HDMI issue in emulationstation

brinch

I am currently moving my retropie setup from an older RPi 3 to a new RPi 4b.
I have encountered a minor, but rather annoying, problem when emulationstation starts up. During boot-up, everything looks fine on my TV. Colours, resolution, and frequency seems correct, but when emulationstation starts up, the screen goes black and my TV reports "unsupported signal. check device output". On the command line, I can then do

$> tvservice -p

and the picture comes back and everything is fine again. The annoying part is that I have to do this on the command line every time I boot. I tried to put tvservice -p in autostart.sh, but this does not work. It didn't happen on my old RPi and the /boot/config.txt files are more or less identical. The difference is that on my RPi4 I have
hdmi_drive=2 to force HDMI (otherwise it goes DVI instead) and these lines

# Enable DRM VC4 V3D driver on top of the dispmanx display stack
dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d 
max_framebuffers=2

which are specific to Raspberry pi 4, I suppose.

Any advice?

quicksilver

@brinch can you try adding hdmi_safe=1

To your config.txt?

brinch

Then it boots up in 640x480. The display is now on in emulationstation without the need for tvservice -p as well, but in 640x480.

quicksilver

@brinch Yes, you dont want to leave safe mode on as a default setting. Its just helpful to help diagnose what the issue might be. If hdmi safe mode is working then we need to see what part of the safe mode settings were useful. These are the parameters that are set when using hdmi safe mode:

hdmi_force_hotplug=1
hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080
config_hdmi_boost=4
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=4
disable_overscan=0
overscan_left=24
overscan_right=24
overscan_top=24
overscan_bottom=24

I would start with removing the safe mode setting then trying out some of these settings individually to help nail down what is helpful. More info on video settings for config.txt can be found here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/config-txt/video.md

brinch

After some trial and error, it turns out that HDMI_force_hotplug=1 caused it. Switching that off however, made the TV not responds at all, unless I also include hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080, in which case, the TV switches HDMI input port right after the bios test. But when I switch back to the RPi HDMI input using my remote, the display stays on both during boot up and when emulationstation starts.

It is better than having to log in to the pi and setting the display mode, but still not quite optimal.

quicksilver

@brinch I have had some odd behavior on my pi4 as well. If my tv goes to sleep while on the pi 4 input, when I turn the tv back on it will say no signal. If I change to a different input, then change back to the pi 4 input the signal will suddenly display. I wonder if its related to your issue. Are you using a case for your pi? If so which one?

brinch

So I think I solved it. It turned out to be two different issues that conspired. As @quicksilver hinted, the case didn't allow the hdmi cable to go all the way in (it does now after some quick modding) which caused erratic behaviour. Secondly, even though the RPi was connected to hdmi3 on the TV, the hdmi-cec (Bravia sync) assigned it to hdmi1, so it would switch to hdmi1 whenever the RPi was turned on. Now the RPi is plugged into hdmi1, and it boots in full resolution with the display on throughout the process.

quicksilver

@brinch Which case are you using?

brinch

The one the kit came with. It's called Labists. I am going to get a better one.

kreid90

I am having some issues with the RP4b as well. Slightly different though. The RP4b boots fine, the EmulationStation boots fine. Image and Retropie are great. I go to the Arcade collection, and some games will open in a massive image. Only way to explain it. The screen of the game is so large, only about 1/20th of the upper-left part of the game is doing this. Most games load just fine. So this seems like a specific game thing. Not necessarily an emulator, or a collection thing? Not sure - but sorry to butt in here, just desperate to see if anyone is having this issue? This issue seems so specific that it's very difficult to search online and find it exactly. Many things like it, or related on screen resolution and format, but nothing this specific to one;y some games do this after everything was fine.

quicksilver

@kreid90 sounds like an issue unrelated to this thread. It would be best to open a new help topic and provide all info requested from here so that we can help you better:

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

bradleygolder

@quicksilver

I had an issue almost the same as this. I have a pi4b with a 7” touchscreen. When I plug it in to my tv it starts fine color burst and command line show fine on my tv and the 7” screen together, but as soon as emulation station starts the picture goes away and only the sound comes through the TV. If I go into command line or pixel desktop the picture comes back on the tv. After a couple weeks of frustration I figured out if I take the power off the touchscreen everything will work perfect on my tv.