Retropie Freezing / Errors

garradam

My apologies if these issues have been posted before, but I am not finding anything relevant when searching the forums. If there are topics elsewhere, please direct me!

I have built a system in the past with Retropie and had no operating issues, so I began building another using the same method as I had done before. This time I am having issues with the system freezing when idle, freezing when scrolling through system menus, and random errors being thrown.

The specs of what I am using:

Vilros Raspberry Pi Zero W
(802.11 Wireless LAN, Bluetooth 4.1, Bluetooth Low Energy, 2.5a power supply)
SanDisk 16gb memory card
Amazon Basics USB Hub
Innext USB Controller
Raspberry Pie 0/1
(Retropie v4.4)
A tested set of NES and SNES roms that work on my previous system.

The freezing happens when idle for more than a few minutes and when scrolling through the main Retropie menu and sometimes when scrolling through game titles.

The only error I have been fast enough to document is:

emulationstation: malloc.c:2406: sysmalloc: Assertion failed

So far, I have reformatted the memory card and reinstalled everything as well as tried a different memory card. The issues persist. Any help or direction to forum posts I have overlooked would be greatly appreciated because I am at a total loss of what to do with these issues!

mitu

Did you any other configuration to the system - i.e. to the /boot/config.txt configuration file ? The error looks like a memory (RAM) allocation error, did you increase the default RAM allocated to the GPU ?

garradam

@mitu
The only configuration I have done is I expanded the file system within the Raspi-Config menu. Other than that, I have made no other configuration changes.

mitu

In this case, I'm suspecting something faulty with your RAM. Exit emulationstation, then from the command prompt install the memtester program and run a memory test with

sudo memtester 500 10

It will take some time to run, but it should detect any memory errors.

garradam

@mitu
I ran memtest and ended up with the following result in about 2 seconds:

pagesize is 4096
pagesizemask is 0xfffff000
want 500mb
got 209mb, trying mlock ...Killed

Could it be that the memory cards I have tested aren't meant for constant usage?

mitu

@garradam This is not about the memory card (SDHC), but about the RAM on the Pi. You should probably retry the test with the amount of RAM you have available on your PI, I forgot you have a Pi Zero, which has less than 500Mb RAM available (because some of it is allocated to the GPU). You probably have about 384Mb available so try with that instead of 500.

garradam

@mitu I'm getting the same thing at 384... "...Killed."

garradam

So an update... I tried setting up a new system on another Raspberry Pi. I'm getting the same freezing problem and errors, but on this one, I am noticing lag during game play. What are the odds that I have received 2 devices with RAM problems?

mitu

@garradam said in Retropie Freezing / Errors:

What are the odds that I have received 2 devices with RAM problems?

The chances are low, but this kind of behavior suggests a bad power supply. Are you using the official Raspberry power supply ? Is the other device also a Pi Zero ?

garradam

@mitu Yes, both devices are the Pi Zero. I mirrored everything to see if the issues would be mimicked, and they were.

I initially made the mistake of purchasing these devices through Amazon, so the power supply is not official Raspberry, it's Vilros - but the specs of this PSU seem to be enough to power the Zero. An inadequate power supply could possibly be a cause?

This power supply is as listed:

Input: 100-240V
50/60Hz 0.4A Max
Output: 5V, 2500mA

UPDATE:
I tested this unit with an Asus tablet power supply and did not have any freezing or lagging issues. I did, however, have a "Bus error," which stated "Unhandled fault: alignment exception."

garradam

Okay, any help would be great before I place my entire system in the garbage and forget about Raspberry Pi for good...

To build upon the update I mentioned in my post above...
I bought a new power supply (official RP product) and started fresh with a new memory card. I finished installation and the system froze at the Retropie main screen. I rebooted and attempted transferring ROMs. When almost complete, Retropie froze. I restarted and tried to transfer ROMs again. Same issue.

I restarted again but this time tried one of the installed ROMs. Game play was fine, but when I went back to the Retropie main screen, I got a "Segmentation Fault." I rebooted and now I get the segmentation fault as soon as the Retropie screen boots up.

Even with a fresh install and NO ROMs installed, I was still getting issues. My hardware is fine, the memory card is brand new... I'm at a total loss.

mitu

@garradam Can you post a system log (dmesg output) to pastebin.com ?

sTo0z

I had the exact same issue recently. I was installing 4.4 fresh and would do very small setup to it:

install mame2010
toss some roms on there

Randomly, and constantly, freezes and crashes would occur:

exiting a game back to main menu
browsing game list
letting system sit idle

I was not able to find a solution using RetroPie sadly, and I hate to be this guy (and sorry if against the rules), but I just setup new machine with latest Recalbox and not a single crash so far after running 2 days straight so far. I've played games, went all over the menus, and gave it plenty of idle time.

Maybe you can experiment with that as well. My next step was to install RetroPie 4.3 because I used to have a lot of success with that, but since everything is now working so nice, didn't bother.

Good luck!

mitu

@sTo0z Did you also had a 3B+ model ?

sTo0z

@mitu said in Retropie Freezing / Errors:

@sTo0z Did you also had a 3B+ model ?

Hi mitu,

It is a Pi3 model B

garradam

@sTo0z
Even though I really like Retropie and have had no issues with systems in the past, I'm at a point where I am willing to give anything else a go! I am going to try Recalbox and will let you know if I have better success! Thank you for the suggestion.

garradam

@sTo0z
Just installed Recalbox... getting the same "Unhandled fault: alignment exception" error with the fresh install. This is happening on the system that still has Retropie... surely I didn't get 2 faulty RPis?

Chameleon

I know this is an old thread but I want to keep related information in the same location.

I encountered the above unhandled alignment bus error.

I then found this post:

"Bus error on Raspberry Pi 2 armv7 command line app #22384"

https://github.com/dart-lang/sdk/issues/22384

I then went to rasp-config via emulation station UI and changed the localisation setting to my locale.

Example: AMERICA > pick a city

So far I do not see this alignment exception pop up. It would pop up fairly fast prior simple idling on the emulation station menu.

Hope that helps.

Chameleon

Turns out I am wrong. Issue still persists.

I tried using a separate micro SD card with the same v4.4 retropie build and got the same results.

I tried disabling WiFi and bluetooth. This dropped the temps from 75+ C down to an acceptable 50-60C.

Regardless the unhandled exception, freezing, and segmentation faults still continued.

I surmise the pi zero w I bought new is defective.

@Chameleon said in Retropie Freezing / Errors:

I know this is an old thread but I want to keep related information in the same location.

I encountered the above unhandled alignment bus error.

I then found this post:

"Bus error on Raspberry Pi 2 armv7 command line app #22384"

https://github.com/dart-lang/sdk/issues/22384

I then went to rasp-config via emulation station UI and changed the localisation setting to my locale.

Example: AMERICA > pick a city

So far I do not see this alignment exception pop up. It would pop up fairly fast prior simple idling on the emulation station menu.

Hope that helps.