Autostart function not working

BuZz

@Clyde Yeah - but it looked as though @mitu was advising him in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/18471/start-retropie-and-start-with-the-same-game anyway - but yeah - i just saw he said to open a new topic.

@Razak Apologies

BJRetro

@Razak wait you said you used the usb thumb stick method of transferring roms - are you actually running all of the Roms directly from your thumb drive or did you just use the method of using the thumb drive to take Roms from your cpu and transfer them to the sd card?

mitu

As I advised you in the other topic, you need to add the runcommand before the emulationstation #auto line in order to have your ROM started before the Emulationstation front-end.
But I was under the impression this works - my advice to open a new topic was for the follow-up question: how do you exit from the 1st auto-started Rom to get the Emulationstation ?

Clyde

@Razak I second @BJRetro's question, because the output of mount | grep /dev doesn't show any usb drive mounted in the directory tree (it should show something like /dev/sda1 on /media/usb0).

And as I and others here wondered, having your roms in /root/... is very unusual, since that is the home directory of the admin user root. The user pi who runs Emulation Station and the emulators in a standard RetroPie setup normally doesn't have access to this directory and its subdirectories, so it's generally not a good place for your roms.

Thus, I want to add a question to @mitu's and @BJRetro 's: How exactly did you install the roms in your system? I suspect that you somehow managed to install them as root in that user's home directory instead of the home of pi.

Razak

Thanks all for your thorough advice. I'm just trying to be as clear and respectful of the forum rules as possible.

@BJRetro Yes, I believe the ROM is running off of the USB stick, though I may be mistaken and may not be understanding everything correctly. As you can tell, I'm a total beginner on this.

I followed these steps to get the ROM to the Pi:
"(ensure that your USB is formatted to FAT32)
first create a folder called retropie on your USB stick
plug it into the pi and wait for it to finish blinking
pull the USB out and plug it into a computer
add the roms to their respective folders (in the retropie/roms folder)
plug it back into the raspberry pi
wait for it to finish blinking
you can now remove the USB stick.
refresh emulationstation by pressing F4, or choosing quit from the start menu"

I named the USB stick 'root' , so I don't think it's actually in the /root folder of the Pi. But, yes @Clyde it is strange that the thumb-drive is not showing up on /dev/sda1. When I power on, I've noticed I get a Failed message during the boot-up sequence. Looks something like this:
"failed to start @usbmount"

Hi @mitu Yes, it originally was working, but since I couldn't disable the autostart function using F4, ESC, etc. I re-flashed everything and started from scratch, since I have a feeling that my issue may be related to how I'm formulating the runcommand script, i.e. where the ROM is located and what emulator it is calling (I think I should be invoking stella, not 'atari2600' as I had been.

Again, thanks all for your help. This forum is an invaluable resource.

mitu

What you're describing is the using the USB to transfer ROMs from your PC to the Pi system. So if you copied a ROM in the atari2600 sub-folder on the USB stick, then it should have been transferred to the corresponding folder under /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/atari2600.

First thing you need to do is to see if the ROM works if you start it from Emulationstation - the front-end you're seeing after RetroPie starts - and to make sure you can exit the emulator. The name of the emulator is shown on the Runcommand launch screen - https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Runcommand/ - but I think for the Atari 2600 it's lr-stella2014.

Razak

@mitu The ROM works on the retropie/emulationstation front-end but I can't exit the game using the configured hotkey, F4, ESC, Alt+F4, etc. Would you deduce that it is a mapping issue?
Should I just remap the whole thing?

Just saw that the emulator name is indeed, lr-stella2014. Should the autorun script then read:

/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ lr-stella2014 /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/atari2600/Yar_rev.bin

mitu

@Razak said in Autostart function not working:

Should I just remap the whole thing?

Have you tried Start + Select buttons on your gamepad (if you have one with these buttons) ?

