[Request] Make Raspberry Pi GPIO optional

[b-morgan]

I'm attempting to install callattendant on a Libre LePotato running Raspbian (although this request also could apply to an actual Raspberry Pi).

I don't have a "hat" with any extra hardware and don't believe I need one. The default config file has GPIO_LED_* settings but does not have a global enable/disable setting.

The original emxsys/callattendant#171 contains a commit that removes the GPIO support, emxsys/callattendant@8d7fb7c.

I'd like to see this "removal" be made into an option.

[roycewilliams]

Is the expected change cosmetic (no attempts to initialize in the logs, etc.), or is there an operational problem when trying to invoke GPIO on a non-GPIO device?

[thess]

Call attendant supports 3 distinct status notification sub-systems: GPIO, MQTT and NULL. The setting you want is STATUS_INDICATORS in the app.cfg file. The current default (if installed from source) is 'NULL' which is what I believe you are asking. Setting up external GPIO indicators requires additional hardware support as noted in app.cfg.example

# Indicator modules can be one of: GPIO, NULL or MQTT. Multiple indicator type not supported.
# Default is NULL (No special hardware)
#     MQTT support requires 'paho.mqtt' installed
#     GPIO (on RPi) requires 'gpizero' and supporting system interaces (E.g.: RPi.gpio and/or pigpio)
STATUS_INDICATORS = "NULL"

When set to NULL the GPIO pin assignments, etc. are ignored.

[b-morgan]

I started with pip3 install callattendant as suggested in the installation section of the Wiki. The ~/.callattendent/app.cfg file (which I assume is the one used if nothing is specified) does not contain 'STATUS_INDICATORS'.

I'm guessing that installing from source is different than installing the latest package. Am I correct?

[b-morgan]

Is the expected change cosmetic (no attempts to initialize in the logs, etc.), or is there an operational problem when trying to invoke GPIO on a non-GPIO device?

I'm attempting to get callattendant operational. After the pip3 install, a reboot, and a callattendant --create-folder the next step, callattendant outputs the following:

li@libre:~/.callattendant $ callattendant
Command line options:
  --config=None
  --data-path=None
  --create-folder=False
[Configuration]
  BLOCKED_ACTIONS = ('greeting', 'record_message')
  BLOCKED_GREETING_FILE = /home/li/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/callattendant/resources/blocked_greeting.wav
  BLOCKED_RINGS_BEFORE_ANSWER = 0
  BLOCK_ENABLED = True
  BLOCK_NAME_PATTERNS = {'V[0-9]{15}': 'Telemarketer Caller ID'}
  BLOCK_NUMBER_PATTERNS = {}
  BLOCK_SERVICE = NOMOROBO
  DATABASE = callattendant.db
  DATA_PATH = /home/li/.callattendant
  DB_FILE = /home/li/.callattendant/callattendant.db
  DEBUG = False
  ENV = production
  GPIO_LED_APPROVED_BRIGHTNESS = 100
  GPIO_LED_APPROVED_PIN = 15
  GPIO_LED_BLOCKED_BRIGHTNESS = 100
  GPIO_LED_BLOCKED_PIN = 17
  GPIO_LED_MESSAGE_BRIGHTNESS = 100
  GPIO_LED_MESSAGE_COUNT_KWARGS = {'active_high': True}
  GPIO_LED_MESSAGE_COUNT_PINS = (8, 7, 27, 23, 10, 11, 9, 18)
  GPIO_LED_MESSAGE_PIN = 4
  GPIO_LED_RING_BRIGHTNESS = 100
  GPIO_LED_RING_PIN = 14
  PERMITTED_ACTIONS = ()
  PERMITTED_GREETING_FILE = /home/li/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/callattendant/resources/general_greeting.wav
  PERMITTED_RINGS_BEFORE_ANSWER = 4
  PERMIT_NAME_PATTERNS = {}
  PERMIT_NUMBER_PATTERNS = {}
  PHONE_DISPLAY_FORMAT = ###-###-####
  PHONE_DISPLAY_SEPARATOR = -
  ROOT_PATH = /home/li/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/callattendant
  SCREENED_ACTIONS = ()
  SCREENED_GREETING_FILE = /home/li/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/callattendant/resources/general_greeting.wav
  SCREENED_RINGS_BEFORE_ANSWER = 0
  SCREENING_MODE = ('whitelist', 'blacklist')
  TESTING = False
  VERSION = 1.1.0
  VOICE_MAIL_GOODBYE_FILE = /home/li/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/callattendant/resources/goodbye.wav
  VOICE_MAIL_GREETING_FILE = /home/li/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/callattendant/resources/general_greeting.wav
  VOICE_MAIL_INVALID_RESPONSE_FILE = /home/li/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/callattendant/resources/invalid_response.wav
  VOICE_MAIL_LEAVE_MESSAGE_FILE = /home/li/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/callattendant/resources/please_leave_message.wav
  VOICE_MAIL_MENU_FILE = /home/li/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/callattendant/resources/voice_mail_menu.wav
  VOICE_MAIL_MESSAGE_FOLDER = /home/li/.callattendant/messages
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gpiozero/devices.py:288: PinFactoryFallback: Falling back from rpigpio: This module can only be run on a Raspberry Pi!
  warnings.warn(
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gpiozero/devices.py:288: PinFactoryFallback: Falling back from lgpio: No module named 'lgpio'
  warnings.warn(
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gpiozero/devices.py:288: PinFactoryFallback: Falling back from rpio: This module can only be run on a Raspberry Pi!
  warnings.warn(
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Can't connect to pigpio at localhost(8888)

