ControlBlock Installed - But Doesn't shut down PI

k0zmir

Update : my friend came over to see if he could help as he is familiar with Linux.

We again tried a fresh install but with the quick install method, confirmed service was running and driver was installed and had no success powering off the PI, completing the circut does power the pi, but that is not dependant on drivers or service.

I did buy some buttons today but no use testing them until the power on/off feature works as intended. It simply is not calling the shutdown script.

Browsing similar issues I hardly see any resolutions - one involved enabling SPI - which I did - the other involved 2 bad raspberry pi's which I tested the GPIOs and they are fine.

Getting very frustrated as all instructions have been followed and all variables eliminated.

k0zmir

3 hour mores of tinkering around.

Hooked up my buttons and the control block IS working for player 1. Joystick and 8 buttons are confirmed working.

Hooked up an LED and all the LED does is slowly pulse.

I tried uninstalling the service and uninstalling and then manually re-installing and reinstalling the service to the same result.

I also tried a fresh install without updating the dependencies in the event something had changed in them that caused the power off feature to stop working.

Also double checked the switched I was using for power - and even just tried using a jumper to the same result.

petrockblog

I am sorry to hear that you are having issues with your ControlBlock.

Your detailed instructions above give plenty of details that will help to track down the cause for your observations. In a first step I will take your description and try to reproduce the issue at my site.

k0zmir

Thanks Petrock!

I've also tried as others have stated - Installing the drivers directly from Retro-Pie setup, With no luck - after enabling the driver and rebooting - I will have a pulsing LED

My next step is to flash my SD card - reinstall a clean install of Retropie 4.5.1 and try to install the drivers directly from there.

I don't believe the controlblock is faulty - I believe it's an issue with the driver which is beyond my understanding.

Thank you for your help - Look forward to your feedback.

k0zmir

final update on my end :

Tested by flashing 4.5.1 retropie to SD card ->Booted PIE -> Installed driver from retro pie setup -> driver -> control block.

It installed and I enabled the driver and rebooted. After system came up - Led was still pulsing - I went to configure the joystick "4 game pads detected" so the Controlblock player 1 + 2 were detected ( my ps4 controller and USB keyboard were plugged in) But Icould not configure the buttons. (This is probably because i did not disconnect the wires from the controlblock prior to installing the driver)

Hope we find a solution!

petrockblog

Ok, I can reproduce the issue. arcade controls via ControlBlock are working, but the power button does not work as expected. Something must have slipped through with the latest driver update. I will fix that today and give you an update here.

petrockblog

Sorry for that!

k0zmir

@petrockblog
Thank you! This is FANTASTIC NEWS! I thought I was going crazy.

I'm happy we were able to reproduce the issue so that if anyone else is affected they can find the solution in this thread and save themselves the time troubleshooting!

Thank you for your help, I look forward to the fix.

petrockblog

I tracked down the cause to the Raspberry Pi driver side - and not the ControlBlock firmware. That is for sure and good news. I will now work on a fix for the driver. Plan to release it sometime this evening.

k0zmir

Fantastic.

By any chance do you know if the driver was broken for all versions of Retropie? Do you think the new driver will fix it for future and past releases as well?

Looking forward to the update.

petrockblog

I have just released the updated driver at Github.
The driver is the same for all RetroPie versions.
it would be great if you could give feedback here if that solves the issues on your side.

k0zmir

@petrockblog thanks Petrock.

I will test this within the hour and report back.

k0zmir

@petrockblog Good News! It's working now. The LED went solid right after the quick install method. Power Switch confirmed working!

petrockblog

Glad to hear that!

k0zmir

Disregard!

petrockblog

ok, hope things are working for you now.

k0zmir

@petrockblog

Thanks PetrockBlog! I just installed the Control Block on a Raspberry Pi 4 but due to the cooler I had to use dumont connectors - turns out i had 2 wires crossed - which solved my issue.

One question I do have now though... On my RP3 i got a message when i hit my shutdown button that shutdown script had been initiated and it was shutting own. It was a quick screen of terminal text.

On the RP4 though - The system just shuts down and there is no text regarding the shutdown script. Can you confirm on the RP4 this is correct? Or is there a way i can check to ensure the controlblock is running the shutdown script and i'm not just cutting power?

Thanks :)

petrockblog

Glad to hear that!
The PowerBlock only cuts the power if it observes the corresponding signal.
You should be able to see log entries of the PowerBlock in the log file /var/log/syslog.

k0zmir

@petrockblog Thanks!

I had a look at the system log and here are the first few lines of when i started the shutdown.

May 17 22:38:30 retropie systemd[1]: Stopped target Sound Card.
May 17 22:38:30 retropie systemd[1]: Stopping Session c1 of user pi.
May 17 22:38:30 retropie systemd[1]: Stopped target Multi-User System.
May 17 22:38:30 retropie systemd[1]: rpi-eeprom-update.service: Succeeded.
May 17 22:38:30 retropie systemd[1]: Stopped Check for Raspberry Pi EEPROM updates.

Does that look right to you? Or what should i be looking for?

Thanks!

petrockblog

Sorry, I confused it with the PowerBlock.
The logs of the ControlBlock should be in in the file /tmp/controlblock.log.