry_pi • • 2d ago

Troubleshooting Pi 3B with Adafruit Bonnet and 64x32 LED Matrix, skipping 2 rows.

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29 Upvotes

Hello, i was trying to build a Flight tracker but I currently facing this problem with my 64x32 led matrix display, im trying to troubleshoot by editing the multiplex and slow the GPIO but nothing works, im just thinking maybe its hardware defect or maybe it because im running both the pi and the panel at 5V 3A? (They recommend 8A for the build), my DC to DC booster will arrive tomorrow hoping it fixes it, but im still open for ideas and explanation on why it's doing this.


r/raspberry_pi • • 2d ago

Troubleshooting Conditionally enable composite or HDMI out on boot?

3 Upvotes

Is it possible to conditionally enable composite OR HDMI on boot depending on which is connected? If so, how are you doing this (composite fail over, etc)?

I have both outputs working, but manually have tk switch the config.txt and cmdline.txt files before boot depending on what output I'm using.

I don't have a need for "hot swapping" and a reboot in between is completely fine. I'm thinking of some sort of systemd service to handle it but figured I'd ask here if someone has this solved already.


r/raspberry_pi • • 2d ago

Troubleshooting Raspberry pi doesnt connect to the network after updating to the latest OS

7 Upvotes
pi@raspberrypi:~$ sudo systemctl restart dhcpcd
Failed to restart dhcpcd.service: Unit dhcpcd.service not found.
pieraspberrypi:~$ ip a
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000 link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid Ift
forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 /128 scope host noprefixroute
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <BROADCAST, MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000 altname endo
link/ether e4:58:01:60:89:73 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
altname enxe45f01608973
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST, MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
link/ether e4:5f:01:60:89:74 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
altname wlxe5101608974
4: dockero: <NO-CARRIER, BROADCAST, MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state DOWN group default link/ether Oe:68:43:24:67:ae brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
inet 172.
172.17.0.1/16 brd 172.17.255.255 scope global dockero valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
pi@raspberrypi:~$
$ ifconfig
docker0: flags=4099<UP, BROADCAST, MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 172.17.0.1 netmask 255.255.0.0
ether Oe:68:43:24:67:ae txqueuelen
RX packets✪ bytes 0 (0.0 B)
broadcast 172.17.255.255 (Ethernet)
RX errors ✪ dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
TX errors ✪ dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
lo: flags=73<UP, LOOPBACK, RUNNING> mtu 65536
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6:1 prefixlen 128 scopeid 0x10 <host>
loop txqueuelen 1000 (Local Loopback)
RX packets 28 bytes 1768 (1.7 KiB)
RX errors ◊ dropped 0 overruns 0 frame (
TX packets 28 bytes 1768 (1.7 KiB)
TX errors ✪ dropped overruns ✪
pi@raspberrypi:" $
carrier 0 collisions 0

Note, i had to use a image to text extractor because it's against rule 3 to post screenshots apparently, i have the actual screenshots of the command line here if you'd prefer to read it that way. I used a video capture card with my PC to use it since i cant access it via SSH due to the network not working. https://imgur.com/a/EPveYVL

How do i resolve this? systemd-networkd-wait-online.service fails during boot. Running sudo ip link set eth0 up makes eth0 go from "down" to "up" and it shows up in ifconfig, but it still doesnt give me any internet connection, please help.

Checking the administrator panel on my router, the raspberry pi does not show up at all on the network.

I had updated from Bullseye, to Bookworm, to Trixie. The issues appeared after upgrading to Trixie.

Yes, I tried restarting the Pi
Yes, I checked the cables.
Yes, other devices can connect to the network and the internet.


r/raspberry_pi • • 3d ago

Show-and-Tell Compose to drive LED matrix + simulator to test without hardware

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40 Upvotes

Jetpack compose is native UI framework on android, I've been trying to build embedded-compose, which runs Jetpack Compose (Kotlin/Native, no JVM, no Android) on small Linux devices. Added backend for the MAX7219 "4 in 1" (FC-16) LED boards, tested on a Raspberry Pi 3.

