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• How do i properly setup ffmpeg and fix this "Permission Denied" error im getting ?

  8 décembre 2020, par ExaNori

  Error im getting
C:/Users/Motzumoto/Desktop/AGB/ffmpeg/bin: Permission denied

  


  I already have ffmpeg installed to path on my windows 10 machine, but that didnt fix it, so i just tried to put ffmpeg in my bots directory, that didnt do it either.
Heres my music code if anyone can help
It uses a mixture of youtube-dl and ffmpeg
If there are also any errors that would stop this from working at all it'd be nice if you could show me them, im quite tired of this as of now and im honestly just about to scrap this idea and forget about it

  


  I've tried linking the path to the ffmpeg.exe, that still didnt work, i got the same error, i have no idea what to do

  


  import asyncio
import logging
import math
from urllib import request

import discord
from discord.ext import commands
import youtube_dl
from utils.guilds import Guilds
import ffmpeg
from asyncio import run_coroutine_threadsafe as coroutine

DOWNLOAD_PATH = "audio" # download path of the file
STREAM_INDICATOR_PREFIX = "${STREAM}:"




# options
ytdl_options = {
    "quiet": True,
    "forceipv4": True,
    "noplaylist": True,
    "no_warnings": True,
    "ignoreerrors": True,
    "nooverwrites": True,
    "restrictfilenames": True,
    "nocheckcertificate": True,
    "default_search": "auto",
    "format": "bestaudio/best",
}
ffmpeg_options = {
    "options": "-vn" # indicates that we have disabled video recording in the output file
}

ytdl = youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ytdl_options) # youtube_dl object

# checks functions
def is_connected(ctx):
    """Check if the bot is connected to a voice channel."""
    
    if ctx.voice_client:
        return True
    
    return False
def is_same_channel(ctx):
    """Check if the bot and the user is in the same channel."""
    
    # try to get their voice channel id if there's any
    try:
        bot_channel_id = ctx.voice_client.channel.id
        user_channel_id = ctx.author.voice.channel.id
    # if one of them is not connected to a voice channel then they're not together
    except AttributeError:
        return False
    
    # check if their voice channel id is the same
    if bot_channel_id == user_channel_id:
        return True
    
    return False
async def checks(ctx):
    """Do some checking."""
    
    # check if the user and the bot is in the same channel
    if not is_same_channel(ctx):
        await ctx.send("I am not with you. How dare you to command me like that.")
        return False
    
    return True

# other function
async def create_source(ctx, query):
    """Creates youtube_dl audio source for discord.py voice client."""
    
    try:
        async with ctx.typing(): # shows that the bot is typing in chat while searching for an audio source
            source = await YTDLSource.from_url(query, ctx.bot.loop) # creates a youtube_dl source
    except IndexError: # if found nothing
        await ctx.send("I found nothing with the given query..")
        return None
    
    return source

class Music(commands.Cog, name="music"):
    def __init__(self, bot):
        self.bot = bot
        self.guilds = Guilds() # collection of some guilds that this bot is currently in
    
    async def cog_command_error(self, ctx, error):
        """Catch all errors of this cog."""
        
        # a check on a command has failed
        if isinstance(error, commands.CheckFailure):
            await ctx.send("I'm not connected to any voice channel.")
        # ignore this error because it is already handled at the command itself
        elif isinstance(error, commands.errors.BadArgument):
            pass
        # otherwise, log all the other errors
        else:
            music_logger.exception(error)
            await ctx.send(error)
    
    @commands.command()
    async def join(self, ctx):
        """Invite me to your voice channel."""
        
        try:
            async with ctx.typing(): # shows that the bot is typing in chat while joining the voice channel
                await ctx.author.voice.channel.connect()
                await ctx.send("Alright, I joined your voice channel.")
        # user is not yet connected to a voice channel
        except AttributeError:
            await ctx.send(f"You must be connected to a voice channel first {ctx.author.name}.")
        # bot is already connected to a voice channel
        except discord.ClientException:
            if is_same_channel(ctx):
                await ctx.send("I'm already with you.")
            else:
                await ctx.send("I'm already with somebody else.")
    
    @commands.command()
    @commands.check(is_connected)
    async def leave(self, ctx):
        """Kick me out of your voice channel."""
        
