Linux beginner RPI 5, GPIO + ethercat 4 axis adventure

Establishing Ethercat communication is covered beautifully by  forum.linuxcnc.org/ethercat/45336-etherc...-how-to-step-by-step  

But for those like me who struggle with following instructions you might encounter the following error
 
because you failed to modify the ethercat conf file located 
with

MASTER0_DEVICE="xx:aa:yy:zz:bb:cc"DEVICE_MODULES="generic"

 

beware that is might not show an error like this if you missed the  DEVICE_MODULES="generic" line further down the file. but it did not behave as expected / work. 

the end result of   "sudo systemctl status ethercat.service" should look like this
 

To confirm that Ethercat is trying to do something, but without any slave devices attached the command " ethercat master" should provide some conformation that something is going on. the output of the command should appear something like this.
 





 

Unfortunately the ethercat code has nothing to do with linuxcnc so we have no control over the features it offers.
(Other than to wite instructions which you ignore at your own peril ) image missing /media/kunena/emoticons/w00t.png

Well hopefully it gives a few people like yourself a chuckle Rodw.
I hope my antics didn't come across as a criticism.

I am impressed but Ethercat , Linux CNC and the supporting documentation available, i'm just a bit of a bumbling idiot who has no idea what he is doing.

The fact i have made any progress at all ( i got some lights to flash on demand) is a testament to the efforts of people like yourself in making a complex and intricate system accessible to a digital novice like me.