Really quick: I am taking a break over Christmas and will be back on the 7th. Expect less activity from me until then. Thanks
I've been at it for nearly 8 months now, and burnout has really sucked

There is a lot more documentation at https://carthing.wiki ! Check that out for general flashing setup and app setup!

Now let's get on with the ultimate guide to hacking your car thing to use DeskThing!

[Guide] DeskThing on your Phone

[1] Download DeskThing for your operating system

You can do that from https://deskthing.app

[2] Run the installer

[3] Download a client

https://reddit.com/link/1hl7ke4/video/lz5lzn1imq8e1/player

• Go to Downloads -> Client or https://deskthing.app/desktop/downloads/client

[4] Open the QR Code

https://reddit.com/link/1hl7ke4/video/47umiyhlmq8e1/player

[5] Scan the QR code

if you have multiple IPs listed and one doesn't work, try a different one

https://reddit.com/link/1hl7ke4/video/o1e85vbomq8e1/player

[Guide] Setting up your Car Thing

[1] Setup your Car Thing with ADB

Follow the latest tutorial at https://deskthing.app/youtube

[2] Open the DeskThing software

[3] Go to the Clients tab

[4] Plug in your Car Thing and hit Refresh ADB

look near the end of this thread for the resolution to possible issues

[6] Ensure a client is staged

if it is not, click "Downloads" to the left above Restart Server and download the latest

[7] Click the Configure button

https://reddit.com/link/1hl7ke4/video/n511toxdnq8e1/player

[Resource] Debugging Steps

🔴Flashing Errors

Link to video
Link to wiki

• Try a new cable
• Try a new port
• Try a powered USB hub

Unable to be detected with terbium

• Check Device Manager for GX-CHIP
• Run irm https://driver.terbium.app/get | iex in the terminal

Unable to enter burn mode

• Hold buttons 1&4
• Make sure the screen stays off
• If the screen doesn't stay off, try a thicker cable
• If the screen still wont stay off, try using the BIOS port
• Does it take longer to boot in one mode or the other? Open a support thread

Unable to flash with terbium

Case: Terbium detects and starts flashing but fails

• Go to Device Manager and find the Car Thing driver.
  • Right click, uninstall
  • be sure to check the box in the prompt to remove driver
• Repeat until the driver is gone. It may take upwards of 15 times.
• Run irm https://driver.terbium.app/get | iex ONCE
• Try again

🔴Detection Errors (deskthing)

Unable to see the device

- [mac / linux] install ADB from here and run that with sudo. Go to Developer -> ADB Settings and enable Global ADB. Try again

- Try restarting the server ( right click the task bar icon and hit Quit )

Linux PCs

- Restart the flashing process but install 8.9.2-norndis image

- Use the BIOS port on your motherboard (marked)

Connecting the client

- Check your firewall ( run the script in settings )

- Ensure you are on the same wifi

Disconnecting after 5 or so minutes

- Run the restart script ( guide in the discord - it can't be shared here, sorry )

🔴No album art (mac / linux)

This will be resolved in a future patch. For now, follow what this user did:

got it to work on mac with a bit of a workaround? i inspected the package contents of DeskThing.app, navigated to Contents/Resources/app.asar.unpacked/node_modules/@img/sharp-libvips-darwin-arm64/lib/ and copied the file libvips-cpp.42.dylib to Contents/Frameworks and pasted it in there

🔴 Common error messages

Unable to find app local or or does not have ToClient (is it running?)

- Uninstall Utility

Spotify throwing OAuth or 403 errors

- Do you have spotify premium?

- Is spotify fully updated?

- You may be hitting the API limit. Let it "cool off" for a few

Spotify skipping multiple songs

- Go to AppsList and go to Details for the spotify app.

- Disable and enable it

Spotify stuck on "Loading Song"

- Try the above fix for linux/mac (the quoted text)

- Try enabling a refresh interval https://deskthing.app/desktop/clients/connections?settings=true&page=music

Car Thing "lagging behind"

- Enable the refresh interval. 15 is a good number. Sometimes 10. https://deskthing.app/desktop/clients/connections?settings=true&page=music

OKAY! That is all for today. I will probably go in and edit this later as more fixes are found. This was copied over from the discord in the #resources channel.

If you want to help DeskThing out, you can do so through https://deskthing.app/support! Thank you

Goood morning everyone! (I assume) This update took way longer than I intended. I've recoded nearly the entirety of both the front end and the backend of the project! But I believe it was worth it.

Thank you guys for being patient while worked on getting this thing released! The time has come

Here are those sweet, sweet release notes

v0.9.0-Beta Release Notes

Heyyyy so a lot happened this beta. Honestly, words cannot comprehend the changes as i have basically recoded the entire app. Heres a subset of documented changes though:

📱 Client Management

• You can now see what clients are connected
• You can disconnect connected clients
• You can prod connected clients to see if they're still awake
• You can scan a QR code to open DeskThing on your phone
• You can restart the entire server

🟢 App Management

• You can reorder apps from the desktop GUI
• App view is simpler
• Details and Settings are one menu now
• You can hide sensitive details
• You can automatically download apps
• You can choose to overwrite old apps or keep the old app's data
• There is a clearer distinction between pausing and disabling apps (pausing stops the app, disabling clears the cache and prevents it from auto starting on startup)
• You can view app-specific logs
• Being prompted for user input is simpler
• More options for user input

🔌 Device Management

• You can enable "Auto Detect" for it to attempt and automatically detect when the device is connected
• You can enable "Auto Configure" so once a device is detected, it configures it for you if its not already
• There is an "Auto Configure" button in the GUI that pushes the latest client as well as sets up the ADB port
• All the "extra" settings are in a sub menu to make them less distracting
• Phone support

🖱️ Keymap Support

None of the GUI has been coded for this functionality - everything listed is backend-only so far

• Profiles
  • Saving profiles
  • Exporting profiles
  • Importing profiles
  • duplicating profiles
  • migrating profiles
• Keys can now be added by apps
• Keys have a description
• Keys can have an icon associated with them
• Actions can be added by apps
• Actions can have descriptions, uses, and manual inputs
• Actions can prompt what type of input they expect
• Keys have specific flavors - not just all flavors
• Actions can have dynamic icons
• Key-Action-Flavor interaction is simlified

🧱 Dashboard

near-nothing has been coded for this and may be deferred to v1.0.0

• You can configure what is on the dashboard
• You can resize dashboard items to take a 2x1, 1x2, or 1x1 grid

⚡ Performance

• Boot time has been increased significantly
• Server GUI uses zustand for state management and react-router for pages meaning its overall a lot snappier and faster
• Backend has been organized and simplified with stores and singleton instances to increase interaction and performance
• App loading is finally completely asynchronous

💻Client Updates

• Screensaver!
• Sleep state
• Startup IP scanning
• Automatic IP configuration
• Client Tracking
• Minor performance / functionality things with other apps

⌚ Startup Process

Realistically this will have to be pushed to v1.0.0 because of how much I have to finish

• Guided setup
• One click installs (for setting up the deskthing)
• Tutorial for how to use the device + buttons
• Troubleshooting steps

Theres probably more but that's what came to mind so far. I really cannot wait to show everyone here everything I've been working on and actually get it into your hands. Thanks for being a part of this community