Getting started

[3phase33]

Would it be possible to give me some directions how to get started.
I have both a maschine mk3 and a kontrol D2.
I would like to initially get the screens to respond in some way maybe screen capture before moving on to be able to use the controls.
Any help would be appreciated.

[asutherland]

@3phase33 What operating system are you using?

And to set general expectations, the library and its configurations just enable Javascript using node.js to talk to the hardware. If by screen capture you're hoping for something similar to the example of streaming youtube to a Mk3 display, that's going to need a lot of glue code.

[3phase33]

I'm generally using Windows but find Linux/Ubuntu has less issues.

[asutherland]

Okay, let's stick with Ubuntu then and start with the mk3. The following general steps should work:

1. Install node.js v13, the current release.
   • I use nvm for node management because I find I frequently have to juggle different versions.
2. Check out the project from git (git clone https://github.com/asutherland/node-traktor-f1.git)
3. Double-check the node version node --version. If using nvm, you might need to invoke nvm use first for it to pick up the v13 from the .nvmrc in the root of the project. (You can also explicitly say nvm use v13.)
4. Install system dependencies for the node-hid or usb packages so they can build. Specifically:
   • node-hid: apt install libusb-1.0-0 libusb-1.0-0-dev
   • usb: sudo apt-get install build-essential libudev-dev
5. Run npm install in the root of the project. If you get errors at this point, then you'll want to see which package threw errors and check the links above.
6. Make sure your udev permissions are set correctly for whatever device you want to use. https://github.com/node-hid/node-hid#udev-device-permissions has docs, but here's what I use in my /etc/udev/99-traktor-f1.rules file (name it whatever you want, of course, I started with an f1). You will need to make sure the device is unplugged/powered off and that you run sudo udevadm control --reload-rules afterwards, and only then re-plug/power on.

# Traktor F1
#SUBSYSTEM=="input", GROUP="input", MODE="0666"
#SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="17cc", ATTRS{idProduct}=="1120", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
KERNEL=="hidraw*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="17cc", ATTRS{idProduct}=="1120", MODE="0666"
# Traktor D2
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="17cc", ATTRS{idProduct}=="1400", MODE:="666", GROUP="plugdev"
KERNEL=="hidraw*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="17cc", ATTRS{idProduct}=="1400", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"
# Maschine Mk3
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="17cc", ATTRS{idProduct}=="1600", MODE:="666", GROUP="plugdev"
KERNEL=="hidraw*", ATTRS{idVendor}=="17cc", ATTRS{idProduct}=="1600", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev"

7. Run node tests/mk3_app.js. This will set both groups of pads to a rainbow display of colors and when you press them they'll get brighter. Hit ctrl-c to stop the program when this gets boring.
   • If you got errors about permissions, then you'll need to keep fooling around with the udev stuff. lsusb should be helpful for this.
8. Run node tests/mk3_display.js. This will render a test pattern to both screens and quit. There may be a bug in this program that fails to close the usb device correctly and you may need to power-cycle the device if you get errors when re-running programs.

The display program could probably be made more clever. Right now I use this library in my https://github.com/asutherland/taskolio project where I have a webextension source packaged as a Firefox addon render HTML to the raw display format. The pic in https://twitter.com/asutherland/status/1121133376000360451 is basically what it looks like. If you want to try that out the steps are basically what's documented at https://github.com/asutherland/taskolio#how-to-get-it-to-work but with changes:

• Install the WebExtension
• Only install the gnome-shell extension if you're ready to uninstall it.
  • I think there may be some kind of serious file descriptor leak in the underlying libsoup WebSocket binding and the automatic attempts to reconnect to the server will eventually exhaust gnome-shell's file descriptors and crash gnome-shell, which is annoying in general (under X11 where gnome-shell will just restart) and extra annoying under wayland (where your whole session will be lost). Running node src/server-nop.js is a band-aid that makes sure that there's a server to connect to so the reconnection attempts don't keep leaking fd's, but it's a hack. Note that it will take hours of reconnection attempts to exhaust the file descriptors.
  • It's also possible the underlying bug has been fixed and that's not a problem anymore. It showed up at some point and went away at some point and I'm always running the server so I haven't delved into it too deeply.
• run node src/server-maschine3.js from the controller-webserver directory after doing npm install.

[3phase33]

Hi. Thanks for this i'm trying to work through it. Here come the problems :(
2020-03-15T05_32_57_953Z-debug.log

[asutherland]

The key thing would seem to be the "EACCES" permission on the mkdir. Since you seem to be logged in as root, that's surprising unless AppArmor is upset or the home directory is some kind of VirtualBox mount (pass-through or NFS mount to the outer filesystem) which doesn't like the root user id or is being prevented by something outside the VM (AntiVirus).

My suggestions would be:

• Try not running as root. If you ran things as root already, you may need/want to remove the already created node-traktor-f1 or change its permissions. Probably easiest to rm -rf node-traktor-f1 and try again not as root.
• Check out if apparmor is interfering: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingApparmor#Debugging_procedure
• Check out the mount setup for the virtual machine. The VirtualBox UI should have listings around this. Consider changing the mount setup if the mount involves your outer filesystem.
• If it looks like the home directory is a mount from the outer operating system, check AntiVirus logs.
• Try on Windows instead. The links I provided above for the node-hid and usb packages should explain any dependencies.

[3phase33]

Much better result. Although i do get this:
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ npm update check failed │
│ Try running with sudo or get access │
│ to the local update config store via │
│ sudo chown -R $USER:$(id -gn $USER) /home/lewie/.config │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
lewie@lewie-VirtualBox:~/node-traktor-f1$ sudo npm install
audited 197 packages in 2.714s

1 package is looking for funding
run npm fund for details

found 0 vulnerabilities

Right so far im up to step 6 of your instructions :)

ewie@lewie-VirtualBox:~/node-traktor-f1$ node tests/mk3_app.js
/home/lewie/node-traktor-f1/node_modules/usb/usb.js:38
this.__open()
^

Error: LIBUSB_ERROR_ACCESS
at Device.usb.Device.open (/home/lewie/node-traktor-f1/node_modules/usb/usb.js:38:7)
at new LCDDisplays (/home/lewie/node-traktor-f1/lib/components/output/ni_lcd_displays.js:41:12)
at processDisplayBlock (/home/lewie/node-traktor-f1/lib/base_controller.js:204:23)
at new BaseController (/home/lewie/node-traktor-f1/lib/base_controller.js:221:9)
at new MaschineMk3 (/home/lewie/node-traktor-f1/lib/maschine_mk3.js:9:3)
at Object. (/home/lewie/node-traktor-f1/tests/mk3_app.js:3:13)
at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1147:30)
at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1167:10)
at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:996:32)
at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:896:14) {
errno: -3

[asutherland]

I think you likely need to poke VirtualBox. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VirtualBox/USB seems informative.

[3phase33]

I have the rainbow buttons working now :)

[asutherland]

Hooray!