        # do some checking before executing this command
        if not await checks(ctx):
            return
        
        # reset some bot's states
        self.guilds(ctx).has_played_voice = False # reset 'has_played_voice' state
        self.guilds(ctx).queue.clear() # reset the queue
        
        # finally, stop and disconnect the bot
        ctx.voice_client.stop() # stop the bot's voice
        await ctx.voice_client.disconnect() # disconnect the bot from voice channel
        await ctx.send("Ah, alright, cya.")
    
    async def play_source(self, ctx, vc, source):
        """Play an audio to a voice channel."""
        
        def play_next(error):
            """Executes when the voice client is done playing."""
            
            # log the errors if there is any
            if error:
                music_logger.exception(error)
                coroutine(ctx.send(error), self.bot.loop)
            
            # ensure that there is a song in queue
            if self.guilds(ctx).queue.queue:
                coroutine(ctx.invoke(self.bot.get_command("next")), self.bot.loop) # go to the next song
        
        vc.play(source, after=play_next) # play the voice to the voice channel
        await ctx.send(f"Now playing '{source.title}'.")
    
    @commands.command(aliases=("p", "stream"))
    async def play(self, ctx, *, query=""):
        """Play a song for you."""
        
        # check if the query argument is empty
        if not query:
            # if yes, cancel this command
            await ctx.send("What should I play?")
            return
        
        # check if this command is invoked using 'stream' alias
        if ctx.invoked_with == "stream":
            SIP = STREAM_INDICATOR_PREFIX # put prefix to the title of the source that indicates that it must be streamed
        else:
            SIP = ""
        
        # ensure that the bot is connected a voice channel
        try:
            # connect the bot to the user voice channel
            await ctx.author.voice.channel.connect()
        except AttributeError:
            # user is not yet connected to a voice channel
            await ctx.send(f"You must be connected to a voice channel first {ctx.author.name}.")
            return
        except discord.ClientException:
            pass # just ignore if bot is already connected to the voice channel
        
        # do some other checking before executing this command
        if not await checks(ctx):
            return
        
        # create the audio source
        source = await create_source(ctx, SIP + query)
        
        # ensure that there is actually a source
        if source:
            # initialize bot's states if the the queue is still empty
            if not self.guilds(ctx).queue.queue:
                self.guilds(ctx).has_played_voice = True # this means that the bot has played in the voice at least once
                self.guilds(ctx).queue.enqueue(SIP + source.title)
            
            # play the audio
            try:
                await self.play_source(ctx, ctx.voice_client, source)
            # enqueue the source if audio is already playing
            except discord.ClientException:
                self.guilds(ctx).queue.enqueue(SIP + source.title)
                await ctx.send(f"'{source.title}' is added to the queue.")
    
    @commands.command()
    @commands.check(is_connected)
    async def volume(self, ctx, *, vol=None):
        """Adjust my voice volume."""
        
        # do some checking before executing this command
        if not await checks(ctx):
            return
        
        vc = ctx.voice_client # get the voice client
        
        # ensure that the bot is playing voice in order to change the volume
        if not self.guilds(ctx).has_played_voice:
            await ctx.send("I haven't even started yet.")
            return
        elif vc.source is None:
            await ctx.send("I am not playing anything.")
            return
        
        # check if user has passed an argument
        if vol is None:
            await ctx.send("I expect an argument from 0 to 100.")
            return
        
        # cast string argument 'vol' into a float
        try:
            vol = float(vol)
        # except if the argument is not a number
        except ValueError:
            await ctx.send("The argument must only be a number.")
            return
        
        # set the volume
        if vol >= 0 and vol <= 100: # bound the volume from 0 to 100
            vc.source.volume = vol / 100
        else:
            await ctx.send("I expect a value from 0 to 100.")
    
    @commands.command()
    @commands.check(is_connected)
    async def pause(self, ctx):
        """Pause the song."""
        
