Startup fail after an update

LouCoassin

@gordonfreemanjr
An option would be to plug the SD card into a Windows PC with a reader and download the free software EaseUs Partition Manager and expand it that way (if thats the problem).

Otherwise, I'm sure many would instruct you to SSH into the pi via Windows and try from there. There are many threads here on that topic already.

gordonfreemanjr

OK, I managed to get to the command line with the keyboard working. From what I've read, I need to expand the card. Can anyone guide me how to do that from the command line without the emulation station working?

EDIT: tried deleting larger roms, but it's no use.

mitu

@gordonfreemanjr said in Startup fail after an update:

From what I've read, I need to expand the card.

A typical RetroPie installation will do the expansion on the 1st run, so your card is probably already using its full capacity. You can do that typing sudo raspi-configand following the onscreen menu.
You say you tried deleting larger ROMs and it's not working, what's the error you're getting now ?

gordonfreemanjr

@mitu It's the same; Emulation Station fails to load and sends me back to the command line with the message about no space left on the device.

mitu

@gordonfreemanjr If you still don't have space, even after deleting ROMs enough to make room, then maybe your SD card is in read-only mode.
Can you see the available space in the welcome message that appears at the command prompt (following ES crash) ? How much is it ?

gordonfreemanjr

It jus says 100%, 15G/15G. I guess large ROMs might just be not enough.

Does it make sense to copy whole ROMS folder onto a USB stick, restart, copy the folder back?

mitu

@gordonfreemanjr said in Startup fail after an update:

Does it make sense to copy whole ROMS folder onto a USB stick, restart, copy the folder back?

Sure, it's perfectly fine. Just make sure you don't copy again all the ROMs so it fills up the partition and you'd get into the same problem.

gordonfreemanjr

I'm kind of puzzled with how the update works. So I've downloaded bunch of stuff and now the system needs to restart to run it correctly. OK. I know I have put a lot of roms, probably too much, on my Pi, however it was never a problem until now.

Does the system need more space than usual just for the single time when rebooting after an update?

Clyde

@gordonfreemanjr said in Startup fail after an update:

Does the system need more space than usual just for the single time when rebooting after an update?

Yes (but not only a single time), because the update downloads new packages and extracts them for installation. The downloaded packages remain in the system for quick reinstallation until you delete them with the command sudo apt-get clean.

edit: Updates from source can take even more space because of the compilation process. I think these files are not deleted automatically, but maybe someone else here knows more about it.

mitu

@gordonfreemanjr said in Startup fail after an update:

Does the system need more space than usual just for the single time when rebooting after an update?

No, the RetroPie updates should not add significantly more space during or after the process, since it downloads and updates each package one by one.

If you choose to 'Update the underlying OS packages' during the update, then the space usage might grow proportional to how many packages are released by Raspbian and how large they are. Since they're all downloaded before the update takes place, they take more space than the usual RetroPie upgrades, but well below 1 Gb of space. Linux takes the precaution of reserving 5% of the partition for the system/super user by default.

As a general rule, any system you need to update needs to have some space available and any filesystem will perform poorly once it gets close to 100% usage.

gordonfreemanjr

Can you tell me how to get to the point where the system asks you to put in the login (pi) and the password (raspberry)?

The thing is if I just leave the system to it, I land at the command line - after the "aborted" and "no space left on the device" prompts - and the keyboard does not respond, so I'm unable to type in anything. However, if I just press random buttons during the boot, I end up with the login request, and after I log myself in - the keyboard works fine. So, to do anything I need to get to this login point. How do I do this without just raping the keyboard like a madman?

mitu

@gordonfreemanjr Just press ctrl+c during the Emulationstation start-up and the command will stop, you should be dropped to a command line where you can start the file manager (mc) and move files around. If the keyboard does not work, try disconnecting/connecting it again while the system is started.

gordonfreemanjr

OK. One more thing before I'll make an attempt: if I move the ROMS folder onto a USB stick, leaving the system without the ROMS folder, will it boot?

gordonfreemanjr

@mitu OK, the mc command does not work. The message is: "Cannot create home/pi/.config/mc directory"
(For the record: Crtlc+C didn't work also, had to do random keyboard mashing again)

mitu

@gordonfreemanjr Didn't work because you still have not enough space for it to create the config file. Delete some files manually using rm <path/to/file_or_folder>.

gordonfreemanjr

@mitu I made it! I have deleted whole scummvm folder, rebooted and the ES finallt works!

Thank you everyone. The problem is officially solved.