SNES does not show at all

Tanneseph · 25 Mar 2018, 19:50

Hello! I'm very new to anything like this. In fact, I thought once I got Retropie on my SD card, and my roms on my thumb drive, I'd be good to go. I was wrong!

I have a pile of SNES roms in the correct directory on my thumb drive. I'm confident I haven't bungled that because I've successfully run ROMs from the NES, GBA, Genesis, and PS1. My SNES roms show as .smc files, and also have .smc in their filename, a solution I've found here via a search. I've restarted the device several times, and they aren't showing (thought I mysteriously had to do that for most of my PS1 collection?)

Here's the info I can provide as requested in the stickied post:

Pi Model or other hardware: (B, B+, 2 B, 3, X86 PC etc..): Pi 3 Model B
Power Supply used: (If using a Pi) The official Raspberry Pi unit - 2.5A
RetroPie Version Used (eg 3.6, 3.8.1, 4.1 - do not write latest): 4.3
Built From: (Pre made SD Image on RetroPie website, Berryboot, or on top of existing OS etc.. - please provide the filename of any image used) Downloaded image from Retropie website.
USB Devices connected: Thumb drive.
Controller used: PS4 via Bluetooth.
Error messages received: n/a - Just not receiving SNES as an option despite a pile of ROMs
Guide used: (Mention if you followed a guide): Most of it was via Lifehacker.
Emulator: (Name of emulator - if applicable) Can't see to even try the other options

Thanks for reading this far, and for your time in general.

mitu · 25 Mar 2018, 20:20

@tanneseph Forget Lifehacker (!) and follow the guide at https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-drive/ to get your ROMs running from an USB drive.

Tanneseph · 25 Mar 2018, 22:29

Is there a problem with the Lifehacker guide? The author has written extensively on the Pi and seems super passionate and clear.

Anyway: I applied the Retropie image onto my micro SD, plugged it into my Pi, added a Retropie folder to the thumb drive via my desktop computer, then plugged it into the Pi. After the Pi formatted it, I took it back to the desktop and placed roms in their corresponding subfolders. I have successfully played roms on my Pi from four different consoles. With those all being successful, is it really possible that it's the process I took? Asking honestly, this stuff flies past my head.

mediamogul · 25 Mar 2018, 22:38

@tanneseph said in SNES does not show at all:

Is there a problem with the Lifehacker guide?

It's just not a good practice to follow guides outside of the official documentation. The specifics of RetroPie are always changing and information found elsewhere has the potential to become outdated very quickly.

Edit: Are you able to connect from a remote computer to confirm whether or not the SNES ROMs were indeed transferred?

Tanneseph · 26 Mar 2018, 00:25

@mediamogul

I can definitely understand that general reasoning.

I've technically configured wifi on my Pi, and it's technically connected to my home network, but I don't have the skills to do anything with it.

Sorry about all this. $70 ago, I thought it was as tough as getting the Retropie image on the card and loading up some roms.

mediamogul · 26 Mar 2018, 00:56

@tanneseph said in SNES does not show at all:

I thought it was as tough as getting the Retropie image on the card and loading up some roms.

It can be that simple and even is most of the time. It's just that with anything technical, problems can always arise. Have you read over the transfer technique that @mitu linked to? Does it differ in any way from the lifehacker guide? Do you know if the guide instructed how to read ROMs directly from the USB drive, or if it was meant to copy the ROMs to the SD card? If it's the latter, you can check to see if the ROMs actually transferred over using the information in the links below.

https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Transferring-Roms#samba-shares
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Transferring-Roms#sftp

If you don't have a lot of time invested in the setup, you may just want to start over using the official documentation. Keep in mind as you move forward that the Raspberry Pi is intended as a hobbyist computer and RetroPie is an extension of that idea. It was never meant to be a plug and play alternative to something like an NES Classic. Dealing with these types of obstacles and learning as you go is normal and will ultimately help you maintain your $70 investment over time.

Tanneseph · 26 Mar 2018, 01:11

That's probably what I'll do, then, unless some sort of miracle reply happens. So weird that it was mostly successful, but not entirely successful.

I will definitely caution people that think this is a step above plug and play, but shoot. It's everyone's favorite way to shut up someone who whines about NES Classic availability ;p "Just make a Raspberry Pi with emulators! So easy!"

mediamogul · 26 Mar 2018, 01:35

@tanneseph said in SNES does not show at all:

It's everyone's favorite way to shut up someone who whines about NES Classic availability ;p "Just make a Raspberry Pi with emulators! So easy!"

Again, most of the time, a simple setup will go off without a hitch. Still, just about anyone you'll talk to around here are not big fans of the plug and play mentality. It's somewhat disingenuous and even goes against the nature of the project as being a hobbyist environment. What I hate most are ad-based, article-driven websites who use the notion of RetroPie as a plug and play alternative to drive traffic to their site. They don't have to deal with supporting all the users that are potentially burnt by their misinformation. Even worse, they profit from it.

Tanneseph · 26 Mar 2018, 01:41

@mediamogul

I can absolutely respect that now.

Tanneseph · 26 Mar 2018, 13:13

@tanneseph I'm assuming that I can just delete the Retropie folder on my thumb drive. Do I need to do anything special to remove the Retropie image on my SD card?

mediamogul · 26 Mar 2018, 13:25

@tanneseph

Deleting the RetroPie folder from your thumb drive is enough. Also, when you flash a new image to your SD, it'll overwrite any previous data.