        # do some checking before executing this command
        if not await checks(ctx):
            return
        
        vc = ctx.voice_client # get the voice client
        
        # ensure that the bot's voice is playing in order to pause
        if vc.is_playing():
            vc.pause()
            await ctx.send("Alright, paused.")
        # the bot haven't played yet
        elif not self.guilds(ctx).has_played_voice:
            await ctx.send("I haven't even started yet.")
        # there is no song in queue
        elif not self.guilds(ctx).queue.queue:
            await ctx.send("I am not playing anything.")
        else:
            await ctx.send("I already paused.")
    
    @commands.command()
    @commands.check(is_connected)
    async def resume(self, ctx):
        """Resume the song."""
        
        # do some checking before executing this command
        if not await checks(ctx):
            return
        
        vc = ctx.voice_client # get the voice client
        
        # ensure that the bot's voice is paused in order to resume
        if vc.is_paused():
            vc.resume()
            await ctx.send("Alright, song resumed")
        # the bot haven't played yet
        elif not self.guilds(ctx).has_played_voice:
            await ctx.send("I haven't even started yet.")
        # there is no song in queue
        elif not self.guilds(ctx).queue.queue:
            await ctx.send("I am not playing anything.")
        else:
            await ctx.send("I am not paused.")
    
    async def update_song(self, ctx):
        """Change the currently playing song."""
        
        vc = ctx.voice_client # get the voice client
        current = self.guilds(ctx).queue.current # get the current song in queue if there's any
        
        # ensure that the queue is not empty
        if current:
            source = await create_source(ctx, current) # create the audio source
        # the bot haven't played yet
        elif not self.guilds(ctx).has_played_voice:
            await ctx.send("I haven't even started yet.")
            return
        else:
            vc.stop() # stop the voice just to be sure
            await ctx.send("No more songs unfortunately.")
            return
        
        # if voice client is already playing, just change the source
        if vc.is_playing():
            vc.source = source
            await ctx.send(f"Now playing '{source.title}'.")
        # otherwise, play the source
        else:
            await self.play_source(ctx, vc, source)
    
    @commands.command()
    @commands.check(is_connected)
    async def next(self, ctx):
        """Skip the current song."""
        
        # do some checking before executing this command
        if not await checks(ctx):
            return
        
        self.guilds(ctx).queue.shift(1) # shift the queue to the left
        await self.update_song(ctx) # change the current song
    
    @commands.command()
    @commands.check(is_connected)
    async def prev(self, ctx):
        """Go back to the previous song."""
        
        # do some checking before executing this command
        if not await checks(ctx):
            return
        
        self.guilds(ctx).queue.shift(-1) # shift the queue to the right
        await self.update_song(ctx) # change the current song
    
    @commands.command()
    @commands.check(is_connected)
    async def removesong(self, ctx, *, index=1):
        """Remove a song in the queue."""
        
        # do some checking before executing this command
        if not await checks(ctx):
            return
        
        index -= 1 # decrement the 'index' to match the zero-based index of Python
        
        # if index is equal to 0, that means remove the currently playing song
        # do some extra stuff before removing the current song
        if index == 0:
            # try to remove a song in queue
            try:
                self.guilds(ctx).queue.dequeue() # dequeue a song in the queue
                self.guilds(ctx).queue.shift(-1) # shift the queue to the right so that the next song will be played instead of the next next song
                await ctx.invoke(self.bot.get_command("next")) # finally, play the next song
            # except when the queue is empty
            except IndexError:
                await ctx.send("I haven't even started yet.")
        # otherwise, just remove a song in queue
        else:
            # try to remove the song in queue
            try:
                self.guilds(ctx).queue.pop(index)
                await ctx.send("Song removed")
            # except if the song is not in the queue
            except IndexError:
                # check if the bot has not started playing yet
                if not self.guilds(ctx).has_played_voice:
                    await ctx.send("I haven't even started yet...")
                else:
                    await ctx.send(f"I can't remove that {ctx.author.name} because it doesn't exist.")
    @removesong.error
    async def remove_error(self, ctx, error):
        """Error handler for the 'remove' command."""
        
        # check if the argument is bad
        if isinstance(error, commands.errors.BadArgument):
            await ctx.send(f"I can't remove that {ctx.author.name}.")
            await ctx.send("The argument must only be a number or leave it none.")
    
    @commands.command()
    @commands.check(is_connected)
    async def stop(self, ctx):
        """Stop all the songs."""
        
