Cannot change back emulator choice per Rom (solved)

Aryetis

Hello there,

For quite sometimes now (a month or so), I have a problems with emulators. Once I pick an emulator for a specific ROM I cannot change my pick anymore. It does not seems to be a write/read permissions issues as emulstation/runcommand has no problem whatsoever when I set the emulator for a specific ROM for the first time. But once it's done, it is DONE !
Am I the only one in this case ? Any clues ?

Thanks

Specs : Raspberry Pi3
Power Supply : Aukru 5V, 3A
RetroPie Version : 4.2.10,
No logs, no errors
How to replicate the problem:
1/ Launch whatever emulators and roms you feel like, then mash a button to get the runcommand/setup screen.
2/ Change the Option 2 "Select Emulator for ROM()" to whatever value you feel like
3/ This value is now locked ... You cannot change it anymore, it is effective, and no ammount of "Remove Emulator choice for ROM" will delete this choice.

Aryetis

Looks like the /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulators.cfg got corrupted I deleted it and made sure that pi did has permissions to write in the config files directory (sudo chown -R pi:pi /opt/retropie/configs) and it's all fixed.

Robertdan

This is the exact problem I had and deleting the emulators.cfg file fixed it. Thank you for sharing this info!

estefan3112

Confirmed, it also solved my problem! Very valuable information, many thanks!

benjiman

Sorry. Is there a noobs step by step for this? Do I need a computer or can I do it on my pie with a keyboard? Thanks😊

mitu

@benjiman What is the problem that you're having ? Simply deleting one file might not solve it.

benjiman

@mitu I chose a default ROM and find out it won't run the game so I try and change it and it sticks as the 1st choice. I also can't remove ROM choice. No error messages just stays as it is.

benjiman

@mitu example if I chose mame4all I hope it works cause it's Going to stay on that ROM. I have heard it can be caused by adding games through a flash drive which is how I do it.

mitu

@benjiman No, that's not the way you get a problem emulators.cfg. The file you seek is in /opt/retropie/configs/<system>/, where <system> is the name of the ROM folder.
If you used the arcade folder for your ROMs and then, through the Runcommand launch menu, changed the emulator for a certain ROM, the file that keeps this setting is /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/emulators.cfg. To change its permissions (which seems to be your problem), you can exit Emulationstation, then run from the command prompt (using a keyboard):

sudo chown pi:pi /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/emulators.cfg
chmod +w /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/emulators.cfg

benjiman

@mitu thank you 😎

ahmad8mk

I did exactly what mentioned here but still can`t change anything any ideas. @mitu

ahmad8mk

I did exactly what mentioned here but still can`t change anything any ideas @Aryetis

jackyracer

Hi! I know this entry is pretty old, but since I got the same problem very frequently I thought I‘d share what I did to resolve it, so people who might still find this thread during their search (as I did recently) have something else to try ;) On my system it really seemed to be the configs/all/emulators.cfg file which somehow got corrupted, and weird stuff got written to the file. If I opened it with notepad I simply had to remove that weird stuff/characters and then was able to write to the file again (e.g. changing an emulator for a specific rom, remove it again and so on). So I didn’t have to delete the file and lose all settings/changes made to it (which can be quite a lot). Maybe this helps someone...

Knuckles78

@jackyracer Complete new here having the exact same problem. Could you possibly help guide me to that config file?

mitu

@Knuckles78 The emulators.cfg file is in \\retropie\configs\all - if you're using File Shares to access your RetroPie installation.

Knuckles78

@mitu I’m accessing it directly through terminal. I attempted the “sudo chown pi:pi etc.” you posted previously with no results. Like I said I’m pretty new and I think it’s because I’m still in Raspberry pi rather than RetroPie inside terminal.

mitu

@Knuckles78 said in Cannot change back emulator choice per Rom (solved):

I’m accessing it directly through terminal

The command I posted works from the terminal. How are you checking that it's working/not-working ? You can list the rights on the file(s) by running:

ls -l /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulators.cfg
ls -l /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/emulators.cfg

IanDaemon

@mitu I love the ls -l look. Aside from requiring the extra characters that more than double the command's length it's great. XD

Clyde

@IanDaemon -l stands for "long listing format" with good reason. :)

mitu

You can always create 'aliases' for long commands. ll is a oft used alias of ls -l, just add

alias ll='ls -l'

to your $HOME/.profile and that's all.
Favorite command today apt-get moo.