Tanneseph · 26 Mar 2018, 14:01

@mediamogul Excellent. Thank you so much for all of your kindness.

mediamogul · 26 Mar 2018, 15:10

@tanneseph

Not problem. I think you'll find that everyone around here is very helpful. Anymore questions, just ask.

rbaker · 26 Mar 2018, 19:59

@tanneseph said in SNES does not show at all:

and it's technically connected to my home network, but I don't have the skills to do anything with it.

Well I think you probably do. If WiFi is indeed connected to your home network then just use Samba Shares in windows to drag and drop roms into folders. That's what I do.

Go to the network settings or my computer etc in Windows and type \\retropie

You will find that the roms, configs and bios folders are all there. Now just drag and drop. Effortless.

Tanneseph · 26 Mar 2018, 20:31

@rbaker Wow, thanks! This is what I mean about being out of my depth, though. Or at least new to so much. In the process of this, I learned about ImgBurn and ripping my PS1 disks (I also ripped my PS2 disks before I learned that I wouldn't be running those on the Pi), and then I had to learn about Win32diskimager to install Retropie. I used to goof around with my desktop a little beyond, like, Word, web-surfing, and games, but haven't had to in years. And games require less of that sort of thing than they used to, obviously, so anything I had there is total rust.

In some ways that makes this exciting, but MAN do I get nervous downloading and using programs I don't actually understand. That will probably make using the official guide this time a little less stressful.

Tanneseph · 26 Mar 2018, 21:55

I tried reformatting the card with Win32DiskImager. It said "Access Denied" a couple of times. I looked this up, and it was suggested on a video that I try out SD_CardFormatter. This one took around 10 minutes to flash the disk (right terminology?), but it -seemed- to do something!

When I plugged it into the Pi and booted it, nothing showed up on my monitor. At first I was panicked, thinking I somehow damaged the display port. No particular reason, I just treat the thing like it was made of spun glass. Googling lead me to wonder if I just had a red light inside, or red and green. I'm just getting red. So that means it's not reading anything off of the card, right? I made extra sure that it was facing the right way in the slot and it was far enough in after that, but no change.

I type all of this out partially so you guys know that I'm not trying to abuse this resource/your time, that I'm trying to fix it by myself. At this point, I don't know if the card is corrupted (please don't be a corrupted card, I don't really want to buy more stuff), or if there's a better way to clean up the card and get Retropie on there again. I thought I'd ask you after doing this much by myself - for all I know, I've taken my circumstances and come to a wrong conclusion or two.

Thanks, as ALWAYS, for your time.

Tanneseph · 27 Mar 2018, 00:47

Okay. In the previous post, the "Access Denied" bit always happened when Win32etc was at 2% progress. While waiting on advice, I figured that the flash (right terminology?) from SD_CardFormatter went so poorly, I could at least try a re-do with Win32etc.

This time it went the whole way through the process! I plugged it into my Pi, flipped it on, and things showed up on the screen! Yay things! But the scrolling text stopped abruptly. The last line started with "Kernel panic" and ended with 179, 2. I followed instructions stating to hold Shift and turn the device back on, but it didn't respond.

So, what the heck, clearly there's -something- going on with my Retropie install, right? I tried using Win32etc again..... and we've come full circle, back to it stating "Access Denied" right at exactly 2%.

I hope this information isn't totally random, and helps paint a picture to someone. Bad Pi? Bad SD card? PEBKAC?

herb_fargus · 27 Mar 2018, 01:34

@tanneseph use etcher. Much simpler than win32diskimager.

rbaker · 27 Mar 2018, 06:47

@tanneseph SD Card Formatter is to prepare the card. Win32 Disk imager is to write the retropie image to the prepared card. You have to complete the stages in order. You format the card according to the guide. You then write the image to the formatted card using Disk Imager (after extracting the file - you will extract the downloaded .gz file and the extracted file will be a .img file). The whole process is very fast - less than an few minutes. It is important that you have a genuine SD card and not a fake. I always use Class 10 Sandisks and have never had an issue. Etcher is another option because it means that you do no have to unzip (extract) the image from the file that you download first. You can write the image directly to a card from the file you download.

Tanneseph · 27 Mar 2018, 22:26

I used Etcher, and was successful in flashing a loading SD.

After the long process of transferring my roms, I have discovered SNES -still- to be missing. I triple-confirmed that I placed them in the "snes" folder.

Also, the first time I booted this iteration, I saw no PS1 games. This happened with my first iteration. Back then, the second time I booted it, I could see just a couple of my PS1 roms (no rhyme or reason on which), then a couple of loads later I could see all of the PS1s.

So this time I immediately tried reloading ES, since that seems to be an answer to Things. Boom - four random PS1 roms out of at least a dozen. Still now SNES roms.

I tried reloading ES, and then the whole Pi, one time each. No new ROMs.

Furthermore, half the time "shutting down" the Pi involves a bunch of script, then a black screen. At that point I hit the power switch on my NesPi case. Now, the other half of the time I get a colorful, small ASCII screen with a Retropie joystick and such. It -seems- like a quit screen I should've always been getting?

Finally, I noticed that sometimes, in the middle of all that startup text, there's "FAILED" followed by something along the lines of "failed to mount 'usbdrive.'" If this is useful information, I'm happy to catch a pic of it with my phone and share.

Hopefully these details paint a picture that makes sense to someone. I followed the official guide this time.