RetroPie randomly freezing/crashing while browsing through game lists.

pjft

@beastmode thanks. For better or for worse, then, we can attribute it somehow to at least the video rendering having a role in it.

I may create a debug build for the two of you if it helps, that would log a lot more information. Would that be something you'd be available to use?

Thanks.

beastmode

@pjft That would be great. I'm glad to help in any way.

BigMan1982

@pjft said in RetroPie randomly freezing/crashing while browsing through game lists.:

@bigman1982 thanks.

I'm struggling to understand why or how exactly can you replicate it so consistently. It might be a different problem, but let's explore that as well.

Could you try out the two steps described earlier then and report back?

disable OMX player, see how it goes.

set the view to Detailed only, see how it goes.

In your case though I'm intrigued as to whether it's a problem with that exact set of games, or is it that the number of (something - page refreshes, videos loaded, images loaded) when you get there that causes the problem.

What happens if you use R1 to get there and then navigate to those games?

Also, can you login via SSH, install htop or top and run it, and then lead it to a freeze and see what htop or top report, and send it over here?

Thank you!

@pjft it still freezes with OMX player off, but works fine with detailed view only (and OMX on)!

I can R1 right past the games and keep scrolling fine after that through the complete rest of the list and back to the top.

@beastmode reported that the freeze crashes htop and top. I am unfamiliar with that to be honest. Additionally I am not sure that I am comfortable running a debug build as I am not deeply versed.

pjft

@bigman1982 Sure. I'm happy to help if you're open to trying things out.

I suppose, before we dive deeper into anything you may not be comfortable with, that I'd have some suggestions for you.

If your problems seem to effectively be related to those MU games, may I suggest - either in the gamelist, or in the actual video folder - to rename the videos (so that EmulationStation can't find the videos) for those problem games (all the MU ones), and then set the view back to "Automatic", so you have videos again, and try to go through the list the way it used to crash.

If that works fine, I will be inclined to believe that there is a problem with those videos - either their encoding, or it could be that the storage media (SD card or USB drive) where you have the videos is corrupted in the sectors which some or all of those videos are stored, hence the crash.

Let me know the outcome of it, and we can then go from there.

Do you have a computer at home, and have you ever connected to your Pi via SSH?

Best.

beastmode

@tmntturtlguy @pjft I was doing a bit more testing earlier today. I loaded the Carbon theme (Automatic view style) and enabled the omx player, and haven't experienced any crashes so far. Browsing the game list seems very fluid. I've noticed the system seems to crash when the browsing is less fluid (slight delay in browsing individual game titles)

TMNTturtlguy

@beastmode based on this I still suspect the file sizes of your scraped images, marquees and videos are to large and ES struggles when trying to load all of them in a single view. This is why you experience crashes in themes that show 2 or 3 of these at the same time and have no issues when in detailed views or with themes that only display one of these items, like carbon.

pjft

@TMNTturtlguy 's hypothesis might have some merit to it, though we would hopefully be better able to handle it.

I'd recommend sticking with carbon for a bit and seeing if no crashes take place.

I will see if I can provide a debug build perhaps next week, if not earlier.

Thanks.

BigMan1982

@pjft I do like your suggestion and will try it this weekend. Also I have 1 additional SD card so I can try the image on it to see if the problem persists.

I have connected via SSH using WinSCP for all kinds of things.

pjft

Great!

So, if you have, just run "top" in the terminal before getting it to freeze, and when it freezes see what top is reporting on. How much CPU and memory usage is taking place, and what are the top processes using it up.

It may also completely freeze, but if it doesn't maybe it could shine some light.

Thanks and sorry for the trouble.

BigMan1982

@pjft running top was pretty easy. I had to add a variable to get it to run, no big deal. I also limited the lines to 20 because when it was running, it kept over writing faster than I could catch it. Hopefully these images help. Nothing jumps out at me... Here is the "frozen" state.

...and here it is running.

I did not get around to messing with the video preview names. I just don't have the time to devote to it. The menu works with art instead of video, so it's related to video for sure. I am just going to hide the ALL GAMES menu and move on. Fact is, I was only using it as a tool to identify duplicate games across systems. I am done with that now, so I am just going to work on things that are more important to me at this time. I feel like I am abandoning ship...sorry. Thanks for all you have done and for all that you have contributed to this community. I greatly appreciate it.

beastmode

@tmntturtlguy Yeah. I'm going to redo them all this weekend. Been pretty busy.

pjft

@beastmode Thanks. Let us know how it goes! Real life takes precedence, of course. :)

@bigman1982 Thanks for trying it out and for testing. Yeah, nothing jumps out.

If your problem is effectively only in the All Games thingie, definitely turn it off, though I'm surprised it doesn't happen in the same games in other folders. At least try that and see if opening those MU games in their original folders works.

Thanks for all the help - don't feel you're jumping ship at all. This is all voluntary for everyone.

If we do end up needing to dig deep into this, I'll mention you here again.

Enjoy RetroPie in the meantime!

BigMan1982

@pjft sooo...funny story. I was going through my NES games and it froze! on an "Mu" title! After reboot, I switched to BASIC display mode and deleted Muppet adventure and Mutant Adventure because I could not tell if it was freezing on or before the game. Then I switched back to VIDEO display mode and the lists worked! In both All Games and NES. Looking back at an older picture that I took when it was frozen, it froze in all games above Muppet Adventure! So the Muppet Adventure video was the culprit! Need less to say that video will be deleted from my back up files too!

Thank you for all the help along the way! Problem solved!

pjft

@bigman1982 not a bother, thanks for reporting what was causing your issues, and glad you sorted it out.

Indeed, I haven't had a crash since last time I reported, and I hadn't had a crash prior to that, so I'm really at a loss.

I'd suggest getting a new video for that game so that your collection isn't incomplete, though:)

Edit: and you can now peruse the full collections experience without worrying about it crashing in the all games collection when crossing that game :)

Cheers.

jell

I suspect a memory leak related to video previews. I just posted something similar I noticed after implementing video previews. While running 'top' logged in via ssh, with each video preview, the free memory went down a bit and stayed down, bottoming out around 80k. Even when left idle overnight, the memory did not free up. Only rebooting the pi freed up the memory.