Duolingo Error

Ever since I signed into Duolingo on my new phone my Tidbyt says ERROR: Check Connection. I’ve restarted the tidbyt, removed the tidbyt app and re-added. Deleted Duolingo and Tidbyt apps from my old phone. Nothing seems to work.

I have a similar issue. It was working just fine for about a month, and now I get the ERROR: Check Connection message. I hadn’t made any changes at all. I haven’t ruled out that my network could be blocking a url, but I’m not sure how to troubleshoot.

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I’m experiencing the same issue.

“ERROR: check connection”

I’ve tried removing the widget/reconfiguring/etc. No change in behavior.

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I just got my super-cool Tidbyt, and tried to set up the Duolingo tracker… “Error: Check Connection” is what’s displayed. There doesn’t seem to be a place to log in to Duolingo, which I would’ve thought I’d need to do to track this info. Help, please!

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Well at least I know I’m not alone and that it has nothing to do with my new phone.

It seems the Duolingo app has been updated, should be available in the app “store” soon. :slight_smile:

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Is anyone else still getting the “Error: Check Connection” screen? Mine will only work if I keep the default “saltedlolly” username in the settings. It won’t work with my username anymore.

@saltedlolly cc app creator

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Same here. Just get “error: check connection”. Bummer.

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Mine just started working again today. Anyone else?

Mine still has the error.

Yeah, the error came back today for me too. I swear it was working yesterday. Weird.

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Still getting the error, unfortunately.

Yeah, I did try and fix it but it seems Duolingo are blocking the queries coming from Tidbyt’s servers. The API is unofficial so there was always a risk that this might happen. I did try to minimise the frequency of the queries - it is only once every 20 mins for each user, but there are likely quite a few of us making that query now. If you self host it you might have more luck. I’ve been too busy recently to do a deep dive into the problem.

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That stinks. Thanks for the update though. It was one of my favorite Tidbyt apps. I’m leaving it in my rotation just in case it miraculously comes back to life one day.

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I wish I knew how the self hosting process worked. Total noob when it comes to coding but would love to have the Duolingo app working

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Hi @candido

I’ll do my best to explain the process (Note: this is from a Mac/Linux user perspective)

  1. Download the community github repo (this contains all the tidbyt apps including the duolingo app) (link)
  2. Make your own copy of the duolingo app somewhere (located at: community/apps/duolingo)
  3. Goto this file and open it: duolingo/duolingo.star
  4. Change lines 20-25 to the settings you want for the app (e.g. username etc)
  5. Get Pixlet installed on your computer, the official tidbyt docs do a good job explaining how (link)
    Note: This might be the hardest step for you.
  6. Get your Tidbyt Device ID and Key values in the Tidbyt mobile app (Settings → General → Get API Key)
  7. Load these values as Environment variables in your terminal:
export TIDBYT_DEVICE_ID=<DEVICE ID VALUE>
export TIDBYT_KEY=<KEY VALUE>

Note: Ideally these should be loaded in a .env or .bashrc or .profile file.
8. Create a shell script file to run the Tidbyt app and push it to your Tidbyt e.g. script.sh
9. script.sh file should contain something similar to the following:

# Render and generate WebP file
pixlet render ~/<path to duolingo folder>/duolingo/duolingo.star

# Deploy WebP file to Tidbyt
pixlet push --api-token $TIDBYT_KEY --installation-id DuolingoLocal $TIDBYT_DEVICE_ID ~/<path to duolingo folder>/duolingo/duolingo.webp
  1. Run the script to test if it’s working (in a terminal):
bash script.sh

Note: this is just a single manual trigger
11. If your Tidbyt shows the Duolingo app, then it’s working self hosted
12. Now you just need to automate this to trigger automatically at various times of the day. You can do this by creating a Cron job.

Enter this command to open the cron editor

crontab -e

Add something like this to the bottom and save (Note: use this website to formulate your own trigger timers

# Tidbyt Duolingo - Trigger at minute 0, every 3rd Hour between 9AM-9PM - Everyday
0 9-21/3 * * * . ~/.env && bash ~/<path to duolingo folder>/duolingo/script.sh

Note: Lower frequency is probably better so Duolingo doesn’t blacklist your IP.