Large Gcode file will not run on Raspberry Pi

I have been using OpenBuilds Control on the Raspberry Pi for about 4 months now and have not had any issues to speak of. However, the largest gcode file that I have cut during that time period was just over 120,000 lines of code. I was asked by someone if large files caused any issue with the Raspberry Pi version of OpenBuilds Control, so I went through and found the largest file that I had cut. This was done about six months ago, and was done with OpenBuilds Control on a Windows machine. The file is about 460,000 lines of code. On the Raspberry Pi, it loads and the 3D view is rendered properly, but when I hit Run Program, nothing happens. I have experimented with some other files, and the closest I can get (to the critical size) with existing files is that a file that has 264,000 lines of gcode will run on the Pi, but a file with 396,000 lines of code will not. The Raspberry Pi is a model 4 with 4GB of RAM. It is slightly overclocked to 2.0 MHz and the swapfile size has been increased from 100MB to 2GB. It is running on a Bob's CNC Evolution 4.

I also want to further explain "nothing happens". The button is highlighted when I move the mouse over it, it "depresses" on click, but afterward, it is as if I hadn't pressed the button. The software is not locked up or anything - I can still home the machine, etc., but there is no physical activity on the machine. I thought it might have just been taking a while to process, so I let it sit for 20-30 minutes, but still nothing.

If it would be helpful, I could create a file with a size and number of lines in between to try and determine closer to the cut-off.

Thanks,

 

H

Hi Peter,
I am at version 1.0.284.

Ed

 

Well, the only errors that I received were one that I received when I first opened the console which was:
"Unchecked runtime.lastError: Could not establish connection. Receiving end does not exist"
But then it went on from there. I periodically received the error (4 times over about a half hours time):
"Websocket is already in CLOSING or CLOSED state." which I believe was accompanied by a message in the OpenBuilds serial console that said:
"[websocket] Disconnected. OpenBuilds CONTROL probably quit or crashed"
When I loaded the file, I let the rendering occur, and when it seemed to be done, I watched the Trouble-shooting Console and the number (on the process?) kept running. When it finally reached 2500, I decided to go ahead and hit the play button. No visible change in the Trouble-shooting console, the counters would keep increasing, and occasionally start a new one.
I did notice at one time, that on the Serial Console, the settings for the GRBL controller scrolled through again, like it does when connecting or clearing the alarm.

NOTE: I do have the Bob's Evolution GRBL driver that created issues around release 280. Although smaller files do run fine, is it possible that this is creating an issue again?

Sorry I can't be more help.

 

Thanks Peter, but that didn't seem to help either. I understand that the Pi is not technically supported by OpenBuilds, and I do appreciate your assistance anyway. At this point, as much as I like OpenBuilds, I am more committed to my Raspberry Pi than I am to OpenBuilds, so I am going to experiment with some other software options. Once again, thanks for your help.

 

Peter, I am pleasantly confused. When I posted in the Bobs CNC forum on Facebook, someone suggested that I increase the swapfile size. I tried setting the swapfile size to 10GB, but I have Conky running on my desktop and after I rebooted, I saw that the swapfile was still at 2GB. When I went back into dphys-swapfile, there were comments that indicated that with a 32bit operating system, there was a limit of 2G on the swapfile size. I am running Twister OS which is built on the 32bit Raspberry OS. So I went back through the process to correct the swapfile size in the file to 2GB. When I did the setup, it said it was already 2GB and it wasn't changing, but I rebooted it anyway. After reboot, I tried running a large file in OpenBuilds again (which I thought was going to be a waste) but it worked this time. By the way, I had been watching the RAM utilization with Conky, and it never got above above 1.5GB, so it never used the swapfile anyway. I still need to try on my other Pi, but I'm not sure exactly what I need to do.....

By the way, I had also turned the visualizer back on as well, so it is consuming full resources. I swear the only other thing I did was to try to resize the program window, so that I could see the Conky display on my desktop. It shrunk to a tiny square in the upper left corner of my monitor, but I was able to grab it and drag it to a reasonable size. I realize that this is unrelated, but just wanted you to know.

I would love to keep using OpenBuilds - I am hoping I can get my other Raspberry Pi working as well.