Problems installing SEPIA on Windows 10

[soujiang]

Hi, I'm just starting to install SEPIA. I find the project very interesting and fun to implement. First I would like to know if there are videos available to watch or video tutorials for installation, I think they would be very helpful. Because for my part I don't know what is supposed to happen and a video would help me with that.

Otherwise I'll explain my doubt. Download SEPI-home for Windows 10. Pressing on SETUP.BAT starts the configuration but ELASTIC does not work. I already set JAVA_HOME, but it still doesn't work. I tried to download ELASTIC from its official source, but it doesn't work for me either. Any suggestion what I should do? Any tutorial, documentation on how to solve the problem?

Thanks

[fquirin]

Welcome @soujiang :-)

I would like to know if there are videos available to watch or video tutorials for installation

Unfortunately there are no video tutorials (I know of) yet. The installation process kept evolving over the years and it became pretty time consuming to update tutorials so I decided to focus my resources on updating the core documentation for now. I'm planning to do more tutorials though and maybe I can convince a Youtuber to create a video in the near future 🤞 .

If there are specific steps where you experience problems feel free to post it here (as you now did ^^) and maybe I can optimize the documentation bit by bit.

Download SEPI-home for Windows 10. Pressing on SETUP.BAT starts the configuration but ELASTIC does not work.

I recently noticed a Problem with Elasticsearch in Windows 10 and 11 and uploaded a fixed version for the next update here (yesterday actually ^^):
https://github.com/SEPIA-Framework/SEPIA-Framework.github.io/raw/master/files/db-installer/elasticsearch-5.3.3.zip

Can you try this one and let me know if it solved your problem plz? You should be able to simply overwrite your existing SEPIA/elasticsearch/ folder with the content of the ZIP.

[soujiang]

I hope you find a Youtuber interested in doing the video tutorials, because it would be very interesting and educational, because personally like this kind of projects. Especially those that do the same as large companies, but protect our data and allow us greater personalization. It was great to come across what you are developing.

I'll take your word for it, because I'm sure I'll run into various problems, but I find that entertaining. So I learn more. I will also give myself the task of reviewing the other questions that have been asked.

Yes, I will try it and tell you how everything turned out for me. Thank you

[soujiang]

I tried it and it failed again. I'll pass you the Elasticsearch log and tell me if I'm making a mistake or there's a problem.

The steps I executed were the following:

1.- Copy and paste the SEPIA-home folder in program files.
2.- Enter the folder and I click on setup.bat
3.- In the list of options I press 4 and ENTER.
4.- Another window was opened where ELASTICSEARCH began to be configured.

All this text appeared in that window:
elasticsearch error code.txt

[fquirin]

I quickly looked at your log file and it seems to be a different problem (than the one I fixed in the update). The first line says:
Acceso denegado (access denied I guess?) referring to the file: C:\Program Files\SEPIA-Home\es-logs\sepiaFW-es-cluster.log.
Do you have some write protection on your folders maybe?

Just to be sure:

• You've downloaded the SEPIA-Home release (zip)
• Unzipped it to C:\Program Files\SEPIA-Home
• Ran the setup

Right?
Maybe for some weird Windows reason your files got write protected after unzipping? Or do you have some special file system? Anything "non-default" in your setup? (Virtual Machine? Network drive? etc.?)

[soujiang]

Yes, I also noticed that "access denied", but I needed to confirm if it was a normal problem, as now I know it is not, I will check the configurations of my pc. I confirm you:

Yes, download the SEPIA-Home version (Zip)
Yes, I unzipped it to C:\Program Files\SEPIA-Home
Yes, run setup by clicking on Setup.bat

I'll do everything again, from scratch, to see if I notice anything strange that caused the problem. Everything is default on my pc. I'll check and let you know how it goes. Thanks for checking it out.

[fquirin]

🤞 🙂 🤞 , maybe use the "new" Elasticsearch version (from the link above) right away after you've unzipped the rest and before you start the setup for the first time.

[soujiang]

I think I may have found the problem. I'll tell you what I did. Restart the whole process, as I had mentioned.

1.- Delete the SEPIA folder, then take the zip file directly to program files and unzip it there.
2.- Delete all the content of the original Elasticsearch folder and in another completely different folder, on another disk I unzipped the Elasticsearch folder that you uploaded, take all its content and paste it inside the empty Elasticsearch folder
3.- I Deactivate the antivirus (in case it was causing any problem)
4.- I Open the properties of the SEPIA folder on hard drive C, inside program files and enable all permissions.
5.- I Run the setup.bat file and press 4, wait a while and continue with the same problem.

