[HOWTO] Begin your Open Voice OS journey with the ovos-installer 💖 😍

ShosMeister · June 21, 2025, 3:52pm

We’re making progress! Thanks!!! I used the pre-built OVOS image and after some fiddling, have it listening and working.

Now I’m trying to figure out why it can’t do anything. I can ask it the time and weather but pretty much nothing else. I tried to set an alarm for 1 minute, get a random number and a couple of other things that I thought were built in but I get “problem occurred while speaking with remote llama”.

(ovos) ovos@raspOVOS:~ $ ovos-status 
  ovos-audio.service                                                                                                                                    loaded active     running      OVOS Audio
  ovos-ggwave.service                                                                                                                                   loaded active     running      Open Voice OS - ggwave listener
  ovos-gui.service                                                                                                                                      loaded active     running      OVOS GUI Websocket
  ovos-listener.service                                                                                                                                 loaded active     running      OVOS Listener
  ovos-messagebus.service                                                                                                                               loaded active     running      OVOS Messagebus (Rust)
  ovos-phal.service                                                                                                                                     loaded active     running      OVOS PHAL
  ovos-skill-settings-ui.service                                                                                                                        loaded active     running      OVOS Skill Settings Editor
  ovos-skills.service                                                                                                                                   loaded active     running      OVOS Skills
  ovos.service                                                                                                                                          loaded active     exited       OVOS A.I. Software stack.

I also get errors trying to check the skils info and server status:

(ovos) ovos@raspOVOS:~ $ ovos-skills-info 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/ovos/.venvs/ovos/bin/ovos-docs-viewer", line 4, in <module>
    from ovos_docs_viewer.ovos_docs import launch
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'ovos_docs_viewer'
(ovos) ovos@raspOVOS:~ $ ovos-server-status 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/ovos/.venvs/ovos/bin/ovos-docs-viewer", line 4, in <module>
    from ovos_docs_viewer.ovos_docs import launch
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'ovos_docs_viewer'

The pre-built image doesn’t appear to have a desktop so maybe that’s the docs_viewer error?

I managed to get it to “play a song” but I can’t seem to interrupt it to stop playing it or change the volume. Is there any full documentation on the baseline skills, operation, configuration, etc.?

Marph · July 19, 2025, 9:11pm

Not sure if this is the right place for the report. ovos-installer fails, because https://whl.smartgic.io/ seems to be down (HTTP 503). Anyone else experiencing this issue?

TASK [ovos_installer : Create /home/user/.venvs/ovos Python venv with tflite_runtime] ****************************
Saturday 19 July 2025  23:02:19 +0200 (0:00:01.119)       0:00:13.732 ********* 
fatal: [127.0.0.1]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "cmd": ["/home/user/.venvs/ovos-installer/bin/uv", "pip", "install", "--python", "/home/user/.venvs/ovos/bin/python", "--trusted-host", "whl.smartgic.io", "-f", "https://whl.smartgic.io", "tflite_runtime"], "msg": "\n:stderr: Using Python 3.12.3 environment at: /home/user/.venvs/ovos\nerror: Failed to read `--find-links` URL: https://whl.smartgic.io/\n  Caused by: Request failed after 3 retries\n  Caused by: Failed to fetch: `https://whl.smartgic.io/`\n  Caused by: HTTP status server error (503 Service Unavailable) for url (https://whl.smartgic.io/)\n"}

Nicholas_Kinar · July 20, 2025, 3:56pm

@Marph I can also confirm that https://whl.smartgic.io/ is down at this time. This is a server issue (503).

Nikolaj_Gurezkij · July 23, 2025, 8:57pm

RIP ovos-installer.

I can also confirm that https://whl.smartgic.io/ is down at this time. This is a server issue (503).

Nicholas_Kinar · July 24, 2025, 9:38pm

I’ve opened an issue on Github here

github.com/OpenVoiceOS/ovos-installer

(HTTP 503) for https://whl.smartgic.io/ causes installation script to fail

opened 09:37PM - 24 Jul 25 UTC

nkinar

The ovos-installer does not work since a server is down. This is reproducible o…n all platforms. As per https://community.openconversational.ai/t/howto-begin-your-open-voice-os-journey-with-the-ovos-installer/14900/166 ``` TASK [ovos_installer : Create /home/user/.venvs/ovos Python venv with tflite_runtime] **************************** Saturday 19 July 2025 23:02:19 +0200 (0:00:01.119) 0:00:13.732 ********* fatal: [127.0.0.1]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "cmd": ["/home/user/.venvs/ovos-installer/bin/uv", "pip", "install", "--python", "/home/user/.venvs/ovos/bin/python", "--trusted-host", "whl.smartgic.io", "-f", "https://whl.smartgic.io", "tflite_runtime"], "msg": "\n:stderr: Using Python 3.12.3 environment at: /home/user/.venvs/ovos\nerror: Failed to read `--find-links` URL: https://whl.smartgic.io/\n Caused by: Request failed after 3 retries\n Caused by: Failed to fetch: `https://whl.smartgic.io/`\n Caused by: HTTP status server error (503 Service Unavailable) for url (https://whl.smartgic.io/)\n"} ```

goldyfruit · July 27, 2025, 6:08pm

https://whl.smartgic.io is now back online.

