xscreensaver with electricsheep - not working "deleted another electricsheep process"

superchar42 · 03-29-2013, 01:06 PM

Running Ubuntu 13.04

I've been trying to get this screensaver to run, and have been following every set of directions I've found, except the compiling from source directions on the electricsheep website - I don't have much experience with that (but if someone were to tell me where to put the folder when I uncompress it I can probably manage) - I'm stuck there.

I've gotten it to where it's in the list of screensavers on xscreensaver, and there's 3 sheep in my /.electricsheep folder, so it should work.

My error message is a black screen with orange writing:

Code:

deleted another electricsheep process
using read only access, ie disabling downloading and rendering of sheep.

In session.log, I found the same error message, but nothing else about electricsheep:

Code:

detected another electricsheep process.
using read only access, ie disabling downloading and rendering of sheep.

frankbell · 03-30-2013, 08:38 PM

I have no idea what might be causing the error messages, but it might be worthwhile to check the permissions on the .electricsheep directory and its contents.

Regarding the compiling from sources, you can decompress the tarball into your home folder. Then cd into it and, as root, issue the instructions to compile and install.

Typically, these are

Code:

./configure (if a configure file is present)
make
make install

There are normally readme and other instruction files inside the tarball with instructions.

Here's a good article on compiling from sources.
http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/softinstall.html

Nhoeh37 · 04-28-2013, 05:20 AM

Hey.

I'm pretty new to Linux and obviously very new to this forum but I was still having this same problem as described above. Can you tell me what you did to make it work?

I really liked Electricsheep for the short period of time that I had it before I upgraded to 13.04.

Ahh, please help!!

Nhoeh37 · 04-28-2013, 03:31 PM

Bump!!

frankbell · 04-29-2013, 01:59 PM

I just tested this in a VM. The article is about Ubuntu 11.10 and I'm running 12.10, so I'm guessing it will work with 13.04.

It appears to work.

It requires getting xscreensaver and ditching gnome-screensaver, always a good choice in my opinion. In my experience, Ubuntu version updates routinely remove xscreensaver and reinstall gnome-screensaver. That's one of the irritations that soured me on Ubuntu.

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/11/how-t...work-with.html

Nhoeh37 · 04-29-2013, 02:57 PM

Yeah. I don't know if I said this already but I am already running Xscreensaver and have already disabled the Gnome screensaver; It was working before I updated to Ubuntu 13.04.

About ready to give up.

frankbell · 04-29-2013, 07:00 PM

Did you follow the link to the article? It tells how to add electricsheep to xscreensaver in Ubuntu (many distros already have it packaged for xscreensaver).

I'm testing it in a VM of Ubuntu 13.04. I've successfully added it the xcreensaver's list of screensavers.

Now I'm trying to get electricsheep to run from the command line. So far, no error messages, but no sheep. It may still be downloading sheep. I've got something else I'm going to try also; will report back later.

Later:

I can't get it to run either, whether from the command line or from Xscreensaver. I can find no error messages in /var/log/messages (the file, in fact, does not exist in the VM at this point) or any other likely candidates in /var/log.

In Xscreensaver on the VM, other screensavers work, but electricsheep just throws a blank screen, and the ~/.xscreensaver directory appears populated with more than enough sheep.

I thought it might be a resource issue (I gave on a gig and a half to the VM), so I installed Enlightenment, which is nowhere near the memory hog that Unity is, but got the same results.

However, there is this. When I tried to play one of the sheep in Totem, it told me that I was needed additional codecs. I then installed VLC and it was able to play the sheep (which are *.avi files). They still don't play in Totem.

It appears that may be a codecs issue, but I'm not sure which one at this point. I will play with this some more tomorrow.

frankbell · 04-30-2013, 01:03 PM

I'm flummoxed. I'm posting this in the hope that someone who knows more than I will stumble over this and have a brainwave.

I downloaded the codecs from the non-free repos and can now play sheep, which seems to be electricsheep's player of choice, in mplayer in the Ubuntu VM, but it's still not working in xscreensaver.

I tried starting electricsheep directly from the command line with the debug option on. It did not come to the screen; this is what I got:

Code:

[username]@UbuntuVB:~$ electricsheep --debug -1
=====================================
electric sheep v2.7b12
time start Tue Apr 30 12:52:45 2013
init_curl_cmd 0
curl_cmd = nice -n 10 curl --location --silent --show-error
server = v2d7c.sheepserver.net
play_counts init, thread=main
play counts: 74589:1 74623:3 74624:1 74677:1 74731:1 74877:2 74879:1 74881:1 74888:1 74960:1 74961:1 74963:1 74964:1 74992:1 74993:1 74994:2 74995:1 75011:1 75012:1 75032:1 75033:1 75034:1 75056:2 75081:1 75082:1 75102:1 75103:1 75104:1 75110:1 75124:1 75125:1 75130:1 75145:1 75146:1 75147:1 75148:2 75149:1
updating cache path=/home/[username]/.electricsheep/
thread main compute ranks
updating cache path=/home/[username]/.electricsheep/
median rank 0.8 n = 65 plays = 1
ncheck = 5/65
begin delete cached 0
thread display compute ranks
median rank 0.8 n = 65 plays = 1
ncheck = 5/65
time display loop Tue Apr 30 12:52:45 2013
idx=37 ncached_sheep=65 best_atime
found new anim id=75032.
play anim x=37 id=75032 iters=1 path=/home/[username]/.electricsheep/
bumped 75032 to 2, page=146
writing play counts
writing dirty page 146
set atime of 37 to 1367340765
playing /home/[username]/.electricsheep/00244=75032=74881=74623.avi
init_curl_cmd 1
curl_cmd = nice -n 10 curl --location --silent --show-error
server = v2d7c.sheepserver.net
time do_http_download Tue Apr 30 12:53:15 2013
list nice -n 10 curl --location --silent --show-error 'http://v2d7c.sheepserver.net/cgi/list?v=LNX_2.7b12&u=AF361FE83D2F684B'| gunzip -c 
update_server_sheep done
nserver_sheep=58
updating cache path=/home/[username]/.electricsheep/
thread download compute ranks
median rank 0.8 n = 65 plays = 1
ncheck = 5/65
ncached_sheep=65
nothing to download, sleeping for 600.

I then did the same thing with a working electric sheep on my Debian computer, which did play. I could find no significant difference in the debug outputs.

Based on the line I've bolded, it appears to me that electricsheep thinks it's working; it's just not coming to the screen.

The "nothing to download" line towards the end seems to indicate an attempt to hit the sheep server to get more sheep. Later on in the output were successful connections to the server.

I ran electricsheep-preferences on the Ubuntu VM and on the Debian machine; the settings were identical.

On a whim, I used to HOWTO at the webud8 link I posted earlier to add electricsheep to xscreensaver on my Mint machine and it worked flawlessly.

I've run out of ideas.