HARDWARE

- Raspberry Pi 3, Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit, dtparam=spi=on

- MAX7219 4-in-1 board (32×8 red LEDs), 5 jumper wires, no level shifter

HOW IT WORKS

- The app is ordinary Compose code: Canvas, drawText, LaunchedEffect, state. It's cross-compiled into a single static arm64 binary (~3 MB), so nothing needs installing on the Pi.

- The backend draws each frame in RAM and sends it through /dev/spidev0.0. A pixel is lit when its color is bright, since the LEDs are only on or off.

CHALLENGES

- Pixel mapping. Bytes shift through the chain, so the first ones sent end up in the last module. On FC-16, each module's digit register is a row and each bit is a column. Other boards are wired differently, so there are flip and block=90/180/270 settings.

TESTING WITHOUT THE BOARD: A BROWSER PLAYGROUND

The Pi build takes over a minute, and I didn't always have the board at hand, so I made a playground that runs the same app in a browser tab:

- Your Kotlin code is compiled to WebAssembly by JetBrains' Kotlin playground server, together with the embedded-compose toolkit. Nothing to install.

- The pixels come from the *same* C++ LED backend the Pi uses, also compiled to WebAssembly. Only the last step differs: frames go to a canvas instead of SPI. So spacing, clipping and the 5×7 font look the same as on the real LEDs.

LINKS

- Code + wiring: https://github.com/kaiwalyakhasnis/embedded-compose (board: rpi-max7219)

- Playground (LED test opens by default): https://kaiwalyakhasnis.github.io/embedded-compose-led-matrix-playground/


r/raspberry_pi • • 3d ago

Show-and-Tell Show-and-Tell: a Pi 5 that keeps the last 30 seconds of any HDMI source

33 Upvotes

I wanted instant replay for a console without a cloud account or an app. Snapback is a Raspberry Pi 5 that records an HDMI capture card in a rolling buffer. A phone on the same Wi-Fi opens a web page and can save a screenshot or the last 30 seconds.

What it does

  • Grabs a 1920x1080 JPEG of the live input.
  • Saves the previous ~30 seconds as an H.264 + AAC MP4.
  • Shows a live preview, or live video with sound a few seconds behind.
  • Runs on the local network only. No accounts, no cloud.

Parts, roughly $110

  • Raspberry Pi 5, 4 GB (~$60)
  • USB 3 HDMI capture card that does 1080p60 MJPEG (~$20). A generic one is fine. An Elgato Cam Link 4K also works.
  • Official 27 W USB-C supply (~$12), a good 32 GB microSD (~$10), and an active cooler (~$5)

The cooler matters. The Pi is software-encoding 1080p60 all the time, and ffmpeg sits on about 3 of the 4 cores.

How it works

The capture card shows up as a normal USB webcam (/dev/video0) and an ALSA sound card. One ffmpeg process reads 1080p60 MJPEG, encodes H.264 with libx264 ultrafast, and writes 2-second MPEG-TS segments. "Save Last 30 Seconds" concatenates the newest finished segments with -c copy, so it does not re-encode. Screenshots are a JPEG the same process is already writing.

The audio device name depends on the card. The Elgato is hw:CARD=C4K. A cheap MacroSilicon card is hw:CARD=Video. Snapback finds the sound card on the same USB device as /dev/video0, so swapping cards does not mean editing a config file.

It runs as a systemd user service and can start at boot. Install is a venv and pip install -r requirements.txt, then python -m snapback serve. The page is http://<pi>.local:8080/.

The annoying part

Cable boxes and streaming sticks encrypt HDMI with HDCP. A card that honors HDCP shows a solid blue frame, and there is nothing to fix in software. Computers, cameras, and game consoles work. On PlayStation, turn off "Enable HDCP" in the system settings.