But then it occurred to me that there might be a problem with the run mode, so instead of just double-clicking it, I right-clicked it and hit "run as administrator". So something strange happened there. In the CMD window, above the SEPIA welcome, the following message appears: "The system cannot find the specified path. The file cannot be found. The file cannot be found."

I still hit number 4 and it gave me another error: "windows cannot find the file 'elasticsearch.bat'. Make sure the name is spelled correctly and try again." Check the path, elasticsearch/bin, to see if the file was there and indeed it was. Then in the SEPIA welcome CMD window, this message appeared: "Starting Elasticsearch, please wait ...
The system can not find the path specified.
Error: Unable to access jarfile connection-check"

While in the elasticsearch CMD window, the following message appeared: "warning: ignoring JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_341; using bundled JDK"

I ran the elasticsearch.bat file, independently and it seemed to work fine.

I looked at the setup.bat file and the names seemed to be spelled correctly, as did the paths. It still doesn't work, but I think I'm heading towards a good result. Any suggestion?

[soujiang]

Hello, I would like to ask you something. To see if I fix the problem myself, I'd like to know, what is supposed to happen after Elasticsearch is successfully configured?. If it's possible for you to send me a screenshot of what I should expect to see, that would be great. It would help me to have a perspective. Thanks.

[fquirin]

Hi @soujiang ,

But then it occurred to me that there might be a problem with the run mode, so instead of just double-clicking it, I right-clicked it and hit "run as administrator"

That should NEVER be necessary! I even highly recommend not to do it because it can lead to all sorts of issues and some components might even refuse to start with admin rights for security reasons.

"The system cannot find the specified path. The file cannot be found. The file cannot be found."

That is super weird 😕. Maybe this is actually the error message coming from the Java version check 🤔 .
I'm starting to think we have a problem with your Java installation.
What you can try is to use the bundled Java, just go to '[SEPIA]/java' and run download_java_11_win64.bat. It should download Java 11 to your SEPIA folder and create a 'version' file in the same folder so that the SEPIA setup and run scripts know how to use it.

To see if I fix the problem myself, I'd like to know, what is supposed to happen after Elasticsearch is successfully configured?. If it's possible for you to send me a screenshot of what I should expect to see, that would be great.

I've recorded a video :-)

[EDIT] I've added a screenshot of a successful Elasticsearch start as well:

[soujiang]

That should NEVER be necessary! I even strongly recommend against doing it because it can lead to all sorts of problems and some components may even refuse to start with admin rights for security reasons.

I did it as a test because I wanted to know if the problem persisted in that mode, because it hadn't worked for me the other way. And I thought what could be the worst that could happen? but you cleared it up for me, thanks.

That's super weird 😕. Maybe this is actually the error message coming from the Java version check 🤔. I'm starting to think we have a problem with your Java installation.

I'll try that and tell you how it goes. I thought so too, it was the next step I was going to execute, only you suggested it first. Although I had thought to do it manually, it's good that you have implemented it too. I'm going to tell you.

I've recorded a [video]

Your video is great, it was just what I was looking for to understand what I was supposed to expect. Thanks.

[soujiang]

Hello, it still doesn't work, but since I already realized that the problem may be in my computer, in a few days I will install it on a computer that has been formatted recently and that also has windows 10 installed. I'll see how it goes there. So I can compare and determine what is different about my main PC, compared to the recently formatted one. I'll tell you how it goes.

[fquirin]

Ok, keep me updated :-). The errors really look a bit strange, I can't find a logical explanation for all the "access denied" and "file not found" messages so far 🤔

[soujiang]

Hello, I came to tell you that before installing it on the other computer, I wanted to try one more time on the main computer. So I did the whole process again with some changes and now everything works perfectly.

What I did was uninstall JAVA and update it to JAVA 11, but manually. Remove everything from SEPIA-Home, download everything again, update Elasticsearch, as you mentioned and as you showed in your video. I checked all the permissions on the SEPIA-Home folder and tried everything one more time. Before running it on the other computer.

