Oh and one last thing, what version of Firefox are you running?
Follow these steps to get the Firefox version number and potentially update it.
The current version is 50.1.0 I just upgraded mine and I still have an _ However my trick from the previous post (with the ALT 095) no longer works.
Ah ah!!! Wouldnât you know it, I can duplicate the issue now!!!
So hereâs somewhat of a workaround for now. When you go to dex.local, choose VNC instead of Terminal
Login with the same password robots1234
Now in VNC, click on the terminal icon in the top toolbar. You can make that terminal window full screen. In my case, the underscore works here.
Hi Cleo,
I bought the Dexter Grove Pi package with Raspberry Pi 3, many LEDs, a Switch, their software on a micro SD card, etc. I thought Iâd try to learn something new and Iâve never done any programming.
My desktop computer is running Windows 7 Home Premium SP-1, 64 bit and is up to date. It is not a touchscreen. Firefox is V.50.1.0 and up to date also.
Using Firefox, your Alt-095 causes a string (about 5) underscore characters to appear in the Terminal window. I can Backspace and delete 4 of them to end up with just 1.
I ran Chrome version 55.0.2883.87 m and it types an underscore just fine, using the underscore key. Interestingly though, in Chrome the cursor appears 2 lines below the Command Prompt pi@dex:~ $ When I type, the typing appears on the same line as the Command Prompt with the cursor blinking about 2 lines down and one space to the right.
Back to Firefox: You said you saw the numbers (095) in the Terminal window as you typed them, I do not although I did see the Command Prompt replaced momentarily with other characters:
Keyboard Input Shows in Terminal window
Alt-0 pi@dex:~ disappears and is replaced with (arg: 0)
Alt-9 pi@dex:~ is back and the (arg: 0) disappears
Alt-5 pi@dex:~ disappears and is replaced with (arg= 5)
Release ALT key pi@dex:~ is back, followed by a string of 5 Underscores
I have not gone back to the Surface laptop lately but may try that tomorrow.
Using Terminal within the VNC program I am able to type an Underscore with Shift-Hyphen/Underscore.
In order to not have to do any workarounds, I want to have the Pi understand the keyboard attached to the desktop. In VNC, I have gone into Menu\ Preferences\Raspberry Pi Configuration, clicked on Localisation and am able to set the Locale (and use character set UTF-8; set the Timezone to Los Angeles; set Country to USA; but clicking on the button for Keyboard does nothing. The button goes gray, then back to white and nothing happens. I have also tried to change the Keyboard within Terminal and nothing happens. So, I think maybe that command is somehow corrupt in the Dexter version of Rasbian?
Iâll fiddle with it some more tomorrow as itâs bedtime now. But, through your assistance I feel like some good progress is being made. Many thanks!
Mike
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I somewhat found a work around since no one else jumped in. Not sure itâs the correct one but doesnât seem to break anything that I could find. Hereâs what I did in a terminal window. The icon that looks like â>_â for those that donât know what a terminal window is.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo reboot
after the PI reboots should have access to all the setup and regional options. some may need more than one mouse clicks.
As I said may not be the correct solution but it worked for me and nothing seems broke. What I did see was the kernel and a few other packages being updated that DEXâs doesnât. not sure that was intentional on there part or not.
Try at your own risk as usual.
Andy
I forgot to mention that some parts "up-grade and dist-upgrade will take some time. almost an hour on a machine that hasnât been run before and slow wifi. Ethernet cable seems to run much quicker of course.
The Raspberrry Pi Foundation has been doing updates to Raspbian that are not yet in the default Dexter image. When you do a DI Software Update, those are pulled in for you and all changes to Dexter Industries software too.
Lately, the Foundation made a security update that does take a long time to install. Eventually it will be in the Dexter image by default
@puomike
If youâre only interested in using a terminal window, and not the desktop, may I suggest installing Putty? Iâm fairly certain you will not have any keyboard issues with Putty.
From what I can see, the keyboard issues are related to Shell In A Box, the software used to provide a terminal in the browser. If you circumvent Shell in a Box, you will be all right.
Well it does seem intentional. if you open a terminal window you get warning âaccess control disabled, clients can connect from any hostâ So VNC or putty both should work. You also get the warning when you try to use the raspi configuration utility. Iâm still waiting on JohnC or one of the other hosts of this site to chime in on this issue. It does seem serious enough to be addressed or at least let us know they are aware of this issue. As I said above I did fix it using the method above and so far havenât seen anything broken yet but I only use the GrovePi modules and all my sensors still work just fine. I had to do it that way as I also have a none standard wifi hat âHubPiWi Blue - Pi Zero Add On Wifi + Bluetooth + 3 USBâ that didnât work except for the USB. I have both a Raspi 3 and a Pi zero and same issue with both. Well not anymore. I did run the DI Software after I configured keyboard to my country⌠US and set up my wifi and Bluetooth and all is fine and working ok.