Did you start the pigpio daemon? E.g. sudo pigpiod

Did you specify the correct Pi host/port in the environment
variables PIGPIO_ADDR/PIGPIO_PORT?
E.g. export PIGPIO_ADDR=soft, export PIGPIO_PORT=8888

Did you specify the correct Pi host/port in the
pigpio.pi() function? E.g. pigpio.pi('soft', 8888)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gpiozero/devices.py:288: PinFactoryFallback: Falling back from pigpio: failed to connect to localhost:8888
  warnings.warn(
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gpiozero/devices.py:288: PinFactoryFallback: Falling back from native: unable to locate Pi revision in /proc/device-tree or /proc/cpuinfo
  warnings.warn(
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/li/.local/bin/callattendant", line 8, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "/home/li/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/callattendant/__main__.py", line 20, in main
    sys.exit(main(sys.argv))
  File "/home/li/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/callattendant/app.py", line 444, in main
    app = CallAttendant(config)
  File "/home/li/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/callattendant/app.py", line 70, in __init__
    self.approved_indicator = ApprovedIndicator(
  File "/home/li/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/callattendant/hardware/indicators.py", line 274, in __init__
    super().__init__(gpio_pin, brightness)
  File "/home/li/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/callattendant/hardware/indicators.py", line 234, in __init__
    self.led = PWMLED(gpio_pin)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gpiozero/devices.py", line 108, in __call__
    self = super(GPIOMeta, cls).__call__(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gpiozero/output_devices.py", line 403, in __init__
    super(PWMOutputDevice, self).__init__(
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gpiozero/output_devices.py", line 83, in __init__
    super(OutputDevice, self).__init__(pin, pin_factory=pin_factory)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gpiozero/mixins.py", line 85, in __init__
    super(SourceMixin, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gpiozero/devices.py", line 540, in __init__
    super(GPIODevice, self).__init__(**kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gpiozero/devices.py", line 250, in __init__
    Device.pin_factory = Device._default_pin_factory()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/gpiozero/devices.py", line 291, in _default_pin_factory
    raise BadPinFactory('Unable to load any default pin factory!')
gpiozero.exc.BadPinFactory: Unable to load any default pin factory!
li@libre:~/.callattendant $

[b-morgan]

I was able to get something working by temporarily repurposing an RPI 3B+ connected to my 3D printer and borrowing a USR5637 modem from duty as a fax machine. The settings page says 'VERSION': '1.1.0', so I'm guessing that the PyPi version isn't from this project (which makes sense when I think about it).