        # do some checking before executing this command
        if not await checks(ctx):
            return
        
        vc = ctx.voice_client # get the voice client
        
        # ensure that the bot is connected to the voice client
        if vc.is_playing() or vc.is_paused():
            self.guilds(ctx).queue.clear() # reset the queue
            ctx.voice_client.stop() # stop the bot's voice
            await ctx.send("Playback stopped")
        # the bot haven't played yet
        elif not self.guilds(ctx).has_played_voice:
            await ctx.send("I haven't even started yet.")
        else:
            await ctx.send("I already stopped.")
    
    @commands.command()
    @commands.check(is_connected)
    async def queue(self, ctx):
        """Show the queue of songs."""
        
        SIP = STREAM_INDICATOR_PREFIX # shorten the variable name
        
        # do some checking before executing this command
        if not await checks(ctx):
            return
        
        # try to send the songs in the queue
        try:
            # format the queue to make it readable
            queue = [
                f"{i}." + (" (STREAM) " if q.startswith(SIP) else " ") + q.split(SIP)[-1]
                for i, q in enumerate(self.guilds(ctx).queue.queue, 1)
            ]
            
            await ctx.send("\n".join(queue))
        # except if it is empty
        except HTTPException:
            await ctx.send("No songs in queue.")

class YTDLSource(discord.PCMVolumeTransformer):
    """Creates a youtube_dl audio source with volume control."""
    
    def __init__(self, source, *, data, volume=1):
        super().__init__(source, volume)
        self.data = data
        self.title = data.get("title")
        self.url = data.get("url")
    
    @classmethod
    async def from_url(cls, url, loop):
        """Get source by URL."""
        
        # check if the URL is must be streamed
        if url.startswith(STREAM_INDICATOR_PREFIX):
            stream = True
        else:
            stream = False
        
        # get data from the given URL
        data = await loop.run_in_executor(
            None,
            (lambda:
                ytdl.extract_info(
                    url.split(STREAM_INDICATOR_PREFIX)[-1], # remove the prefix from the URL
                    download=not stream
                ))
        )
        ##$$$$ fix error somtimes
        # take the first item from the entries if there's any
        if "entries" in data:
            try:
                data = data["entries"][0]
            except Exception as e:
                music_logger.exception(e)
                return None
        
        filepath = data["url"] if stream else ytdl.prepare_filename(data) # source url or download path of the file, depends on the 'stream' parameter
        return cls(discord.FFmpegPCMAudio("C:/Users/Motzumoto/Desktop/AGB/ffmpeg/bin", **ffmpeg_options), data=data) # create and return the source

def setup(bot):
    bot.add_cog(Music(bot))



  


• Adventures In NAS

  1er janvier, par Multimedia Mike — General

  In my post last year about my out-of-control single-board computer (SBC) collection which included my meager network attached storage (NAS) solution, I noted that :

  I find that a lot of my fellow nerds massively overengineer their homelab NAS setups. I’ll explore this in a future post. For my part, people tend to find my homelab NAS solution slightly underengineered.

  So here I am, exploring this is a future post. I’ve been in the home NAS game a long time, but have never had very elaborate solutions for such. For my part, I tend to take an obsessively reductionist view of what constitutes a NAS : Any small computer with a pool of storage and a network connection, running the Linux operating system and the Samba file sharing service.

  
  
  

  Many home users prefer to buy turnkey boxes, usually that allow you to install hard drives yourself, and then configure the box and its services with a friendly UI. My fellow weird computer nerds often buy cast-off enterprise hardware and set up more resilient, over-engineered solutions, as long as they have strategies to mitigate the noise and dissipate the heat, and don’t mind the electricity bills.

  If it works, awesome ! As an old hand at this, I am rather stuck in my ways, however, preferring to do my own stunts, both with the hardware and software solutions.

  My History With Home NAS Setups
  In 1998, I bought myself a new computer — beige box tower PC, as was the style as the time. This was when normal people only had one computer at most. It ran Windows, but I was curious about this new thing called “Linux” and learned to dual boot that. Later that year, it dawned on me that nothing prevented me from buying a second ugly beige box PC and running Linux exclusively on it. Further, it could be a headless Linux box, connected by ethernet, and I could consolidate files into a single place using this file sharing software named Samba.
  

