The Official Computer Tech Support Thread

[WWWP]

This is a bit outside the scope of what this thread is intended for, but I do have a question I’m hoping MB can help with.

A client (17m) has been put on video-game restriction, which began Monday. Today, I found that he had moved his PS4 console into his bedroom, plugged it in to power, and hid it in a dresser drawer.

He doesn’t have a monitor in his room, or any other electronics, except for an Alexa speaker.

Is it possible he’s connecting his console to the Alexa in order to access the online features and communicate online through the speaker? Is there any other way he could be using this that hasn’t occurred to me?

Please help, the youngsters got one over on me.

[WWWP]

Anyone?

[Synthgirl]

I'm not 100% sure, but from some quick googling it seems you may need an additional piece of hardware to enable the PS4 to communicate with the Alexa.

Also I would check the bluetooth settings and/or list of connected bluetooth devices for the Alexa, that would likely be the only way the PS4 and the Alexa could communicate without being wired.

[innerspaceboy]

I mistakenly ran:

sudo chmod 777 -R /*

on an Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS filesystem. I was trying to take ownership of 73 album folders I downloaded from The Internet Archive in one media folder but due to mistaken syntax I evidently took ownership of all system files to the main user account instead of root.

Now none of my appimages will launch because they aren't owned by root. They all return this error:

sudo: /usr/bin/sudo must be owned by uid 0 and have the setuid bit set

I Googled solutions and found:

$ su -
Password:
# chown root:root /usr/bin/sudo
# chmod a=rx,u+ws /usr/bin/sudo

But both null and the main user passwords are rejected for root.

Then I Googled "su authentication failure" which is the error I get when I type "su -" and try null for the password.

I found this explanation:

su asks for the root password. Since Ubuntu doesn't set a root password by default, you can't use it to become root.

Instead, to become root, use sudo -i with your personal password.

I tried that and I get the same error that all the appimages are throwing:

sudo: /usr/bin/sudo must be owned by uid 0 and have the setuid bit set

Most search results indicate that this is a case of major system corruption and a nuclear reinstallation of the OS is the only option.

I have a Timeshift disk snapshot of the OS from a few years ago I'm going to try to restore, but I'll have to wait until March 27 when I'll have the day free to attack the project.

Damn.

[SGR]

Originally Posted by WWWP

This is a bit outside the scope of what this thread is intended for, but I do have a question I’m hoping MB can help with.

A client (17m) has been put on video-game restriction, which began Monday. Today, I found that he had moved his PS4 console into his bedroom, plugged it in to power, and hid it in a dresser drawer.

He doesn’t have a monitor in his room, or any other electronics, except for an Alexa speaker.

Is it possible he’s connecting his console to the Alexa in order to access the online features and communicate online through the speaker? Is there any other way he could be using this that hasn’t occurred to me?

Please help, the youngsters got one over on me.

If he's got a computer/laptop, it's very possible he's connecting to it over the internet through something called PS Remote Play. Plug the controller in your computer, connect to the console remotely, and play using the laptop/computer monitor.

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/remote-play/

I don't know about connecting it to an Alexa though - not sure what the point would be if his primary purpose is to play video games.

You could check his computer if you have that capability for PS Remote Play. If he has an apple computer, just do CMD+Spacebar to open up Spotlight Search and type in "PS Remote Play". On windows, just click the windows key, and search for it. If it's installed, it should pop up. He could be using his phone or tablet to do this also

edit: Sorry Steph, didn't read your post thoroughly - so no other electronic devices besides Alexa? It appears he could connect it to a PS4, but it's not exactly simple - looks like it'd require an additional hub.

https://www.soundspod.com/connect-ps...ne-with-alexa/

[WWWP]

Ok, I guess the real question should have been why have the console plugged in and hidden without being connected to a monitor or Bluetooth device?

[djchameleon]

Originally Posted by WWWP

Ok, I guess the real question should have been why have the console plugged in and hidden without being connected to a monitor or Bluetooth device?

He needs it to be plugged it so he can turn it on especially if he's using remote play. There is a device called backbone where he can play his consoles games straight from his phone as long as the device is plugged in.

[WWWP]

Originally Posted by djchameleon

He needs it to be plugged it so he can turn it on especially if he's using remote play. There is a device called backbone where he can play his consoles games straight from his phone as long as the device is plugged in.

Ok, but what about if he didn’t have his cell phone? It has to be turned it at bedtime, but staff could hear controller clicks and a back and forth conversation coming from his room. Is there another device he could be using to access remote play? I thought maybe he had a projector we didn’t know about but there weren’t any hdmi cables or anything attached, only the power cord. This is driving me nuts!

[djchameleon]

Originally Posted by WWWP

Ok, but what about if he didn’t have his cell phone? It has to be turned it at bedtime, but staff could hear controller clicks and a back and forth conversation coming from his room. Is there another device he could be using to access remote play? I thought maybe he had a projector we didn’t know about but there weren’t any hdmi cables or anything attached, only the power cord. This is driving me nuts!

He must have a second cell phone and only turns in one. The second one he uses the backbone controller with as far as talking it might be just a regular Bluetooth mic he might be using or a corded headset that has a mic on it.

https://www.google.com/search?client...7zM&lnspr=W10=

Look for one of these devices or just take the power cord from his console so he can't turn it on. All he needs for it is to be in rest mode and he can use it.

[innerspaceboy]

An update - I finally had a day free to tackle the corrupted Linux filesystem. I attempted to restore a system snapshot using the TimeShift utility but sadly the root system file ownership error persisted, so I was forced to wipe the drive and start from scratch.

Thankfully I had hundreds of pages of notes from my last system build so I was able to follow my process guide troubleshooting various new version bugs along the way. In 4 hours' time I had restored all my applications and their respective configurations.

It then just took the rest of the day to re-index my media server. So far... so good.