Safe start / blank start

Using Zynthian
1

Now I have a problem here:
I’ve loaded too many instruments into the Zynthian, too many chains, only red xrun.
Now I can not reboot the Zynthian any more, because even if I pull the power and restart, it will quickly reload all that stuff and be overloaded again, rendering Webconf and even SSH non-functional. Even the Opt menu (to remove all) does not show, even if I press the Opt key during load. Freakin’ NVMe is just too fast.

So how can I start the Zynthian without loading the last state?
Is there something like holding a button while boot to boot with a blank mixer and without loading any chains?

Fortunately, I can boot into Ubuntu or whatever via USB stick, so I can delete /zynthian/zynthian-my-data/snapshots/last_state.zss and .backup, but this does not help. Zynthian loads the last state, nevertheless. Is there something else I shall delete or modify?

2

The wiki talks about a “Default Snapshot” and a “last state on startup” - if you can find and delete both, perhaps that will get you past this.

5.8.2 Default Snapshot

You can save the status as “Default Snapshot”. This “Default Snapshot” will be loaded automatically at startup. To delete it, you can use the webconf tool or the command line.

5.8.3 Restore Last State

If “Restore last state on startup” option is enabled on webconf (it’s enabled by default), then the state will be saved when powering off (using long-click select or from Admin Menu) and restored on next boot. This option has priority over the “Default Snapshot”.

I’d say more specifics if I knew, that’s all I got, and I thought it might help.

3

If “restore last state” is enabled (which it is by default) then an attempt is made at startup to open a snapshot called, “last_state.zss”. If no snapshot is loaded at startup, including if last_snapshot.zss is missing, an attempt is made to load “default.zss”.

So, ensure neither default.zss nor last_snapshot.zss are present in the snapshots directory.

Our friend @wyleu often suggested an option to reset with a boot-up operation but I did not find a feature request in the issue tracker.

1 Like
4

There is also a little script:

del_last_zss.sh

That you can call from the terminal.

Regards

2 Likes
5

Thank you. This script does exactly rm -f $ZYNTHIAN_MY_DATA_DIR/snapshots/last_state.zss which alone does not help. BTW, this script would not work from another OS booted from USB. One would have to call the full path manually, because $ZYNTHIAN_MY_DATA_DIRwill be not set.
Meanwhile I’ve swapped the NVMe to the previous more sane one (400k IOPS), that already has a working Zynthian installation from last week.
:upside_down_face: I hope this gives the option to hit the Opt menu and Remove All → Yes during the occasional wait states. But I’m really not trying this out on a Friday.

It would be nice to have such a safe / blank boot feature on key/button hold during boot, Justin Case.

6

And who do you think sat and watched a reverb not load into a chain for most of an afternoon, whilst doing other things…?

del_last_zss.sh

Cured it.

Just scuttling off to do the feature request, but boy will it be terse. . .

Now you are all scuttling off to see what I wrote ain’t you. . . .?

2 Likes