TinyPilot won't use attached USB Media for Virtual Media

Hi @pauldsolid, I'm sorry you're running into these virtual media issues.

Based on your description, I think there could be a couple of issues happening simultaneously.

Do you have the error message (image too large) from when you ran the move-virtual-media-to-disk script? That might help us find a bug in the script. Don't worry if not.

If the move-virtual-media-to-disk script failed, it's likely your TinyPilot hasn't correctly set up your USB drive as the virtual media disk even if the disk remains mounted. That would explain why your uploads don't use your USB disk for storage.

Could you run lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,FSTYPE,VENDOR,MODEL,LABEL,UUID and share the output for your USB disk? It should look something like this:

NAME          SIZE FSTYPE VENDOR   MODEL            LABEL  UUID      MOUNTPOINT
sdb         116.2G        Generic  MassStorageClass                                             
└─sdb1      116.2G vfat                             test   A4A7-1D9D /media/tinypilot-mass-storage

That info should show me the current state of your drive and allow me to suggest a method to get you back up and running using Virtual Media with it.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Here is the output of lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,VENDOR,MODEL,LABEL,UUID

pilot@pauldtiny:~ $ lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,VENDOR,MODEL,LABEL,UUID
NAME          SIZE VENDOR   MODEL        LABEL    UUID
sda           231G          USB_DISK_3.0          
└─sda1      230.9G                       USB DISK 858C-7143
mmcblk0      29.1G                                
├─mmcblk0p1   256M                       bootfs   9E81-4F92
├─mmcblk0p2  28.8G                       rootfs   cf2895ca-6dc2-4797-8040-f76ba1508f41
└─mmcblk0p3     4M 

Here is the output of mount:

pilot@pauldtiny:~ $ mount
/dev/mmcblk0p2 on / type ext4 (rw,noatime)
devtmpfs on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,relatime,size=592636k,nr_inodes=148159,mode=755)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,size=342748k,nr_inodes=819200,mode=755)
tmpfs on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k)
cgroup2 on /sys/fs/cgroup type cgroup2 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,nsdelegate,memory_recursiveprot)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
bpf on /sys/fs/bpf type bpf (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,mode=700)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=30,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tracefs on /sys/kernel/tracing type tracefs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
sunrpc on /run/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw,relatime)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
configfs on /sys/kernel/config type configfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
/dev/mmcblk0p1 on /boot type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sda1 on /media/tinypilot-mass-storage type vfat (rw,relatime,uid=111,gid=116,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
tmpfs on /run/user/1001 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=171372k,nr_inodes=42843,mode=700,uid=1001,gid=1001)

Output of the lsblk command as you requested:
lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,FSTYPE,VENDOR,MODEL,LABEL,UUID

pilot@pauldtiny:~ $ lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,FSTYPE,VENDOR,MODEL,LABEL,UUID
NAME          SIZE FSTYPE VENDOR   MODEL        LABEL    UUID
sda           231G                 USB_DISK_3.0          
└─sda1      230.9G vfat                         USB DISK 858C-7143
mmcblk0      29.1G                                       
├─mmcblk0p1   256M vfat                         bootfs   9E81-4F92
├─mmcblk0p2  28.8G ext4                         rootfs   cf2895ca-6dc2-4797-8040-f76ba1508f41
└─mmcblk0p3     4M                                       

Let me know what other information you need.

Ok, I see the problem.
VFAT
VFAT is limited to 4GB files, which is too small for the ISOs I'm working with. Too small for most modern deployment Images.
Is there a way to reformat and mount within TinyPilot to either xfs or ext4 and get this working.
Ah, filesystem limitations......

Ok, i effectively killed my tinypilot :(
O reformatted my usb device to ext4 and rebooted the tinypilot for another reason, and now it won't boot.

Restored the usb to vfat, but no joy. Now what do I do? I do have local access.

It is very possible for me to use a larger microSD card.
What is the process to apply a new boot and software image to the microSD card?
Perhaps that will also restore my TinyPilot to health too.