Snowboy stops working

Help
1

My setup:
Raspberry Pi 3B with Raspbian buster lite -> Docker -> Hassio -> Rhasspy as Hassio addon
PS3 Eyecam as Mic

My Problem:
Snowboy is working perfect - sometimes. Just like its whole process is frozen. Eventually its working again after a few minutes, until its freezing again.

Porcupine is working without those issues.

Maybe related to this Github Issue.

Does someone have an idea what’s causing this, or how i could debug this?

2

Hi @Sikk
I have the same installation an no issues so far… the only difference I’m on raspbian stretch :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Do you have memory/cpu issues? And does restarting addon help?

3

Hey @frkos
No cpu or memory issues this far - i’m rebooting the pi every night, and never drop below 200-300mb of free memory. No spikes in cpu usage as i can tell.

Also i dont really see a pattern; it could be that it’s getting worse, the longer the addon runs - but I’m also having those freezes 5 minutes after restarting.

Guess i’m sticking to porcupine for the moment until i maybe change the hardware :slight_smile:

4

You reminded me to upgrade to buster… and I did it :upside_down_face:
After ~7 hours of working I see no issues

As an idea… could it be underpower? What power adapter do you have? Is your ps3eye connected directly to Pi or through usb hub?
When the snowboy is not working, can you you wake button?

5

Glad to hear :slight_smile:

Power supply has 2.0A - Will try a bigger one, if i find one :slight_smile:
PS3 cam is connected directly
Wake Button works - and if snowboy was frozen it starts to work again for a while if i wake him manually.

Thanks for your suggestions :slight_smile:

6

Or just try to run vcgencmd get_throttled on your host system…
And maybe try to delete and download snowboy files again

You definitely need deep debugging here🙈

7

vcgencmd get_throttled returns throttled=0x0 so no underpower problems - Nevertheless using a 3A power supply now :slight_smile:

Whats the best way to delete and redownload the snowboy files? :slight_smile:

8

I think you need to swith to porcupine, for example. And then delete snowboy files from profile folder… and then switch back to snowboy
I would go this way :nerd_face:

9

Did some testing - and it seems that as soon as i drop the sensitivy below 0.4 the “freezing” starts.

Unfortunately at 0.4 i’m getting to much false positives - So right now im experimenting with lowering the Audio Gain of snowboy - next would be trying different mic gain settings in asound - trying another wakeword (Right now i’m using a custom jarvis - edited in audacity)

Could someone else also test his perfectly working wakeword with a sens of sub 0.4 and confirm, if its “freezing” ? :slight_smile:

10

Hello @Sikk ,

i have a similar impression, also in the area of sensitivity around 0.4. Maybe the detection below 0.4 sensitivity is just not sensitive enough. This low sensitivity and a little randomness if the word is recognized (e.g. sometimes it doesn’t respond to several attempts - but then again it does in the first try) looks like a freeze.
Why should snowboy freeze below 0.4 (yes - 0.4 arbitrary unit is very cold even for a snowboy :grin:) and not above 0.4?
Now i will try:

    "snowboy": {
        "audio_gain": "0.9",
        "model": "snowboy/hey_pico/32_hey_pico_tone_mod_full_2x.pmdl",
        "sensitivity": "0.48"
    },