Pi Zero Won't Boot Under Any Circumstances

[DrFunkenstein]

Hey guys, I've got a doozy for you. I have successfully run Retropie 4.4 on my 3B+ for some time now but I just got a Zero and I cannot get it running. Let me paste from the readme thread for clarity:

Pi Model or other hardware: Zero 1.3 (NOT a W).
Power Supply used: The one that came with my 3B+ which is tested and working on that system.
RetroPie Version Used: 4.4, downloaded Jun. 2nd 2019
Built From: I'm not sure I'm understanding this one correctly but it's definitely the Pi Zero image and I've tried re-downloading.
USB Devices connected: Micro-to-standard USB connector, leading to both USB keyboard and SNES USB pad.
Controller used: SNES USB although the problem persists with a standard USB keyboard.
Error messages received: Please see attached screenshot.
Log found in /dev/shm/runcommand.log (if relevant): I'm not that savvy fellas, sorry. Please let me know how to access this.
Guide used: Official Retropie Guide (I am using Ubuntu MATE Linux and I dd'ed the image to my SD card, which is a high quality Samsung card.
File: File with issue is all of them, basically.
Emulator: Several attempted
Attachment of config files: I can't upload anything to pastebin as she doesn't have internet access
How to replicate the problem: Try to launch any game.

As mentioned I have tried to reinstall the image a few times with varying degrees of success - the best I've got is that emulationstation will launch and then if I select a game, the screen goes black and then I'm shunted back to the games list. I will upload an image which shows a strange error message that I don't get with my 3B+ during the initial boot sequence. The SD card is fairly high quality and I've tried to format it in a few different ways, mostly using mkfs.ext4 and then dd'ing the retropie 4.4 image for pi zero onto it.

Thanks in advance and please let me know if I can provide any additional info. I tried to add tags, but I'm not too tech savvy and honestly it took me a minute to figure out how to add any in the first place.

[DrFunkenstein]

Update: I have been able to get PC Engine games to launch. I re-dd'ed the image (without formatting it this time).

However, it is still throwing the bizarre pictured error about the serial getty (or whatever, I can't even figure out what this is from Googling), which necessitates using a keyboard instead of a controller. How to fix? I am attempting to transfer all the roms now and will let you know how that goes.

[mitu]

@DrFunkenstein said in Pi Zero Won't Boot Under Any Circumstances:

However, it is still throwing the bizarre pictured error about the serial getty

If you're talking about the error shown in your picture (about ttyAMA01), then I think it's related to the serial port over Bluetooth. Try running

sudo systemctl disable hciuart

from the command line and reboot, the error message should dissappear.

[DrFunkenstein]

@mitu said in Pi Zero Won't Boot Under Any Circumstances:

@DrFunkenstein said in Pi Zero Won't Boot Under Any Circumstances:

However, it is still throwing the bizarre pictured error about the serial getty

If you're talking about the error shown in your picture (about ttyAMA01), then I think it's related to the serial port over Bluetooth. Try running

sudo systemctl disable hciuart

from the command line and reboot, the error message should dissappear.

Mitu, thanks for your response. I tried this fix. It has a new error message now (please see the link below). On the bright side, that probably indicates progress! I also added the rest of the roms to the SD card, which broke everything to the point that it again tries to launch the game but then just goes back to the previous screen. Even PC Engine, which had been working.

I Googled for this error and found the following link. Will try this: https://serverfault.com/questions/927982/fsck-on-boot-leads-to-systemd-dependency-failure-and-subsequent-boot-failure

Update: Tried that, no dice.

And here's the error:

Another idea: Is there some way to check if the Zero itself is faulty?

[mitu]

@DrFunkenstein said in Pi Zero Won't Boot Under Any Circumstances:

Another idea: Is there some way to check if the Zero itself is faulty?

Get another SD and see if things change with it. From the looks of it, sounds like a SD card problem.
If you manage to boot, run from the command line dmesg > log.txt and try to upload the resulting log.txt file to pastebin.com. That's the system log contents.