Hey guys,
I’ve been attempting to set up an Anthias player at work for some digital signage - I’ve set up multiple before without a hitch, but I’m running in a new problem.
Every time I initiate the Anthias install, it will proceed as normal until the step titled “Run the Anthias Anisble Playbook” (probably not the exact wording), then it will simply blank. There will be a blinking cursor ( _ ; my linux vocab isn’t great, apologies) and it will hang indefinitely.
Some context:
- I am flashing the SD card with the Raspberry Pi Imager.
- I have tried with both Trixie and Debian versions of Raspberry Pi OS Lite.
- I have tried with a Pi 3B and Pi 5 (including Trixie and Bookworm on both).
- I have tried a 32gb SD and 64gb SD.
- When the screen blanks, hitting Alt+F4 will bring me back to the login screen.
- I am initiating the install with the command "bash <(curl -sL https://install-anthias.srly.io)
Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot this? Or what the issue could be? I’m a bit of a Linux novice, so please forgive any obvious questions.
Hi, thanks for the detailed report and for listing everything you already tried.
The good news is that this is very likely not actually frozen. The installer runs an Ansible playbook, and Ansible prints the name of a step and then shows nothing at all until that step finishes. Two of the steps are big: a full system upgrade (apt dist-upgrade) and installing Docker plus pulling the container images. On a Pi 3B with a slower SD card or on WiFi, those can sit on a blinking cursor for 20 to 40 minutes with no visible activity, even though it is working the whole time. If you press Alt+F4 (which on Pi OS Lite just jumps you to another login screen) and then reboot or kill it, you are interrupting a healthy install.
Two things that will tell you for sure:
- Leave it running and give it a solid 30 to 45 minutes without touching it, especially on the Pi 3B.
- To watch it live, switch to a second console with Ctrl+Alt+F2, log in, and run top or journalctl -f. If you see apt, dpkg, python, or docker busy, or disk and network activity, it is progressing normally. Then switch back with Ctrl+Alt+F1.
A few things that make the install much smoother:
- Use wired Ethernet for the install if you can. WiFi plus a large system upgrade is the slowest and flakiest combination.
- A fresh, good quality SD card helps a lot. A worn or slow card is the most common reason downloads and unpacking crawl.
If you would rather skip the installer script entirely, the easiest path today is to flash the prebuilt Anthias image straight from Raspberry Pi Imager (under Choose OS, look for Anthias). That image already has everything set up, so there is no Ansible run to wait on.
If it truly is stuck (no CPU, disk, or network activity for 15+ minutes on that second console), could you tell us:
- The exact task name printed on the line just above the blinking cursor.
- Whether you are on Ethernet or WiFi.
- Whether you answered yes or no to the “manage the network” prompt.
That will let us pin down where it stops. Thanks!
Hi, apologies for the delay in response.
A few updates:
I was able to get Anthias working via Raspberry Pi Imager; however there are a few concerns.
- The Imager app does not give you any option to configure Wi-Fi.
- The Imager app also does not allow you to enable SSH.
This is a bit of an issue, as our environment does not allow for the use of Ethernet for our Anthias devices. Can’t even temporarily plug it in to ethernet and SSH into it to set up a wi-fi connection.
As for the install via “bash <(curl -sL https://install-anthias.srly.io)” here are a few more notes:
- Leaving the device to run the install for an extended period of time did not make a difference - I let the install run for 16+ hours, and it did not progress past the aforementioned blank screen.
- Once the install “crashed” (led to the blank screen), as you suggested, I swapped to a second console and checked the top and journalctl -f; neither showed any trace of apt, dpkg, python, or docker busy, or disk and network activity.
- The exact task the install consistently fails on is TASK [system : Disable getty on tty1 (no login prompt on display)]
- I am using Wi-Fi for the install.
- I am consistently selecting no when asking if I want Anthias to manage the network.
- Once the install fails at TASK [system : Disable getty on tty1 (no login prompt on display)], the device will no longer display the log in screen. I am not able to SSH into the device either.
Any other suggestions on solving/spotting the problem?
Most people are using ssh to install Anthias. Having said that, using the tty1 should be a supported (albeit less convenient) installation method.
PR is coming up, but this is really the reason.
- The Imager app does not give you any option to configure Wi-Fi.
We’ll look into see if it is possible to consume the network file that Rasbperry Pi Imager can produce. If so, that would be an elegant workaround.
- The Imager app also does not allow you to enable SSH.
This is by design from Balena and isn’t something we can alter.
Not sure what most of that means, to be honest. But the install via script works now! Thanks a million.
Great! But if you are not well versed with Linux, I would strongly suggest you use the official disk image instead. There are plenty of ways to shoot yourself in the foot (and you don’t get automatic updates) with the manual installation method.