Emulation Station stops responding at No Controllers Detected. Keyboard also halts.

rasp_renegade

Same thing. Safe to say it is not a power issue. Where can I find relevant logs?

I now have
an external HDD with its own power supply
a USB Hub with its own power supply.

I have tried
plugging keyboard, USB Hub, and USB drive into the Pi
plugging everything into the USB Hub, and the Hub connected to the Pi.

After an insane amount of hours wasted, I am wondering now if RetroPie actually works. =/

psyke83

Check the dmesg log and see what input/USB devices are being detected by the kernel. RetroPie is simply a collection of scripts running on Raspbian, so if it works in the plain distribution, it should work here too.

rasp_renegade

@psyke83 said in Emulation Station stops responding at No Controllers Detected. Keyboard also halts.:

dmesg log
Well that didnt seem to reveal much. Hardware seems to be fine since it detects the inputs.....

rasp_renegade

Is there an official forum where experts can help???

jonnykesh

@rasp_renegade Being snarky is definitely going to get you assistance...
Anyway, you said "RetroPe 4.3 running on external USB drive (Also tried 4.2)" , Are you running from a live bootable Linux dsitro?

mitu

@rasp_renegade Yes, it's called experts-exchange, but its long dead.
Kidding aside, have you tried updating your Raspbian image via apt-get update && apt-get upgrade ?
It's strange you say you tried 4.3, but from the dmes output it seems you're runnning an old libraspberry package and since this commit any updates for the RetroPie will trigger the installation of a newer libraspberrypi package.

rasp_renegade

@jonnykesh Sorry, did not mean to come across like that. I mean developers when I say experts. You are an expert compared to me!!! No, I boot from the Pi's microUSB, with commandline pointing to the external HDD where RetroPie is installed from by Image
@mitu I have the images on four different devices. The one I ran the logs on was a random pick. But I will make sure all of them are at 4.3 now.

herb_fargus

@rasp_renegade man I hate walls of text. Especially on mobile. Please post walls of text on pastebin and provide a link instead

rasp_renegade

@herb_fargus Sorry! I even read that post first. It is here -https://pastebin.com/zupWD24S I deleted the wall.

@mitu I have the uploaded dmesg running 4.3. When I run sudo apt-get update && apt-get upgrade I get this..

Fetched 7,822 kB in 32s (238 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13: Permission denied)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you root?

herb_fargus

@rasp_renegade thanks you're my new favourite person. Try

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

rasp_renegade

@herb_fargus Well crap, that makes sense, thanks. I ran previously before I extended the file system, now I cannot get the prompt when booed into sda2. (frozen at controller screen). Is there a key combo I can press when the RetroPie logo is displayed, to stop emulationstaton to load?

mitu

@rasp_renegade Try Ctrl+C to interrupt the running program, but if you keyboard is working then press F4 to exit ES.

rasp_renegade

Thanks @mitu !!!!! CTRL-C got it and ,maybe ESC lol

The update/ upgrade installed a bunch of stuff, but I am still at that dreadful screen that has haunted me for weeks.

What about logs the lead up to the event of the system crash? var/log/ then would syslog be the best one to look in? I saw nothing useful there.

matchaman

Something that caused me trouble in the past...

Do you happen to use a fan? Are you using the official power supply?

rasp_renegade

@matchaman Yes it is the power supply that came in the kit. I do not have a fan. Is it required?

mitu

@rasp_renegade Ok, so you got the system updated. Can you try just booting the system with the USB HDD (external powered) and then attaching the keyboard and controllers one by one after boot to see if it's working ? Check the dmesg command after adding the each and see if it's detected.

Can you post your /etc/fstaband the /boot/config.txt to see how you mounted your partitions and which options you chose for boot ?
EDIT: in order to temporarily disable EmulationStation from trying to start up, edit the /opt/retropie/configs/all/autostart.sh file and comment (with a # at the beginning of the line) the ES auto-start. You can always start it from the keyboard by just typing emulationstation.

matchaman

No, a fan is not required if you don't overclock but a heatsink is very recommended.

I was asking because when I used a particular fan, it was hit-and-miss with the gamepad. The fan was drawing too much energy! A different fan of the same size/specs solved the issue.

As for the power supply, since it's the official, it shouldn't be the cause of such a problem.

rasp_renegade

@mitu

Taking me forever to get back to this!! ......Helping me turn off the autoload was HUGE. Thanks!!! =)

Running dmesg -wH shows me all four controllers when I connect them by vendor, etc. Two of the controllers have errors, but I will deal with that later.

Here are the files.

Config.txt (isnt doing much )- https://pastebin.com/MhWTV7K3
FSTAB - https://pastebin.com/sDn0D4Wg
DMESG - https://pastebin.com/PBDLJ0DM (should I boot into RetroPie to get the output?)

mitu

@rasp_renegade So the config file is stock, and so if the /etc/fstab file. I assume the external HDD is auto-mounted by the usbromservice since there's no entry in the /etc/fstab file for it.
There is no specific error in the dmesg file, but it looks like your keyboard is registered twice. At this point, the only thing that comes into mind is that due to the high number of USB devices connected, the USB hub on the PI is not able to finish initialization during boot.
What happens if you boot normally - no USB devices connected - then attach the devices one by one, making sure that the USB HDD is the last device connected ?

psyke83

The second detection of the keyboard just as the USB drive is probed seems suspicious. That suggests to me that the USB ports are not coping with the load from the external USB drive.

I have a Pi 3 with the official power brick, a USB drive and a USB keyboard connected. If I try to plug in a DualShock3, my USB drive will either lose power (sudden drive parking) or will give USB errors.

Try to temporarily take the USB drive out of the equation entirely; test a boot from SD card with nothing but the keyboard connected. If the keyboard operates correctly (and is detected only once), then try to eliminate which component is causing issues, if not the USB drive as I suspect.