My theory is that my computer went crazy trying to run the program with an older version of JAVA. Then it started to deny me access to some folders, maybe because JAVA was corrupted or some file was occupying SEPIA-Home. Then when I did the "cleanup" everything started working.

So I think there is an installation order in Windows 10, you have to make sure you have at least JAVA 11 installed first, before you install SEPIA-Home. In addition to having the latest version of Elasticsearch in the main package.

So brother, thank you very much for the help, now I continue with my way of configuring SEPIA-Home. I have read the documentation, but would like to know what steps you recommend I take next.

[fquirin]

I did the whole process again with some changes and now everything works perfectly.

Great! :-)

My theory is that my computer went crazy trying to run the program with an older version of JAVA. Then it started to deny me access to some folders, maybe because JAVA was corrupted or some file was occupying SEPIA-Home

Sounds reasonable. My hope was that any Java issues would resolve when using the local installation inside the SEPIA folder. I've never seen it so fragile before but then there are endless Windows configurations and you never know what happens ^^.

I have read the documentation, but would like to know what steps you recommend I take next.

First step should be to login with your SEPIA Admin account to the Control HUB and create an user account for your primary user. Maybe check the server settings and enable SDK (default: off) and custom commands (default: on I think) if you want to use them and check the smart-home page if you want to control devices.
Sooner or later you might want to install the SEPIA STT Server as well to become independent of platform speech recognition services (depending on browser and OS).

[soujiang]

Hi, I ran into another bug that seems to be minor. As I had been testing the configurations, to see if any worked for me. I decided in the SETUP.bat option, press 1 to clean everything and I notice this error:

ERROR in administrator data! Message: Error writing data to configuration file: ../sepia-assist-server/Xtensions/assist.custom.properties
Configuration ERROR: java.lang.RuntimeException: Error writing data to configuration file: ../sepia-assist-server/Xtensions/assist.custom.properties
Configuration done.

Opening the "assist.custom.properties" file I found this:

assist custom properties.txt

The first thing I ask myself is if it is normal that next to the "http" there are those "" that it seems that they should not be.

It also made me wonder where the administrator data is stored, such as the password (in case I want to change it in the future) and the primary email. It's just curiosity more than anything.

[soujiang]

Hello. I want to take one step at a time to understand everything correctly.

The first steps I took were:

Download SEPIA-Home, install JAVA 11, add the new Elasticsearch folder. That fixed the Elasticsearch installation issue.

The next thing I did. In "setup.bat" press the number 2 to define a new administrator. Where I ask the password of the administrator and the assistant of him. I added it.

Then press on "run-sepia.bat" and the following appeared to me:

run-sepia-bat.txt

What I understand (correct me if I'm wrong) is that when you install SEPIA-Home and add Elasticsearch, you should be able to open a browser window, with the SEPIA-Home logo, after clicking on "run-sepia.bat", where it would ask me for the administrator password and I could start configuring what I need. Or failing that, it would tell me an address on localhost, which I could open and see the SEPIA-Home logo and make the settings. Then I could add extensions, like chat and others. Or I'm wrong?

[fquirin]

Hi @soujiang ,

The first thing I ask myself is if it is normal that next to the "http" there are those "" that it seems that they should not be.

Where do you see those? I can't find any "" in your file 🤔

It also made me wonder where the administrator data is stored, such as the password

It is stored inside the Elasticsearch. Nothing is stored in clear text but everything is hashed multiple times. That is also why you have to use the setup to create new passwords.
Since the assistant for example has to login itself into the chat (similar to a "normal" user) you will find a hash-value inside the properties files. The server will compare the has with some data in the database, so this value is read only and should not be changed inside the file.

The next thing I did. In "setup.bat" press the number 2 to define a new administrator. Where I ask the password of the administrator and the assistant of him. I added it.

This option is usually only used to reset the password. On first installation please use step 1 where the database will be initialized and you will be asked for passwords as well. Only after that you can use option 2.

What I understand (correct me if I'm wrong) is that when you install SEPIA-Home and add Elasticsearch, you should be able to open a browser window, with the SEPIA-Home logo, after clicking on "run-sepia.bat", where it would ask me for the administrator password and I could start configuring what I need

When the "run-sepia.bat" is successful it will show you the URL that you can visit to open the SEPIA Control-HUB (aka "tools"). There you will be able to log-in with the admin account created at step 1 of the setup and create new users, change the server settings, etc. :-).