Code is MIT licensed: https://github.com/dconroy/snapback

Write-up with the parts list: https://www.snapback.video/


r/raspberry_pi • • 4d ago

Show-and-Tell My Pi prints a little receipt for the family every morning: weather, puzzles, chores, bedtime stories

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1.8k Upvotes

This started as a weekend hack with an Epson TM-T88V receipt printer I bought off eBay and a 3B, and it slowly turned into something the whole family uses every day.

What it does

You build a "ticket" out of blocks and print it from your phone, or schedule it. Ours comes out at 7AM on weekdays: weather, a riddle with the answer printed upside down (no cheating), and a sudoku. There are 55 blocks now, a few favourites:

  • weather with little pictograms and a "what to wear" line (coat and hat, take an umbrella...)
  • puzzles generated on the Pi: sudoku, kakuro, takuzu, hashi, crosswords, word search, mazes
  • the daily Lichess chess puzzle, with the board drawn on the receipt
  • chores that rotate between the kids every week, which ended a lot of arguments
  • birthdays, bin day, the shopping list
  • a "little note" with a photo for whoever stayed home

There's a web app (works great as a phone home screen app), and it shows up in Home Assistant on its own over MQTT, so the doorbell can print "someone rang at 14:32".

The fun / hard parts

  • Talking to the printer. No driver, no CUPS: it sends ESC/POS straight to /dev/usb/lp0. Text uses the printer's own fonts, everything else (grids, pictograms, chess pieces, photos) is drawn as a 512-dot-wide raster image and dithered. I ended up adding Floyd–Steinberg, Atkinson and Bayer because photos and line drawings want different things.
  • Knowing if the printer is OK. My first try was the ESC/POS status commands (DLE EOT). Bad idea: with the cover open the TM-T88V just stops answering, and a request left hanging locked up the USB link until I power-cycled it. The trick that works is the LPGETSTATUS ioctl of the kernel's usblp driver: it's a USB control request, nothing stays pending, and it tells you "out of paper" vs "cover open". Tickets wait in a queue and come out once it's fixed.
  • Puzzles with exactly one solution. Generating a kakuro is easy, generating one that only has one solution is not. Every puzzle goes through a small solver; if two solutions survive, it reveals a digit where they differ and tries again. Getting that fast enough for a Pi took a couple of rewrites.

Tech bits

It's one Rust binary, no database, no Python, no cloud required. Most blocks are computed locally or use free APIs with no key. A handful (bedtime story, horoscope, "what's for dinner?" from what's in the fridge) can optionally use Claude, cached so it's a few cents a month. It runs fine on a 3B, I might switch to a 0W someday.

Code (Apache-2.0): https://github.com/XNinety9/Printr

Docs and every block with its printed example: https://xninety9.github.io/Printr/

This project is a real fun ride, I love how it combines SW and HW to bring fun and joy to the family and friends. I've received a lot of positive feedback since it went public.

I'll be happy to answer questions. And if you have an ESC/POS printer other than the TM-T88V, I'd love to know if it works for you!

EDIT: wow, thanks everyone, this blew up way more than I expected! A few answers to what came up a lot:

  • BPA/BPS: fair point, and I have to correct myself: the EU banned BPA in thermal paper in 2020, but many rolls simply switched to BPS, which isn't banned. Look for "phenol-free" (BPA- and BPS-free) 80 mm rolls. I've added a short note about it to the docs: https://xninety9.github.io/Printr/guide.en.html#paper
  • Other printers: I've only tested the TM-T88V. If you try it with something else (Rongta, Bluetooth ones, impact printers...), please tell me how it went in the GitHub Discussions: https://github.com/XNinety9/Printr/discussions
  • Ideas: the chore + QR code for pocket money idea is great, and fortune/cowsay is on my list. Keep them coming!

And to my fellow ex-kitchen folks: sorry for the flashbacks 😅


r/raspberry_pi • • 4d ago

Troubleshooting Inland 3.5" TFT LCD Touchscreen Monitor From Microcenter

7 Upvotes

This thing is basically useless. I have tried both the Raspberry Pi B+ I originally tried using for this project I wanted to make (DIY Pipboy) and even tried it with the Pi 4B that I had lying around, and I CANNOT GET THIS THING TO WORK.

