No music without boot text

Clyde

@mitu I just thought of the effect on normal Linux distros when you switch from the graphical desktop to another tty and any playing sound stops until you login as the same user on that tty as on the desktop. But I'm not that familiar with the inner workings of the ttys.

mitu

@bobharris Can you check if the BGM script is started after a reboot ? Look in the list of processes with ps -ef | grep pythonfrom a SSH session or from a command line, after exiting Emulationstation.

cyperghost

@mitu @BobHarris I think that the mpg123 player, which was once presented by @synack is one of the best methods. It is seemless integrated into runcommand.shvia the -onend and -onstart calls. There is no juggleling with python scripts that simple build an array of emulators and ask PID if an emulator is running or not.

The thread can be found here - Quick and easy guide for adding music to Emulatonstation on RetroPie. Noob friendly!

I think I also posted some scripts to mute/unmute the player via RetroPie-Menu there :D

BobHarris

@mitu I don't think that will be necessarily. I think I've located the problem and it has nothing to do with hiding the boot text (like you thought from the beginnning). I had made one other change, that I thought was not worth mentioning.

Before I made any of these changes, when booting the Pi I often saw this text:
'A startup job is running for dhcpcd on all interfaces.'
This almost doubled the boot time, so I went to raspi config and disabled 'wait for network at boot', which remedied the issue.
But there is another message I almost always get when I boot the Pi:
'Failed to start usbmount@dev-sda service.'

So what I think happens is this:
Before my changes the Pi would boot up slower, but this extra time gives the Pi the chance to mount the usb drive during the boot process. Then the music works (I store the tracks on my usb flash drive). By shortening the boot time, the usb drive isn't mounted in time and the music can't start.

So the question now is: How do I get rid of the 'Failed to start usbmount@dev-sda service message'?
The alternative solution would be to store the music on the micro sd, but for me it's easier to store them on the flash drive. (Then I don't have to make a new backup of my sd everytime I put some new songs on there; I just add the songs to my usb flash drive backup on my hard drive.)

(I had the same issue with a splash screen video: Every time I got the message 'Failed to start usbmount@dev-sda service' the video wouldn't load. Once in a while I wouldn't get the Failed message and the video started. I had to move the video to the sd card for it to work every time.)

@cyperghost I made sure the script kills the music for all my emulators, so it works fine for me. At the time I was deciding between the two methods the Python script had some benefits for me: Different music track after quitting a game, fade out when starting a game, the option to set a start song: Playstation 1 boot sound.

mitu

@bobharris You could try and move the music start command to the RetroPie autostart script and remove it from /etc/rc.local. You can edit the Autostart script from the RetroPie-Setup script, in the Configuration / tools / autostart section, and add the command there. Check if that makes a difference, I assume that if ES is able to read the USB (with the ROMs), so will the script.

BobHarris

@mitu I'm not really familiar with these edits so I hope you can walk me trough it. This is what is inside rc.local :
#!/bin/sh -e

rc.local

This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.

Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other

value on error.

In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution

bits.

By default this script does nothing.

Print the IP address

_IP=$(hostname -I) || true
if [ "$_IP" ]; then
printf "My IP address is %s\n" "$_IP"
fi
(sudo python /home/pi/PyScripts/bgmusic.py) &
exit 0

What do I leave in this file and what do I move to autostart.sh?
In autostart.sh , do I copy the text on the same line as 'emulationstation #auto' or on the next line or maybe it doesn't make a difference?

mitu

@bobharris said in No music without boot text:

What do I leave in this file and what do I move to autostart.sh?

Add an # before the line containing (sudo python /home/pi/PyScripts/bgmusic.py) &

In autostart.sh , do I copy the text on the same line as 'emulationstation #auto' or on the next line or maybe it doesn't make a difference?

Add a new line, before the emulationstation #auto line, with

(python /home/pi/PyScripts/bgmusic.py) &

BobHarris

@mitu I'm having a hard time typing a hashtag symbol instead of a pound sterling symbol. I even changed the localisation /keyboard options and rebooted but to no effect.
Have to go to work now, when I get back I will make the changes through SSH. I will let you know if it solved my issue. Thanks so far!

BobHarris

@mitu I ran into some other problems, so I decided to just move the music folder to the sd. Music works, boot time is quick and the boot text is hidden. Thanks anyway!

BobHarris

@mitu I gave it another shot and moving the line to autostart did the trick! Music still starts and I get to keep the music folder on my usb stick. Thanks!