Kiosk mode quits once in a while

Troubleshooting
1

Creating a bug report/issue

I have searched the existing open and closed issues

Required Information

  • DietPi version | 9.12.1
  • Distro version | bookworm 0
  • Kernel version | 6.12.20+rpt-rpi-v8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.12.20-1+rpt1~bpo12+1 (2025-03-19) aarch64 GNU/Linux
  • Architecture | arm64
  • SBC model | RPi3 Model B
  • Power supply used | 5V 2.5A official power supply
  • SD card used | (EG: SanDisk ultra)

Additional Information (if applicable)

  • Software title | Chromium Kiosk mode
  • Was the software title installed freshly or updated/migrated?: Was running for probably several years, problems started with one of the latest upgrades
  • Can this issue be replicated on a fresh installation of DietPi? I do not know

Steps to reproduce

  1. having kiosk mode running on a above system, let’s say from February 2025
  2. Run upgrades (which were including x-server and probably chromium)

Expected behaviour

  • It should work as I did long time before

Actual behaviour

I am not sure why the xserver terminated. If more logging is needed, please let me know, where it is located.

I have two system running, one with the display connected via HDMI, one with the display connected via DSI. Both started the issue at the same time.

Thanks in advance!
BR,
Bernhard

2

maybe not the same issue but some of the error messages looks similar Chromium won't run in headless mode on NanoPi Neo3 (headless SBC) · Issue #7489 · MichaIng/DietPi · GitHub

You could try

apt install dbus-x11 upower
systemctl start upower
3

Same here.. almost the same system.. Rpi 3b with a small HDMI 7" screen… from what I can tell it started when chromium last updated… about a week ago? same screen errors i got.. Also.. tried it on a Orange Pi Zero 3 same thing after an hour or so… the webpage being display is a Home Assistant Dashboard. (note: in my errors it mentions the GPU being unsupported… )

4

from what I can tell it started when chromium last updated… about a week ago?

I unfortunately do not remember exactly, when it started. But definitely it could be related to the last chromium update also at my Rpis!

You could try

apt install dbus-x11 upower
systemctl start upower

dbus-x11 was already installed and latest version. upower I installed now. I will try!

Thanks for the inputs!

Bernhard

5

So.. mine stayed up for almost 24hrs. before crashing again.. before I posted yesterday I had tried changing to the new Rpi-kernel in advanced settings of dietpi-config, and then set the screen size.. was hopeful that would make the difference.. and for almost 24hrs it did.. lol.. but back to square one..

6

Same issue here.
Started after update to 9.12 from 9.11
Did a fresh install with just Chromium and run in Kiosk Mode.
Does not work stable anymore. Sometimes it runs for several hours, sometimes only a few min after boot.
Any hint is highly appreciated.

7

Best would be if someone has a backup from before. I doubt it is related to dietpi own scripts. Might be another debian package that has been updated as well.

8

Is dietpi somewhere storing the update history? Debian e.g. does but it did not find the related log files in dietpi. This would help me to downgrade chromium and x server. One of both I think is the candidate…
I need to say, that I have the same system also running on a raspberry 4. This one is still running stable!

9

You would need to compare apt package version of kernel, xserver and Chromium between both systems. At the end, DietPi and RPI OS uses the very same packages.

10 
/var/log/apt/history.log

and / or

/var/log/dpkg.log

edit: maybe there are not present if you didn’t set dietpi to do full logging.

11

That’s where had looked into. Obviously, full logging is not enabled here …
But thanks for this hint!

12

Nope füll logging is not enabled by default. Usually logs are cleared on hourly basis

13

As I couldn’t figure out the real reason, I switched back to an old version of Chromium by using Pi-Apps. It’s just an interim solution, but this seems to work now again.

14

I will try the same. In the meantime I switched to full logging. And I think x-server is just terminating because chrome crashed.

15

I had problems to install pi-apps on dietpi. Therefore I now use a bullseye version of dietpi. It seems to be stable in kiosk mode. Chromium is installed in version 126 in bullseye as far as I can see.

16

Here Pi-Apps installed via terminal command without problem as described on their site.
In fact I’m also on Chromium Version 126, which was the latest to go back in Pi-Apps.
Since rollback, working without any crash.

17

I’m experiencing the same chromium issues on RPi3 Model B, and tried the above (installing upower, etc.), but it still persists.

I modified /var/lib/dietpi/dietpi-software/installed/chromium-autostart.sh by calling the last line in a while loop, so that it restarts itself when it crashes, and that at least makes my kiosk useful…

# Restart Chromium loop
while true; do
  "$STARTX" "$FP_CHROMIUM" $CHROMIUM_OPTS "${URL:-https://dietpi.com/}" -- -nocursor
  sleep 5  # cooldown
done
18

You may also check here for another good way checking if Chrome is misbehaving.
Anyhow, it’s just another fallback and not solving the real issue.