Started over using the Development Guide which failed as shown below. Not sure where to go from here.

pi@rpi3bplus:~/callattendant $ source venv/bin/activate
(venv) pi@rpi3bplus:~/callattendant $ which python
/home/pi/callattendant/venv/bin/python
(venv) pi@rpi3bplus:~/callattendant $ python --version
Python 3.9.2
(venv) pi@rpi3bplus:~/callattendant $ pip install -r requirements.txt
Looking in indexes: https://pypi.org/simple, https://www.piwheels.org/simple
Collecting Flask~=3.0.1
  Downloading https://www.piwheels.org/simple/flask/flask-3.0.2-py3-none-any.whl (101 kB)
     |████████████████████████████████| 101 kB 237 kB/s
Collecting flask-paginate~=2023.10.24
  Downloading https://www.piwheels.org/simple/flask-paginate/flask_paginate-2023.10.24-py2.py3-none-any.whl (7.4 kB)
Collecting requests~=2.31.0
  Downloading https://www.piwheels.org/simple/requests/requests-2.31.0-py3-none-any.whl (62 kB)
     |████████████████████████████████| 62 kB 181 kB/s
Collecting beautifulsoup4~=4.12.3
  Downloading https://www.piwheels.org/simple/beautifulsoup4/beautifulsoup4-4.12.3-py3-none-any.whl (147 kB)
     |████████████████████████████████| 147 kB 350 kB/s
Collecting bs4~=0.0.2
  Downloading https://www.piwheels.org/simple/bs4/bs4-0.0.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl (1.2 kB)
Collecting lxml~=5.1.0
  Downloading lxml-5.1.0.tar.gz (3.8 MB)
     |████████████████████████████████| 3.8 MB 3.2 MB/s
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... error
  ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
   command: /home/pi/callattendant/venv/bin/python /tmp/tmpk2i3w896_in_process.py get_requires_for_build_wheel /tmp/tmpbs5iv7ls
       cwd: /tmp/pip-install-gf1xhhvz/lxml_2a5083a986944de687a29d4f429469ab
  Complete output (4 lines):
  <string>:67: DeprecationWarning: pkg_resources is deprecated as an API. See https://setuptools.pypa.io/en/latest/pkg_resources.html
  Building lxml version 5.1.0.
  Building without Cython.
  Error: Please make sure the libxml2 and libxslt development packages are installed.
  ----------------------------------------
WARNING: Discarding https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/2b/b4/bbccb250adbee490553b6a52712c46c20ea1ba533a643f1424b27ffc6845/lxml-5.1.0.tar.gz#sha256=3eea6ed6e6c918e468e693c41ef07f3c3acc310b70ddd9cc72d9ef84bc9564ca (from https://pypi.org/simple/lxml/) (requires-python:>=3.6). Command errored out with exit status 1: /home/pi/callattendant/venv/bin/python /tmp/tmpk2i3w896_in_process.py get_requires_for_build_wheel /tmp/tmpbs5iv7ls Check the logs for full command output.
ERROR: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement lxml~=5.1.0
ERROR: No matching distribution found for lxml~=5.1.0
(venv) pi@rpi3bplus:~/callattendant $

[thess]

The version (1.1.0) of Callattendant in the PyPi distribution repository is not this version of Callattendant. Since the original author, who is deceased, owns the old repository and no-one has access to it, I started this fork of the the original application last year to continue development. I have not created a distribution via PyPi yet. In order to do that, I will have to use a new name (Callattendant2 ?). In the meantime, you should follow the instructions in the README.

[thess]

Regarding the information in the Wiki... Currently it is only a copy of the original source (mostly to preserve history). I haven't had enough time to properly revise it to reflect the newer versions I have created. Until then, please refer to the source repository and the current README for installation and setup. I will try to find some time this month to do a proper revision of the Wiki in order to reflect development status and to remove obsolete and/or inaccurate information.

Also, please note that neither a Raspberry Pi nor a USR modem is required for Callattendant. I have been able to run Callattendant on just about any Linux system (my Dell laptop for example) both with and without a modem attached.

[thess]

Error: Please make sure the libxml2 and libxslt development packages are installed.

For a first time installation of lxml 5.x, you may need to install the development dependencies libxml2 and libxslt.

$ sudo apt install libxml2-dev libxslt-dev

Be patient, lxml install takes quite a bit of time on a RPi to build.

[b-morgan]

I am making progress thanks to #1. Web interface says version 1.7.1.

I have a
StarTech.com USB 2.0 Fax Modem - 56K External Hardware Dial Up V.92 Modem on order and I'll switch back to a Libre LePotato when that arrives as the "borrowed" RPi 3B+ and USR5637 need to go back to their original use.

I believe this issue can be closed.