I have tried both the github with the drivers I'm supposed to use, LCD-show, AND the updated drivers someone else made, lcd32 by katzenjens, AND I HAVE MADE NO PROGRESS.

Either I am missing something, causing an issue, OR this is just a deprecated product that is completely busted. Has ANYONE had ANY success getting this thing to work????? I can only flash OS's so many times before I say the product is useless.

Here are the different OS builds I have tried with these:

  • Bookworm
  • Trixie
  • Bullseye
  • Jessie

r/raspberry_pi • • 4d ago

Show-and-Tell I replaced my Pi 4 irrigation controller with a Pico W - Telegram and Google Calendar now run on the Pico itself

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40 Upvotes

This started as a MicroPython project on a Pico, controlled from a separate Pi 4
That seemed wasteful, why not put telegram/google calendar directly on the pico?
... *famous last words* ...

Some time later, it's all on the Pico W:
- Google calendar is the schedule, `garden/water/1/30m` waters zone 1 for 30 minutes
- Telegram menu for manual watering, and a message when a valve opens/closes
- Green button waters both zones for 30 minutes, red closes everything
- Setup/control page served by the Pico
- Every boot closes both valves, in case of a crash or power cut mid-watering

Code, wiring and parts is available here: https://github.com/AdrianCX/picohive-irrigation

How the move from the Pi 4 went is in the comments


r/raspberry_pi • • 4d ago

Show-and-Tell Pi 4 Bluetooth bridge: one SmartRow rowing pulley, two apps (SmartRow and Peloton) at once, now with a Display HAT Mini

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18 Upvotes

My SmartRow pulley only allows one Bluetooth connection, and its app can't feed Peloton properly. So a Pi 4 now sits in the middle:

- the built-in radio connects to the pulley (bleak/BlueZ);

- a TP-Link UB500 dongle, driven directly with Google's Bumble, runs two advertising sets: a byte-for-byte clone of the pulley for the SmartRow app, and a standard FTMS rower for Peloton;

- a Pimoroni Display HAT Mini shows the connections and live watts, stroke rate, pace and distance, and button A holds-to-shutdown.

A few things I learned along the way:

- The iOS SmartRow app only lists a clone that advertises the pulley's manufacturer data, and only uses it if the service is declared with 16-bit UUIDs.

- The Display HAT Mini's data/command pin is GPIO 9 (SPI MISO). With dtparam=spi=on the screen stays blank; dtoverlay=spi0-2cs,no_miso fixes it.

- To keep the backlight lit through shutdown, drive it with the pull-up also set; the Pi turns released pins back into inputs.

- Lighting the RGB LED through the internal pull-down instead of driving it low makes a nice dim indicator.

About 19 s from power-on to both virtual devices advertising. Python, systemd, GPL-3.0:

https://github.com/madooroy/smartrow-bridge

Protocol knowledge from QZ by Roberto Viola, which also supports far more devices.

Unofficial, not affiliated with SmartRow, WaterRower or Peloton.


r/raspberry_pi • • 4d ago

Troubleshooting Raspberry Pi CUPS server crashes printer when printing iPad files

5 Upvotes

Hi all. I have a raspberry Pi Server running CUPS, and for a long time I had zero issues printing from Android and iPad. The iPad defaults to a VPN from work, never a problem. It prints to my Brother MFC 9330CDW via wifi direct NP. I have my pi set up on a workhorse, a Dell 3130cn (the best printer) . It prints from Android devices without a hitch and perfectly. I used a PPD file specifically for the 3130cn I found on my Windows machine. hn I print from iPad, Iget "broken pipe" errors in the job que, and get garbage. I am set up for network printing from my Windows machine and through the pi's ethernet. Again, android fine, Apple garbage. I tried editing the PPD file and adding:

*cupsFilter2: "image/urf image/urf 100 pdftoraster"

*cupsFilter2: "application/pdf application/pdf 0 -"

AFTER my model name and nickname in the PPD, it printed ONCE in B&W. I changed the file to reflect these flags:

*cupsFilter2: "image/urf image/urf 100 pdftoraster ColorModel=CMYK"

*cupsFilter2: "application/pdf application/pdf 0 "

NO GO. I then tried replacing CMYK with RGB, same result, and Android would also no longer work at all. I cleared the cache and restarted CUPS service after every saved edit.

