Module Debugging

How to debug your module while in development?

As it can take several seconds and even minutes to restart your MM, it may be a bottleneck for development efficiency. Here are a (very) few suggestions to help debug your MM Module while under development.

There are at least 2-3 ways to test modules:

1. Directly on MM itself (native mode)
2. Directly on MM itself (server mode)
3. As a node server or on a different machine [TBA]

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General Debug Tips

• Run your MM in server mode, so that you still can use your RPi (or what have) in GUI mode, this also reduces it's CPU resources somewhat.

• Disable all other modules (except clock) to make it start/run faster and to isolate your Dev Module

• Use your browsers' Developer Tools (usually activated by CTRL-SHIFT-i) to check/debug JS etc.

• Check your JS code with some external site, like jslint

• Check your JS code with some GUI (Visual Studio?) or command line utility... [TBA]

• Check your PM2 logs with pm2 logs mm or check the log files in their locations:

  • /home/pi/.pm2/pm2.log
  • /home/pi/.pm2/logs/mm-error-0.log
  • /home/pi/.pm2/logs/mm-out-0.log

• Finally, and most useful, check the entire npm configuration with: npm run config:check

cd ~/MagicMirror/
npm run config:check

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There are probably many other and better ways to check and debug. So please add and edit this page or file an issue with info for improving debugging.

For further reading:

• how-to-troubleshoot
• how-to-check-your-config
• how-to-add-modules-for-absolute-beginners