  I remember it being fairly onerous to get Samba working in those days. And the internet was not quite so helpful in those days. I recall that the thing that blocked me for awhile was needing to know that I had to specify an entry for the Samba server machine in the LMHOSTS (Lanman hosts) file on the Windows 95 machine.

  However, after I cracked that code, I have pretty much always had some kind of ad-hoc home NAS setup, often combined with a headless Linux development box.

  In the early 2000s, I built a new beige box PC for a file server, with a new hard disk, and a coworker tutored me on setting up a (P)ATA UDMA 133 (or was it 150 ? anyway, it was (P)ATA’s last hurrah before SATA conquered all) expansion card and I remember profiling that the attached hard drive worked at a full 21 MBytes/s reading. It was pretty slick. Except I hadn’t really thought things through. You see, I had a hand-me-down ethernet hub cast-off from my job at the time which I wanted to use. It was a 100 Mbps repeater hub, not a switch, so the catch was that all connected machines had to be capable of 100 Mbps. So, after getting all of my machines (3 at the time) upgraded to support 10/100 ethernet (the old off-brand PowerPC running Linux was the biggest challenge), I profiled transfers and realized that the best this repeater hub could achieve was about 3.6 MBytes/s. For a long time after that, I just assumed that was the upper limit of what a 100 Mbps network could achieve. Obviously, I now know that the upper limit ought to be around 11.2 MBytes/s and if I had gamed out that fact in advance, I would have realized it didn’t make sense to care about super-fast (for the time) disk performance.

  At this time, I was doing a lot for development for MPlayer/xine/FFmpeg. I stored all of my multimedia material on this NAS. I remember being confused when I was working with Y4M data, which is raw frames, which is lots of data. xine, which employed a pre-buffering strategy, would play fine for a few seconds and then stutter. Eventually, I reasoned out that the files I was working with had a data rate about twice what my awful repeater hub supported, which is probably the first time I came to really understand and respect streaming speeds and their implications for multimedia playback.

  Smaller Solutions
  For a period, I didn’t have a NAS. Then I got an Apple AirPort Extreme, which I noticed had a USB port. So I bought a dual drive brick to plug into it and used that for a time. Later (2009), I had this thing called the MSI Wind Nettop which is the only PC I’ve ever seen that can use a CompactFlash (CF) card for a boot drive. So I did just that, and installed a large drive so it could function as a NAS, as well as a headless dev box. I’m still amazed at what a low-power I/O beast this thing is, at least when compared to all the ARM SoCs I have tried in the intervening 1.5 decades. I’ve had spinning hard drives in this thing that could read at 160 MBytes/s (‘dd’ method) and have no trouble saturating the gigabit link at 112 MBytes/s, all with its early Intel Atom CPU.

  Around 2015, I wanted a more capable headless dev box and discovered Intel’s line of NUCs. I got one of the fat models that can hold a conventional 2.5″ spinning drive in addition to the M.2 SATA SSD and I was off and running. That served me fine for a few years, until I got into the ARM SBC scene. One major limitation here is that 2.5″ drives aren’t available in nearly the capacities that make a NAS solution attractive.

  Current Solution
  My current NAS solution, chronicled in my last SBC post– the ODroid-HC2, which is a highly compact ARM SoC with an integrated USB3-SATA bridge so that a SATA drive can be connected directly to it :

  
  

  

  ODROID-HC2 NAS

  
  

  I tend to be weirdly proficient at recalling dates, so I’m surprised that I can’t recall when I ordered this and put it into service. But I’m pretty sure it was circa 2018. It’s only equipped with an 8 TB drive now, but I seem to recall that it started out with only a 4 TB drive. I think I upgraded to the 8 TB drive early in the pandemic in 2020, when ISPs were implementing temporary data cap amnesty and I was doing what a r/DataHoarder does.