The command should be as before, with just the path of the ROM changed:

/opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ atari2600 /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/atari2600/Yar_rev.bin

Razak

@mitu My joystick/gamepad does not have Start + Select mapped to it. I tried the Start+Select keys on the keyboard and I still can't quit out of the game.

mitu

In this case I suggest you install the alternate Atari 2600 emulator (stella) and try to use it with both a keyboard and the Atari controller.

Razak

@mitu Thanks! Are there any instructions out there for this?

Did you mean install Stella within the Retropie/emulationstation system or independent of it?

mitu

@Razak You can install additional emulators from the RetroPie setup menu - https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Updating-RetroPie/#using-the-retropie-setup-script - stella should be in the optional packages. Once installed, you can ue the Runcommand launch menu to change the emulator when the game starts.

Razak

@mitu Gotcha. When I tried to install from source, I got the following error:

Error running 'tar -xv -J -c /home/pi/Retropie-Setup/tmp/build/stella--strip-components 1' returned 2'

When I go into Package help, I get this message:

copy your Atari 2600 ROM to /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/atari2600

How do I do that? Through the RetroPie setup or someplace else?

mitu

@Razak said in Autostart function not working:

Error running 'tar -xv -J -c /home/pi/Retropie-Setup/tmp/build/stella--strip-components 1' returned 2'

Hm, I'll check if there's an error with the package.

When I go into Package help, I get this message:
copy your Atari 2600 ROM to /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/atari2600
How do I do that? Through the RetroPie setup or someplace else?

Transferring ROMs is explained the the getting started Docs. The folder /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/atari2600 is shares in the network (Samba shares, as explained in the doc) as \\retropie\roms\atari2600.

EDIT: it doesn't seem to be an error with the package source - is your PI system connected to the internet/network ?

Razak

@mitu D'oh, the pi is not connected to internet. I don't want it to be connected to wi-fi... but I guess it's okay temporarily for installing Stella?

Clyde

@Razak It depends on whether your Pi is behind a router with a firewall, then it should be safe without further measures. If the Pi is directly connected to the Internet (e.g. with a modem without a firewall), you should change the password for the user Pi to a safe one (three links) with the command passwd in Retropie's command shell that you land in if you press F4 in Emulation Station. You exit the shell and return to ES with the command exit.

Razak

Hi @mitu @Clyde

So I verified in the file manager that my ROM is in the /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/atari2600 folder, and I'm now connected to a wifi network.

When I go into Retropie -setup, and attempt to install Stella from source, I'm still getting the following error:
Error running 'tar -xv -J -c /home/pi/Retropie-Setup/tmp/build/stella--strip-components 1' returned 2'

Then, it tells me to check the logs at
/home/pi/retropie-setup/logs/rps_2019_04_20_002846.log.gz

When I go there through the file manager, I get this:

*Installing dependencies for 'stella' : Atari2600 emulator STELLA
/home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/tmp/build/stella /home/pi

Getting sources for 'stella' : Atari26000 emulator STELLA

xz: (stdin): file format not recognized
tar: Child returned status 1
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
/home/pi
Error running 'tar -xv -J -C /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/tmp/build/stella --strip-components 1' -returned 2*

Any thoughts on what may be happening?

mitu

@Razak said in Autostart function not working:

Any thoughts on what may be happening?

The error indicates that the emulator's archive is corrupted and you're still not connected to the internet to download. You can check by exiting Emulationstation, and typing at the command line

ping retropie.org.uk

If you get a reply, then it means you're connected, otherwise you may be just connected to Wifi, but without internet access.

Razak

@mitu The emulator archive meaning the ROM?

I pinged the retropie site and got no response. :(

Is there a way of installing Stella as an optional package that does not necessitate that I get on the internet?

I'm attempting to jump on a public wifi network and it's giving me the error describe above, while my other option is to get on a network that requires I authenticate myself using a username and password.

mitu

The emulator archive meaning the ROM?

No, I mean file containing the emulator, packed and compressed (archive), which should be downloaded from either the RetroPie site, if you're using a binary installation.

Is there a way of installing Stella as an optional package that does not necessitate that I get on the internet?

No, you need to connect to the internet.