CalicoKM · July 28, 2025, 7:45pm

Has anyone ran into an issue after installation where they cannot see their cursor on the gui? any fixes? Thanks.

goldyfruit · July 29, 2025, 8:02am

This is expected, try to switched QT_QPA_EGLFS_HIDECURSOR from 1 to 0 in ~/.config/systemd/user/ovos-gui.service.

github.com

OpenVoiceOS/ovos-installer/blob/main/ansible/roles/ovos_installer/templates/virtualenv/ovos-gui.service.j2#L14


      
          PartOf=ovos.service
          Requires=ovos.service ovos-gui-websocket.service ovos-phal.service
          
          [Service]
          Environment="QT_QPA_PLATFORM={{ 'eglfs' if ovos_installer_display_server == "N/A" else 'wayland;xcb' }}"
          Environment="QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt5ct"
          Environment="QT_QPA_EGLFS_KMS_ATOMIC=1"
          Environment="QT_FONT_DPI=120"
          Environment="QT_QUICK_CONTROLS_STYLE=OpenVoiceStyle"
          Environment="QT_FILE_SELECTORS=ovos"
          Environment="QT_QPA_EGLFS_HIDECURSOR=1"
          {% if "Raspberry Pi 5" in ovos_installer_raspberrypi and ovos_installer_display_server == "N/A" %}
          Environment="QT_QPA_EGLFS_INTEGRATION=eglfs_kms"
          Environment="QT_QPA_EGLFS_KMS_CONFIG=%h/.config/ovos-eglfs.json"
          {% endif %}
          {% if 'tas5806' in ovos_installer_i2c_devices %}
          Environment="QT_IM_MODULE=qtvirtualkeyboard"
          {% endif %}
          WorkingDirectory=%h/.venvs/ovos
          ExecStart=/usr/bin/{{ 'ovos-shell' if ovos_installer_display_server == "N/A" else 'ovos-gui-app' }}
          ExecReload=/usr/bin/kill -s HUP $MAINPID

pleia2 · August 20, 2025, 2:25pm

I pulled a Mycroft Mark 1 that I’ve never used out of the closet and tried the install. The venv install completed successfully, but it doesn’t seem to hear anything I say. I tried re-installing a couple times just in case. The only error in the logs is inability to reach https://whisper.tigregotico.pt/stt which I don’t think should be required?

I’m wondering if I’m bumping into hardware problems (it is old!) or if these devices aren’t well supported anymore due to their low specs, I haven’t seen posts here about them lately. Any suggestions for debugging?

goldyfruit · August 23, 2025, 12:43pm

Do you see any wakeword detection in the ovos-listener log?

pleia2 · August 25, 2025, 5:50pm

No errors, but also no wakeword detection logged. I also went into the venv and ran ovos-listen (and ovos-speak for good measure!), and the device didn’t seem to do anything.

I will try some more Linux-native debugging to see if it’s a speaker/microphone hardware problem on the device, but I wanted to see if there was a known status for these older devices that I might be bumping into.

mikejgray · August 25, 2025, 11:24pm

I’ve got a couple of Mark 1 devices and I’ve experienced that the audio hardware just stops working inexplicably. Eventually it starts again, which is very frustrating, but I haven’t been able to pinpoint anything specific. Could be a loose connection inside the enclosure.

goldyfruit · August 26, 2025, 12:04am

Sometime it is just related to corrosion, you will have to re-sit the daughter board/clean the PINs with IPA.

postman · September 1, 2025, 7:53pm

Many thanks for this. Worked without a hitch.

I just got a touchscreen for the RPi5 that has been sitting on my bookshelf waiting for me to get around to doing something with.

cooljimy84 · September 18, 2025, 2:52pm

Just installed on my mark 1 and it didn’t seem to detect it as a mark 1. Tho no errors in the install log, and the eye just spin.
Rerunning the installer gave an error detecting I2C, but that didn’t happen first time around.
reinstalled a few times, with the eyes spinning, without the eyes spinning, with apt upgrade, without.

Is there any way to force it to install the detection of a mark 1 ?

I’m also lucky enought to have a mk2, but that is deeper in my cupboard, i shall try testing on that soon.

cooljimy84 · September 19, 2025, 9:02am

for the mark 1, after enabling SPI & I2C in the raspi-config menu and rebooting it now fails to get the avrdude-aarch64 file. when in -d (debug) mode on the installer

goldyfruit · September 25, 2025, 3:31pm

Just pushed few changes, I was able to provision my Mark 1 with the latest OVOS version.