I then tried:

*cupsFilter2: "image/urf image/urf 100 pdftops"

*cupsFilter2: "application/pdf application/pdf 0 pdftops"

Same result. Still a "broken pipe" error. I then tried setting a global flag:

sudo lpadmin -p your_printer_name -o pdftops-renderer-default=ghostscript

That slo didn't work. I had to modify the printer once or twice with the PPD file fresh as it quit working, and would work for Android perfectly after each install.

Anyone else using this printer? Had these errors? I cannot recall when I first setup CUPS if I used this PPD file or not, but postscript is postscript, right?

Please advise. I am indeed a newbie at any linux.


r/raspberry_pi • • 5d ago

Show-and-Tell My Pi 4 broadcasts an FPV drone sim on 5.8 GHz: composite out into a VTX, flown with a real RC radio

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63 Upvotes

My Pi 4 runs a 3D FPV sim and sends it to analog FPV goggles (that's an FPV monitor in the clip, same signal). How it works:

- A native C program runs the StickTime game script (Lua 5.3) unchanged and draws straight to DRM/KMS with page flips. No X, no browser.

- Composite out of the 3.5 mm jack into a 5.8 GHz VTX, NTSC or PAL. HDMI works too.

- Sticks come from your RC radio: ELRS/Crossfire WiFi joystick over UDP, USB joystick or Bluetooth.

- 60 fps, about 25 ms from stick to video out. The status page measures it live.

- The VTX channel and power are set over SmartAudio/Tramp on one GPIO, bit-banged. Getting that to work while the game draws on 3 cores was a fun latency hunt.

- Flashable SD image

Free and open source (GPL-2.0): https://github.com/juricabi/sticktime-pi

Video: https://youtu.be/Khq31t_4pqc

Happy to answer questions.


r/raspberry_pi • • 6d ago

Show-and-Tell Fully open source stereo depth stack with cheap cameras

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90 Upvotes

Hi everyone! We’re building Nuvo Vision One, a stereo depth camera powered by a Raspberry Pi 5, and wanted to share where we’ve got so far.

This started from our own need to add depth sensing to our products. The stereo cameras we were considering were expensive for our budget, and we already had a Pi 5 handling compute. We wondered how far we could get by connecting two cameras and doing the stereo processing on the Pi itself.

The setup uses two IMX296 global-shutter cameras with a shared hardware trigger to synchronize capture. The Pi handles image rectification and stereo matching, producing disparity and depth alongside the camera images.

Doing this on an SBC comes with limits. Resolution, frame rate and matcher settings all affect how much work the Pi can keep up with. We’ve reached a useful starting point for our needs, but there’s still plenty to improve. The attached preview video shows the current output, including the holes and noisy regions where matching struggles.

We also built a browser-based interface to make it easier to use. You can preview the images and depth, adjust exposure and stereo settings, choose outputs, and work through calibration. It’s accessible over the local network through Ethernet or Wi-Fi.

One reason we like this approach is that the camera’s compute is also a normal Linux computer. You can modify the image pipeline and run your own applications on the same Pi. The Nuvo Depth software is open source, including the runtime, web interface and SDKs.

We’ve put product photos and web UI screenshots in this album so you can see the hardware and controls alongside the video.

We’d love feedback from people working with stereo vision or robotics. What would you want to test first, and what would make something like this useful in your projects?

GitHub: https://github.com/arputhamips/nuvo-depth


r/raspberry_pi • • 6d ago

Tutorial Ambience Light for Laptop with Pico :D

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15 Upvotes

Just a simple 2 day project , I'd love to hear some changes/recommendations if y'all got https://cosmic.is-a.dev/blogs/ambience-light