  The HC2 has served me well, even though it has a number of shortcomings for a hardware set chartered for NAS :

  1. While it has a gigabit ethernet port, it’s documented that it never really exceeds about 70 MBytes/s, due to the SoC’s limitations
  2. The specific ARM chip (Samsung Exynos 5422 ; more than a decade old as of this writing) lacks cryptography instructions, slowing down encryption if that’s your thing (e.g., LUKS)
  3. While the SoC supports USB3, that block is tied up for the SATA interface ; the remaining USB port is only capable of USB2 speeds
  4. 32-bit ARM, which prevented me from running certain bits of software I wanted to try (like Minio)
  5. Only 1 drive, so no possibility for RAID (again, if that’s your thing)

  I also love to brag on the HC2’s power usage : I once profiled the unit for a month using a Kill-A-Watt and under normal usage (with the drive spinning only when in active use). The unit consumed 4.5 kWh… in an entire month.

  New Solution
  Enter the ODroid-HC4 (I purchased mine from Ameridroid but Hardkernel works with numerous distributors) :

  
  

  

  ODroid-HC4 with an SSD and a conventional drive

  
  

  I ordered this earlier in the year and after many months of procrastinating and obsessing over the best approach to take with its general usage, I finally have it in service as my new NAS. Comparing point by point with the HC2 :

  1. The gigabit ethernet runs at full speed (though a few things on my network run at 2.5 GbE now, so I guess I’ll always be behind)
  2. The ARM chip (Amlogic S905X3) has AES cryptography acceleration and handles all the LUKS stuff without breaking a sweat ; “cryptsetup benchmark” reports between 500-600 MBytes/s on all the AES variants
  3. The USB port is still only USB2, so no improvement there
  4. 64-bit ARM, which means I can run Minio to simulate block storage in a local dev environment for some larger projects I would like to undertake
  5. Supports 2 drives, if RAID is your thing

  How I Set It Up
  How to set up the drive configuration ? As should be apparent from the photo above, I elected for an SSD (500 GB) for speed, paired with a conventional spinning HDD (18 TB) for sheer capacity. I’m not particularly trusting of RAID. I’ve watched it fail too many times, on systems that I don’t even manage, not to mention that aforementioned RAID brick that I had attached to the Apple AirPort Extreme.

  I had long been planning to use bcache, the block caching interface for Linux, which can use the SSD as a speedy cache in front of the more capacious disk. There is also LVM cache, which is supposed to achieve something similar. And then I had to evaluate the trade-offs in whether I wanted write-back, write-through, or write-around configurations.

  This was all predicated on the assumption that the spinning drive would not be able to saturate the gigabit connection. When I got around to setting up the hardware and trying some basic tests, I found that the conventional HDD had no trouble keeping up with the gigabit data rate, both reading and writing, somewhat obviating the need for SSD acceleration using any elaborate caching mechanisms.

  Maybe that’s because I sprung for the WD Red Pro series this time, rather than the Red Plus ? I’m guessing that conventional drives do deteriorate over the years. I’ll find out.

  For the operating system, I stuck with my newest favorite Linux distro : DietPi. While HardKernel (parent of ODroid) makes images for the HC units, I had also used DietPi for the HC2 for the past few years, as it tends to stay more up to date.

  Then I rsync’d my data from HC2 -> HC4. It was only about 6.5 TB of total data but it took days as this WD Red Plus drive is only capable of reading at around 10 MBytes/s these days. Painful.

  For file sharing, I’m pretty sure most normal folks have nice web UIs in their NAS boxes which allow them to easily configure and monitor the shares. I know there are such applications I could set up. But I’ve been doing this so long, I just do a bare bones setup through the terminal. I installed regular Samba and then brought over my smb.conf file from the HC2. 1 by 1, I tested that each of the old shares were activated on the new NAS and deactivated on the old NAS. I also set up a new share for the SSD. I guess that will just serve as a fast I/O scratch space on the NAS.

  The conventional drive spins up and down. That’s annoying when I’m actively working on something but manage not to hit the drive for like 5 minutes and then an application blocks while the drive wakes up. I suppose I could set it up so that it is always running. However, I micro-manage this with a custom bash script I wrote a long time ago which logs into the NAS and runs the “date” command every 2 minutes, appending the output to a file. As a bonus, it also prints data rate up/down stats every 5 seconds. The spinning file (“nas-main/zz-keep-spinning/keep-spinning.txt”) has never been cleared and has nearly a quarter million lines. I suppose that implies that it has kept the drive spinning for 1/2 million minutes which works out to around 347 total days. I should compare that against the drive’s SMART stats, if I can remember how. The earliest timestamp in the file is from March 2018, so I know the HC2 NAS has been in service at least that long.