Hi All!
Andy: I removed my micro-SD card from Dexter and set it aside. I downloaded a new copy of the Dexter image and saved it to the desktop hard drive, then used Win32 Disk Imager and placed that image onto a new card. Using that new card in the RasPi, the underscore character works. But, I am not able to get anything to happen when I try to do anything with Keyboards, either in the VNC menus or in the Terminal program: canât see a list, canât make changes, no visible choices to make.
Then I did as you suggested: sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade; sudo reboot (all this on that new SD card with the new Dexter image).
Same thing regarding both the underscore character (works still) and the Keyboards (still doesnât work).
Interestingly, as I was watching all the info scroll by (in the Terminal window) as I was doing sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, I saw the same error message that I referenced in post 11` of this thread: update-rc-d: warning: start and stop actions are no longer supported. I donât know if this is a clue or not.
Cleoqc: I really want to keep the VNC and be able to use what Dexter provided in order to learn about the Grove board and the Grove âgadgetsâ: LEDs, switch, etc. The Terminal window accessed from within the VNC, and the Terminal window accessed from the Dexter splash screen (which offers either VNC or Terminal) both allow the Underscore character now.
Conclusion: The bottom line is that I"'m now able to type the Underscore character whoppie and get back to following Dexterâs instructions in getting the Raspberry Pi/Grove board ready to start using the âgadgetsâ that came in the package. Since there is still a problem (which doesnât currently affect me) of the Keyboard command not being available to look at or change, I do think somebody needs to do something. I donât know if itâs a Raspberry Pi thing or a Dexter thing though. And, itâs a shame that itâs taken 7 days to get back to where I started.
Thanks to everybody thatâs offered help and support, this seems like a great community and Iâm sure Iâll be back for some more hints as I go forward. Letâs call this one SOLVED!
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Hello Mike. I gave up on the problems with this software and loaded up a fresh copy of raspbian jesse from the raspberry.org website. Fired it up and did all my usual updates including sudo rpi-update. I then just installed the GrovePi+ part from Dexâs GitHub as that is the only part of DIâs that I currently need. Took a over a miserable hour again to get it up an running. Ran all the paths and dependencies so it could find all the packages, scripts and modules I write from any path and everything tested and works just. VNC, putty and telnet all work just fine. all my sensors I use⌠a lot of them⌠work just fine except the DHT22 pro I got from Dexter. Havenât been able to get that sensor to stop throwing an errant 194 degrees to 32 degrees at a predictable hour and 15 min. That has me stumped as itâs not in my code time.sleep(60) and even tried with a wakeup of from (.2) to (3) sec. between and is frustrating me tracking down the issue. BME280 sensor has no issues. Hey John⌠your out of themâŚ
I know itâs a known issue but I still want to find the reason. Other than that everything for me works as advertised.
I have a question for JohnC if your looking at theses forums. Am considering trying up to an Up Board or even the new Kickstarter UP2 or some other X86 based prototyping board. Will the GrovePi+ board still work on one of these still using a Debian variant or is it just ARM based?
Oh I again forgot to mention @puomike. I to noticed what you did and also that the kernel modules where not loading correctly. Just a though Mike, Did you look through your Dexter_Software_Update_log_xx.xx.xxxx.txt to see what loaded and if any errors loading packages. I donât have it installed anymore and curious if you see and errors. Am guessing you are using a standard wireless US based Keyboard. I am using a Logitech MK700/MK710 Keyboard/mouse combo and I did not have that issue after my backdoor update? I just remembered that while using the Untouched Dexter version my VNC was disabled and didnât even have the option to enable it in Preferences.I did not get it back till did my updates. Mike what DEXTER PRODUCT are you working with. Since I have my GrovePi working with the original Raspbian theres no reason you canât and just install the part of Dexâs from GitHub you need working.
Hey Andy,
I just did a Find in VNC\File Manager for *.txt and there is only one txt file from today which is not an error log.
The keyboard is an HP model and is wired via USB to the HP desktop computer.
The Dexter Product is the Grove Pi+ Starter Kit (https://www.dexterindustries.com/shop/grovepi-starter-kit-2/)
At this point, I think things are working OK Andy.
Cheers, Mike
Oh Ok. Just a thought Mike. Most of HPâs hardware and software is proprietary and not sure if they install drivers for HP into Debian or Raspiâs version of Jesse by default I donât just know. That may be something to look at. But if you now have it working maybe just the Dex version didnât have HP keyboard drivers installed. Yes I am also just using the GrovePi module imported from GitHub by itself as I donât need (ForRobots or the GoPiGo) portions installed. Cheers and Enjoy.
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