Gamelist Locations

[hansolo77]

Thanks I'll take a look.

[hansolo77]

Nothing plainly obvious... Who should own the rompaths? Right now, the path that isn't being read right is owned by root.

[mitu]

@hansolo77 the roms folders should always be owned by the pi user. Reset your ROM folder permissions from RetroPie setup script - https://retropie.org.uk/docs/FAQ/#reset-ownershippermissions-of-homepiretropie-roms.

[hansolo77]

That script doesn't do anything it seems. It shows it's executing, but when I check, all the folders are still owned by root.

---

EDIT - You have to run the RetroPi-Setup script as a SUDO, and the script that runs for "resetromdirs" looks like this:

function gui_resetromdirs() {
    printHeading "Resetting $romdir ownershop/permissions"
    mkUserDir "$romdir"
    mkUserDir "$biosdir"
    chown -R $user:$user "$romdir"
    chown -R $user:$user "$biosdir"
    chmod -R ug+rwX "$romdir"
    chmod -R ug+rwX "$biosdir"
}

So we're executing the script as root, and it sets them as root. Right?

[cyperghost]

@hansolo77 No, in no means

type sudo whoami -- root
and then
type sudo who am i -- %USER%

[mitu]

@hansolo77 The script is meant to be executed with sudo, not as root. The $user is the account executing the sudo command. If you start the script from the RetroPie menu, it's executed with sudo from under the pi user and it will do the right thing.
Don't execute the script as root, it will mess up a lot of things because it will set $user to root.

[hansolo77]

I dunno. I've run the script many times and it doesen't change anything. I've also logged in through Putty and ran the command sudo chown -R pi:pi "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/" and it still didn't change the permissions. At least not from what I can see from WinSCP.

BUT, I think I solved the problem I was having by just erasing the gamelist and re-scraping.

[Clyde]

@hansolo77 Can you change or store anything else? If not, your sd card may be failing and may've put itself into read only mode.

edit: Forget the above, as you deleted and re-scraped the gamelist. :) (Note to myself, never post before breakfast.)

[hansolo77]

It's possible the SD card is somehow corrupted. I had one failing on me, but didn't mark it. I've got a few laying around. I suppose I can try to swap with a different one.

[Clyde]

It would at least help to clarify if it the problems occur because of a failing sd card. It's definitely strange that a sudo chown -R pi:pi "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms" doesn't change the files' owner to pi. It just should do that.

That said, you should check the permissions from within Retropie, e.g. by ls -l in a given directory or with the file manager mc, because an external program like WinSCP may display them incorrectly.

In mc you can add an owner column by pressing F9, then select the menu Left or Right for the respective panel, and select Listing mode. In the listing mode dialogue, select User defined and add | owner to the line below that option. After pressing Enter to apply your changes, you should have a new column in that panel showing the owner of the files listed. Save mc's settings in the F9 menu under Options > Save setup.

[hansolo77]

I'm not familiar withmc. According to ls -l though, my folder looks like this:

drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Apr 14 13:25 amstradcpc
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Apr 14 13:26 arcade
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 151552 Jul  3 18:02 atari2600
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Apr 14 13:25 atari5200
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root  20480 Jul  3 18:14 atari7800
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root      0 Apr 14 13:25 atari800
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root  28672 Jul  3 18:24 atarilynx
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 397312 Jul  8 14:38 fba
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root  94208 Jul  3 18:57 fds
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 122880 Jul  3 20:06 gamegear
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 385024 Jul  3 19:41 gb
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 634880 Jul  4 06:37 gba
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 360448 Jul  3 22:51 gbc

[Clyde]

Midnight Commander (mc) is rather self-explanatory. You start it just by entering mc in Retropies command line, and end it by pressing F10. The numbers at the bottom refer to F keys, and you access the pull down menus by F9. Mouse control is also supported, if your remote terminal supports it.

It's just a suggestion, you don't have to use it if you don't want. :) Some people like it, some don't.

My rom folders look like this:

$ ls -l RetroPie/roms
total 824
drwxrwxr-x  2 pi   pi     4096 Apr  7 10:39 ags
drwxrwxr-x  2 pi   pi     4096 Apr  7 12:05 amiga
drwxrwxr-x  2 pi   pi     4096 Sep 21  2017 amstradcpc
drwxrwxr-x  2 pi   pi     4096 Apr  7 10:43 apple2
drwxrwxr-x 11 pi   pi   135168 May 31 19:42 arcade
drwxrwxr-x 11 pi   pi    45056 May 26 16:24 arcade.noclones
drwxrwxr-x  3 pi   pi    36864 Nov 14  2017 atari2600                                                                                                                                                                                                 
drwxrwxr-x  3 pi   pi    20480 Oct 31  2017 atari2600.old                                                                                                                                                                                             
drwxrwxr-x  2 pi   pi     4096 Apr  7 08:48 atari5200                                                                                                                                                                                                 
drwxrwxr-x  2 pi   pi     4096 Sep 21  2017 atari7800                                                                                                                                                                                                 
drwxrwxr-x  2 pi   pi     4096 Apr  7 08:48 atari800                                                                                                                                                                                                  
drwxrwxr-x  2 pi   pi     4096 Sep 21  2017 atarilynx                                                                                                                                                                                                 
drwxrwxr-x  2 pi   pi     4096 Apr  7 10:43 atarist                                                                                                                                                                                                   
drwxrwxr-x  2 pi   pi     4096 Apr  7 10:49 c64

[Clyde]

In case you aren't familiar with the output, some explanations I haven't had the time earlier.

The "drwxrwxr-x" are the actual permissions in the pattern d rwx rwx rwx (directory; owner's permissions to read, write, and execute; owner's group's permissions; all others' permissions). A letter says "has this permission" and a "-" says otherwise. Execution rights for directories mean that you're allowed to enter them and list their contents.

So, your user pi should have rwx access to your rom folders, although they inexplicably belong to root, because their permissions allow all others than root('s group) equal access.

[hansolo77]

How can I fix it then?

[chipsnblip]

i'd first start by verifying the permissions/ownership of your home directory:

$ ls -la / | egrep home

drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 13 14:55 home

then keep digging:

$ ls -la /home | egrep pi

drwxr-xr-x 12 pi pi 4096 Jul 8 02:43 pi

$ ls -la /home/pi | egrep RetroPie

drwxr-xr-x 6 pi pi 4096 Apr 14 10:27 RetroPie
drwxr-xr-x 9 pi pi 4096 Jul 3 03:11 RetroPie-Setup

[hansolo77]

@chipsnblip here are my results:

ls -la / | egrep home

drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 13 17:55 home

ls -la /home | egrep pi

drwxr-xr-x 13 pi pi 4096 Jul 10 12:48 pi

ls -la /home/pi | egrep RetroPie

drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4096 Jul 1 00:32 RetroPie
drwxr-xr-x 9 pi pi 4096 Jun 30 23:50 RetroPie-Setup

[Sano]

Just to be sure : is your RetroPie folder on the SD, or do you have some manual mount on USB key, NAS, ... ?

[hansolo77]

The RetroPi folder is mounted on a usb hard drive..

[Sano]

Was sort of obvious when you said chown was not working.
You have to add uid=1000,gid=1000 in the options part of your fstab line, then.
And of course umount/remount the FS.

[hansolo77]

Where? Currently my /etc/fstab line has this:

UUID=80B89CC9B89CBF5A /home/pi/RetroPie ntfs nofail,user,umask=0000 0 2