  For tasks, vintage cron still does everything I could need. In this case, that means reaching out to websites (like this one) and automatically backing up static files.

  I also have to have a special script for starting up. Fortunately, I was able to bring this over from the HC2 and tweak it. The data disks (though not boot disk) are encrypted. Those need to be unlocked and only then is it safe for the Samba and Minio services to start up. So one script does all that heavy lifting in the rare case of a reboot (this is the type of system that’s well worth having on a reliable UPS).

  Further Work
  I need to figure out how to use the OLED display on the NAS, and how to make it show something more useful than the current time and date, which is what it does in its default configuration with HardKernel’s own Linux distro. With DietPi, it does nothing by default. I’m thinking it should be able to show the percent usage of each of the 2 drives, at a minimum.

  I also need to establish a more responsible backup regimen. I’m way too lazy about this. Fortunately, I reason that I can keep the original HC2 in service, repurposed to accept backups from the main NAS. Again, I’m sort of micro-managing this since a huge amount of data isn’t worth backing up (remember the whole DataHoarder bit), but the most important stuff will be shipped off.

  The post Adventures In NAS first appeared on Breaking Eggs And Making Omelettes.

• Web Analytics Reports : 10 Key Types and How to Use Them

  29 janvier 2024, par Erin

  You can’t optimise your website to drive better results if you don’t know how visitors are engaging with your site.

  But how do you correctly analyse data and identify patterns ? With the right platform, you can use a wide range of web analytics reports to dive deep into the data.

  In this article, we’ll discuss what website analytics reports are, different types, why you need them, and how to use reports to find the insights you need.

  What is web analytics ?

  Website analytics is the process of gathering, processing, and analysing data that shows what users are doing when they visit your website. 

  You typically achieve this with web analytics tools by adding a tracking code that shares data with the analytics platform when someone visits the site.

  

  The visitors trigger the tracking code, which collects data on how they act while on your site and then sends that information to the analytics platform. You can then see the data in your analytics solution and create reports based on this data.

  While there are a lot of web analytics solutions available, this article will specifically demonstrate reports using Matomo.

  What are web analytics reports ?

  Web analytics reports are analyses that focus on specific data points within your analytics platform. 

  For example, this channel report in Matomo shows the top referring channels of a website.

  

  Your marketing team can use this report to determine which channels drive the best results. In the example above, organic search drives almost double the visits and actions of social campaigns. 

  If you’re investing the same amount of money, you’d want to move more of your budget from social to search.

  Why you need to get familiar with specific web analytics reports

  The default web analytics dashboard offers an overview of high-level trends in performance. However, it usually does not give you specific insights that can help you optimise your marketing campaigns.

  For example, you can see that your conversions are down month over month. But, at a glance, you do not understand why that is.

  To understand why, you need to go granular and wider — looking into qualifying data that separates different types of visitors from each other.

  Gartner predicts that 70% of organisations will focus on “small and wide” data by 2025 over “big data.” Most companies lack the data volume to simply let big data and algorithms handle the optimising.

  What you can do instead is dive deep into each visitor. Figure out how they engage with your site, and then you can adjust your campaigns and page content accordingly.

  Common types of web analytics reports

  There are dozens of different web analytics reports, but they usually fall into four separate categories :

  

  • Referral sources : These reports show where your visitors come from. They range from channel reports — search, social media — to specific campaigns and ads.
  • Engagement (on-site actions) : These reports dive into what visitors are doing on your site. They break down clicks, scrolling, completed conversion goals, and more.
  • E-commerce performance : These reports show the performance of your e-commerce store. They’ll help you dive into the sales of individual products, trends in cart abandonment and more.
  • Demographics : These reports help you understand more about your visitors — where they’re visiting from, their browser language, device, and more.

  You can even combine insights across all four using audience segmentation and custom reports. (We’ll cover this in more detail later.)

  How to use 10 important website analytics reports

  The first step is to install the website analytics code on your website. (We include more detailed information in our guide on how to track website visitors.)

  Then, you need to wait until you have a few days (or, if you have limited traffic, a few weeks) of data. Without sufficient website visitor data, none of the reports will be meaningful.

