Raspberry PI 64-bit Version 2.0.18 Startup Problem

[Ed Jaskolski]

Hi all. I am new to SparkSDR for the RPI.

I installed the 64 bit version 2.0.18 for the RPI 4B I have but when I go to run it from the command line I get an error.

See extract below.

ed@EdsDev1:~/Downloads $ sudo dpkg -i SparkSDR.2.0.18.linux-arm64.deb
Selecting previously unselected package sparksdr.
(Reading database ... 96666 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack SparkSDR.2.0.18.linux-arm64.deb ...
Unpacking sparksdr (2.0.18) ...
Setting up sparksdr (2.0.18) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1) ...
Processing triggers for mailcap (3.69) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.26-1) ...

ed@EdsDev1:~/Downloads $ SparkSDR
starting
ALSA lib seq_hw.c:466:(snd_seq_hw_open) open /dev/snd/seq failed: No such file or directory

MidiInAlsa::initialize: error creating ALSA sequencer client object.

terminate called after throwing an instance of 'RtMidiError'
  what():  MidiInAlsa::initialize: error creating ALSA sequencer client object.
Aborted

Looks like the install worked but then there is the run error.

Any ideas how to fix this?

I am fairly new to Linux/RPI but brave enough to use the CLI as needed.

Thanks for any help.

Ed VK1EJ

[ahop...@googlemail.com]

Hi Ed,

I've not seen that error before, I wonder if some midi prerequisite is missing. What os are you using, I can try and recreate here if I know which one exactly.

I had intended that the program would start up without midi by default but it looks like part of it is being enabled when it shouldn't be, I'll fix that.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Ed]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for the reply.

I also tried it on my PI400 with the same result.

The OS is

PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="11"
VERSION="11 (bullseye)"
VERSION_CODENAME=bullseye
ID=debian

Linux EdsDev1 5.15.32-v8+ #1538 SMP PREEMPT Thu Mar 31 19:40:39 BST 2022 aarch64 GNU/Linux

Thanks for your help.

Ed VK1EJ

[ahop...@googlemail.com]

Hi Ed,

this https://www.sparksdr.com/download/SparkSDR.2.0.21.linux-arm64.deb hopefully should start up even if there is a midi issue.  I'll build a clean install and see if I can find out what is causing the midi error.  Have you got a download link for the os?

Has anyone else had to install anything to get midi working?

73 Alan M0NNB

[Ed]

Hi Alan,

Thank you for 2.0.21. I successfully installed and ran it.

I got the 64-bit RPI OS through the installer at this site https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/

Thought you might be interested in the terminal output when I ran 2.0.21. I have attached a text file.

Thanks for your help.

Ed VK1EJ

[ahop...@googlemail.com]

Hi Ed,

I just did a clean install of the full rpi 64bit os from the installer you linked to and spark 2.0.18 worked both on a pi3 and pi4 with nothing else installed so I'm at a bit of a loss.  Have you any other hardware or anything else non standard with your install?

73 Alan M0NNB

[ahop...@googlemail.com]

The one thing I did differently was to click on the deb file and let the gui tool install spark, I don't know if that might behave differently to your command line.

73 Alan M0NNB

[ahop...@googlemail.com]

Hi Ed,

it looks like dpkg does not install dependencies see https://askubuntu.com/questions/40011/how-to-let-dpkg-i-install-dependencies-for-me . I have always used the gui installer which works well.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Ed]

Hi Alan,

Uninstalled 2.0.21 and tried to install 2.0.18 a couple of ways.

The first way was double clicking the 2.0.18.deb file (this starts Pi-gpk-dbus-service) and selecting Install - installed but did not run from the menu panel and got the ALSA error message as before when run from the CLI.

The second way was right clicking the 2.0.18.deb file and selected Package Install from the menu - installed but did not run from the menu panel and got the ALSA error message as before when run from the CLI.

Is either of those what you referred to as the gui installer?

Installing 2.0.21 using either of the two methods above results in successful installs and can run from the menu panel and CLI.

The  2.0.18 and 2.0.21 .deb files were located in the download directory (if that is relevant).

As to hardware, I used both an RPI4B 4GB and a PI400 setup to run from an SSD on one of the USB 3 ports with identical results.

The link you provided re not installing dependencies seems to relate to Ubuntu but I think the PI OS is derived from Debian (don't know if that is relevant).

I'll keep using 2.0.21.

Ed VK1EJ

[Kristofer Danner]

Tested on Pi4 with current 64 bit OS fully updated. Yes it's true that dpkg has never auto installed dependencies. Pointy clicky frontends that run the command line utility in the background will often fail to tell you what is going on. Best to use the command line. In this case, it is:

root@raspberrypi:~# dpkg -i SparkSDR.2.0.18.linux-arm64.deb

Selecting previously unselected package sparksdr.

(Reading database ... 92318 files and directories currently installed.)

Preparing to unpack SparkSDR.2.0.18.linux-arm64.deb ...
Unpacking sparksdr (2.0.18) ...

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of sparksdr:
 sparksdr depends on libportaudio2; however:
  Package libportaudio2 is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package sparksdr (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured

Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1) ...
Processing triggers for mailcap (3.69) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.26-1) ...

Errors were encountered while processing:
 sparksdr

However, better to use apt. The deb will install and you'll also be given the command which will fix even multiple dependency issues.

root@raspberrypi:~# apt install ./SparkSDR.2.0.18.linux-arm64.deb
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 sparksdr : Depends: libportaudio2 but it is not installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution).
root@raspberrypi:~# apt --fix-broken install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  libportaudio2
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libportaudio2
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 61.3 kB of archives.
After this operation, 207 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main arm64 libportaudio2 arm64 19.6.                                                                             0-1.1 [61.3 kB]
Fetched 61.3 kB in 0s (276 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package libportaudio2:arm64.
(Reading database ... 92339 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../libportaudio2_19.6.0-1.1_arm64.deb ...
Unpacking libportaudio2:arm64 (19.6.0-1.1) ...
Setting up libportaudio2:arm64 (19.6.0-1.1) ...

Setting up sparksdr (2.0.18) ...

Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.31-13+rpt2+rpi1+deb11u3) ...

KD