Cannot change back emulator choice per Rom (solved)

[benjiman]

@mitu I chose a default ROM and find out it won't run the game so I try and change it and it sticks as the 1st choice. I also can't remove ROM choice. No error messages just stays as it is.

[benjiman]

@mitu example if I chose mame4all I hope it works cause it's Going to stay on that ROM. I have heard it can be caused by adding games through a flash drive which is how I do it.

[mitu]

@benjiman No, that's not the way you get a problem emulators.cfg. The file you seek is in /opt/retropie/configs/<system>/, where <system> is the name of the ROM folder.
If you used the arcade folder for your ROMs and then, through the Runcommand launch menu, changed the emulator for a certain ROM, the file that keeps this setting is /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/emulators.cfg. To change its permissions (which seems to be your problem), you can exit Emulationstation, then run from the command prompt (using a keyboard):

sudo chown pi:pi /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/emulators.cfg
chmod +w /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/emulators.cfg

[benjiman]

@mitu thank you 😎

[ahmad8mk]

I did exactly what mentioned here but still can`t change anything any ideas. @mitu

[ahmad8mk]

I did exactly what mentioned here but still can`t change anything any ideas @Aryetis

[jackyracer]

Hi! I know this entry is pretty old, but since I got the same problem very frequently I thought I‘d share what I did to resolve it, so people who might still find this thread during their search (as I did recently) have something else to try ;) On my system it really seemed to be the configs/all/emulators.cfg file which somehow got corrupted, and weird stuff got written to the file. If I opened it with notepad I simply had to remove that weird stuff/characters and then was able to write to the file again (e.g. changing an emulator for a specific rom, remove it again and so on). So I didn’t have to delete the file and lose all settings/changes made to it (which can be quite a lot). Maybe this helps someone...

[Knuckles78]

@jackyracer Complete new here having the exact same problem. Could you possibly help guide me to that config file?

[mitu]

@Knuckles78 The emulators.cfg file is in \\retropie\configs\all - if you're using File Shares to access your RetroPie installation.

[Knuckles78]

@mitu I’m accessing it directly through terminal. I attempted the “sudo chown pi:pi etc.” you posted previously with no results. Like I said I’m pretty new and I think it’s because I’m still in Raspberry pi rather than RetroPie inside terminal.

[mitu]

@Knuckles78 said in Cannot change back emulator choice per Rom (solved):

I’m accessing it directly through terminal

The command I posted works from the terminal. How are you checking that it's working/not-working ? You can list the rights on the file(s) by running:

ls -l /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulators.cfg
ls -l /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/emulators.cfg

[IanDaemon]

@mitu I love the ls -l look. Aside from requiring the extra characters that more than double the command's length it's great. XD

[Clyde]

@IanDaemon -l stands for "long listing format" with good reason. :)

[mitu]

You can always create 'aliases' for long commands. ll is a oft used alias of ls -l, just add

alias ll='ls -l'

to your $HOME/.profile and that's all.
Favorite command today apt-get moo.

[Knuckles78]

@mitu Thank you for your help, I’m taking the time to understand more about the terminal. I watched a few videos, and now what you’re saying to me makes more sense.

[IanDaemon]

@mitu /home/pi/.profile doesn't exist. Is that a file with no extension that I create?
Nevermind. I just found the file. I couldn't see it in the terminal, but PIXEL could see itl

[Clyde]

@IanDaemon Files and directories with a leading . in their names are hidden in Linux. To list them with ls, use the -a ("all") option. You can combine multiple options after one -, so -l -a becomes -la (or -al, as the order doesn't matter for options without further parameters).

ls -la

edit: You could create another alias to list hidden files, e.g. lla:

alias lla='ls -la'

[IanDaemon]

Cool! Thanks. In PIXEL/LXDE I have "show hidden files/folders" enabled as my default.

[pxs]

@jackyracer You are a lifesaver, just had this issue and found this, Thankyou

[declure]

Solution worked (remove the corrupted file) but since I have way too many mame games with different emulators set, this isn't really a file I wanted to "start over" on. Similar to what @jackyracer already said, just wanted to remind and confirm that in my case I copied the bad file to my computer, still opened (thank goodness), copied and pasted the cfg text from the old file to a newly made emulators.cfg file, and moved the new file back over in the same place. All fixed, but most importantly, no damage done.