  Visitor Overview report

  First, let’s take a look at the Visitor Overview report. It’s a general report that breaks down the visits over a given time period.

  

  What this report shows :

  • Trends in unique visits month over month
  • Basic engagement trends like the average visit length and bounce rate
  • The number of actions taken per page

  In general, this report is more of a high-level indicator you can use to explore certain areas more thoroughly. For example, if most of your traffic comes from organic traffic or social media, you can dive deeper into those channels.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Location report

  Next up, we have the most basic type of demographic report — the Location report. It shows where your visitors tend to access your website from.

  

  What this report shows :

  • The country, state or city your visitors access your website from

  This report is most useful for identifying regional trends. You may notice that your site is growing in popularity in a country. You can take advantage of this by creating a regional campaign to double down on a high performing audience.

  Device report

  Next, we have the Device report, which breaks down your visitors’ devices.

  

  What this report shows :

  • Overall device types used by your visitors
  • Specific device models used

  Today, most websites are responsive or use mobile-first design. So, just seeing that many people access your site through smartphones probably isn’t all that surprising.

  But you should ensure your responsive design doesn’t break down on popular devices. The design may not work effectively because many phones have different screen resolutions. 

  Users Flow report

  The Users Flow report dives deeper into visitor engagement — how your visitors act on your site. It shows common landing pages — the first page visitors land on — and how they usually navigate your site from there.

  

  What this report shows :

  • Popular landing pages
  • How your visitors most commonly navigate your site

  You can use this report to determine which intermediary pages are crucial to keeping visitors engaged. For example, you can prioritise optimisation and rewriting for case study pages that don’t get a lot of direct search or campaign traffic.

  Improving this flow can improve conversion rates and the impact of your marketing efforts.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Exit Pages report

  The Exit Pages report complements the Users Flow report well. It highlights the most common pages visitors leave your website from.

  

  What this report shows :

  • The most common exit pages on your website
  • The exit rates of these pages

  Pages with high exit rates fall into two categories. The first are pages where it makes sense that visitors leave, like a post-purchase thank-you page. The second are pages where you’d want your visitors to stay and keep flowing down the funnel. When the rates are unusually high on product pages, category pages, or case study pages, you may have found a problem.

  By combining insights from the Users Flow and Exit Pages reports, you can find valuable candidates for optimisation. This is a key aspect of effective conversion rate optimisation.

  Traffic Acquisition Channel report

  The Acquisition Channels report highlights the channels that drive the most visitors to your site.

  

  What this report shows :

  • Top referring traffic sources by channel type
  • The average time on site, bounce rates, and actions taken by the source

  Because of increasingly privacy-sensitive browsers and apps, the best way to reliably track traffic sources is to use campaign tracking URL. Matomo offers an easy-to-use campaign tracking URL builder to simplify this process.

  Search Engines and Keywords report

  The Search Engines and Keywords report shows which keywords are driving the most organic search traffic and from what search engines.

  

  What this report shows :

  • Search engine keywords that drive traffic
  • The different search engines that refer visitors

  One of the best ways to use this report is to identify low-hanging fruit. You want to find keywords driving some traffic where your page isn’t ranked in the top three results. If the keyword has high traffic potential, you should then work to optimise that page to rank higher and get more traffic. This technique is an efficient way to improve your SEO performance.

  Ecommerce Products report

  If you sell products directly on your website, the Ecommerce Products report is a lifesaver. It shows you exactly how all your products are performing.

  

  What this report shows :

  • How your products are selling
  • The average sale price (with coupons) and quantity

  This report could help an online retailer identify top-selling items, adjust pricing based on average sale prices, and strategically allocate resources to promote or restock high-performing products for maximum profitability.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Ecommerce Log report

  If you want to explore every single ecommerce interaction, the Ecommerce Log report is for you. It breaks down the actions of visitors who add products to their cart in real time.

  

  What this report shows :

  • The full journey of completed purchases and abandoned carts
  • The exact actions your potential customers take and how long their journeys last

  If you suspect that the user experience of your online store isn’t perfect, this report helps you confirm or deny that suspicion. By closely examining individual interactions, you can identify common exit pages or other issues.