RetroPie does not boot to ES. Shuts down immediately.

mitu

@jordnam128 Check this post for how to boot the RPI in safe mode. Afterwards, you can inspect the Linux partition where the system resides (see the notes in the post above) and check the logs.

Did you - by any chance - had the ControlBlock driver installed ?

tony_retrogamer

Same thing happened to me. I did update it and have the ControlBlock driver installed again. This is the 5th time Retropie got corrupted. I am tired of having to start over everytime.

RedBatman

What's the control block driver?

tony_retrogamer

I don't know but now I have to start over again. This is why I play these emulators more on my computer.

JordnAM128

@mitu

I cannot confirm installing the ControlBlock Driver. The ControlBlock device is not being used.

Do we know why this would have occurred during the update process?

Thanks

mitu

@jordnam128 Maybe you inadvertently installed it, even if you don't have the device attached. The update installed a newer version, which has this behavior or rebooting if it doesn't detect the device.

Solaris

For anyone having Retropie SD card corrupt. I did an image of my retropie micro sd card usung the dd command and putting it on a external HDD. Suggest doing the same.

The syntax is easy.

1- Plug the external HDD to the pi.
2- Plug a USB keyboard
3- Drop to command line (press F4 or exit emulation station or use SSH).
4- Do the lsblk command in linux and locate the device that the sd card is in (should be /dev/sda). The HDD should be /dev/sdb .
5- Then do dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb/piimage.dd -v
(-v is for verbose to check the status)
6-Wait for a while (15 min at least), the command line would look like it is frozen. Be patient.
7-Once it is finished, you can play again.

To restore a backup, either boot in a live Linux USB stick with a microsd card and the external HDD plugged, do the lsblk command, identify where your microsd and HDD are, then do:

dd if=/dev/deviceofhdd/piimage.dd of=/dev/deviceofmicrosd

Retropie get corrupted easily especially when you pull the power because of a bad config, this will save you a lot of time.

Be very careful with this command. It is not for newbie but it is a very powerful and quick command to do backups.

JordnAM128

@mitu I would not be surprised if this was the case.

Assuming I modify the cmdline.txt file to boot into a safe mode on the Raspberry Pi, is there a way to bypass the ControlBlock detection. I'm thinking that this would resolve the issue.

Just to clarify, where does the retropie store these error/log files?

Thank you once again.

mitu

@jordnam128 Retropie does not get to run at this stage, so there's no place to look for errors. If you boot into safe mode, remove the /etc/init.d/controlblockservice file and reboot afterwards.
If you manage to fix it like this, make sure you run the RetroPie setup script and uninstall the ControlBlock driver so it doesn't get re-installed next time you update RetroPie.

JordnAM128

@solaris Thanks for the suggestion.

I already have a backup. However, I had made significant progress on some games. And, would rather try to fix the issue first.

Thanks

JordnAM128

@mitu That did the trick!! Thank you so much for the assistance!