Emulationstation crashed and Cannot allocate memory on pi4

BuZz · 3 May 2020, 04:58

You can experiment with the cma configuration but my rpi4 is fine without any changes from default in ES.

Also see

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=234348 (although we use fkms)

256mb is the default btw.

More info about your set up such as es settings info and config.txt might be useful.

Changing the ES settings as mentioned by previous reply may help.

quicksilver · 5 Mar 2020, 20:21

@BuZz Thanks for the reply. My current ES settings are: gameslist view is set to "video", I dont use videos but the theme Im using makes use of marquees so I have to set to video in order for them to display. I have tested multiple vram settings from 80mb-200mb and the crashing still occurs. I have tried turning screen saver off but crashing still occurs. Im currently using a customized version of the "nostalgia" theme but im going to switch back to carbon to see if the issue is related to the theme Im using. Config.txt is default settings except forcing 1080p mode.

mitu · 5 Mar 2020, 20:48

Can you post the dmesg output on pastebin.com ? Do you have anything configured on the start/stop runcommand scripts ?

VictimRLSH · 6 Mar 2020, 06:23

If you set the GPU mem too high, you'll never be able to boot that SD card again on a Pi 4 unless you reinstall an image OR boot the card on a Pi 3B and reset the GPU memory there. I did that to mine when I set it above 512mb.

quicksilver · 6 Mar 2020, 12:08

@VictimRLSH I don't have gpu mem set at all. Also, the boot partition is accessible from a Windows computer if you need to make edits to your config.txt.

quicksilver · 6 Mar 2020, 22:08

I cant seem to get it to reliably crash anymore. It has been stable all day though I havent changed anything. Will post a dmesg if it crashes again.

quicksilver · 16 Mar 2020, 14:30

ES crashed again today (it has done it a few times since my last post but not reliably). It always seems to occur when ES is either loading or when Im launching a game. I was able to get the dmesg output this time.

https://pastebin.com/mZecJWQ4

mitu · 16 Mar 2020, 14:50

There's no driver errors in the dmesg, so it doesn't look like a kernel driver bug/error. Can you try reproducing with the stock theme or maybe uploading your modified theme somewhere so we can try and see if we get the error ?

EDIT: Are you using the 'normal' EmulationStation install or the emulationstation-dev package ?

quicksilver · 16 Mar 2020, 15:12

@mitu I am using the standard/normal emulationstation install. I will switch to carbon for a bit and see what happens. I am using a modified version of the nostalgia theme https://github.com/supersquared/es-theme-nostalgic-neo

rejesterd · 16 Mar 2020, 18:17

@quicksilver Seems like it was crashing more often before you changed the vram settings and disabled the screen saver. If that's correct, I would start lowering the vram setting in ES again and see if it reproduces more consistently.

Also, have you run emulationstation with the --debug option? That might help clarify what's happening. But it might stop crashing if you just raise vram to 512m (which should be reasonable if you have the 4g model).

quicksilver · 17 Mar 2020, 11:22

So I'm thinking the crashing is related to the theme. I installed the same theme on my previously stable pi 3 now it is crashing occasionally. I don't know much about theming so I can't tell what is wrong here. Would someone be able to take a look at the link I posted above and see if anything glaring sticks out? I have also noticed that this theme takes much longer to boot up though I can't figure out why, all of the different art file sizes seem to be roughly the same size as other themes but other themes boot much faster.

mitu · 17 Mar 2020, 12:16

I've installed the theme yesterday, after you posted the source, and briefly tested it, but didn't get any crash so far. I've left it active, trying to see if I get a crash.
To help debug this, you can run ES through a debugger and get a crash backtrace.

install gdb with sudo apt install gdb
exit EmulationStation and start a SSH session to your PI.
run from the command line (via SSH)

gdb -q /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation -ex run

this should start ES from the debugger

try and reproduce the crash. When it crashes, you should get a message in the gdb session that it did so. Run from gdb prompt

bt full

then get the output and post it here.

press q to exit the debugger.

quicksilver · 17 Mar 2020, 13:44

@mitu
Here is the output:


Thread 2 "emulationstatio" received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0xb4e0b160 (LWP 27358)]
0x001b58dc in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .isra.                                                                                                                     11] [clone .part.12] ()
(gdb) bt full
#0  0x001b58dc in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#1  0x001b58e8 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#2  0x001b58e8 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#3  0x001b58e8 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#4  0x001b58e8 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#5  0x001b58e8 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#6  0x001b58e8 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#7  0x001b58e8 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
--Type <RET> for more, q to quit, c to continue without paging--

I didnt get the standard crash message though, so hopefully this is the same issue and not something else.

mitu · 17 Mar 2020, 14:46

@quicksilver Hm, seems we're getting somewhere, but since the output is truncated we don't see the calling site in the EmulationStation code. Do you remember what system was loaded when the crash occured ? I realized I might not have one of the systems from your install and that's why I couldn't - briefly - reproduce the crash.

quicksilver · 17 Mar 2020, 15:21

@mitu In this particular instance I think it was PPSSPP, though it has crashed for me on multiple different systems. And the crash isnt reliably reproduced. A crash can sometimes occur on the first game I launch or I might have several crashes in a row or I might launch many games with no crashing.

mitu · 17 Mar 2020, 15:27

Just for comparison of systems, can your run

find $HOME/RetroPie/roms/ -type d ! -empty -maxdepth 1

and post the output on pastebin.com ? Just want to see what's the difference from my system list.

quicksilver · 17 Mar 2020, 15:35

@mitu https://pastebin.com/Qtub3ju5

I also note that my gameslist view is set to video. I dont have any videos but its the only way for the marquee/wheel art to show up. Not sure if that matters but thought Id point it out.

mitu · 17 Mar 2020, 15:55

@quicksilver said in Emulationstation crashed and Cannot allocate memory on pi4:

I also note that my gameslist view is set to video.

I already have this setting. Thanks for the system list, I'll see if it has any impact on my installation.

quicksilver · 17 Mar 2020, 19:01

I just got it to crash on the carbon theme. I just launched and then exited a PSP game a few times to cause the crash. The only other thing I can think of that would also suddenly make my pi 3 crash as well is that I am using some specific system artwork.xml files with skyscraper. For example, for PSP I have an artwork-psp.xml which corrects the image to the correct aspect ratio for when I generate my gameslist. I have done this for several other systems as well to make the aspect ratios correct for systems that werent 4:3. Could this cause an issue?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- This is the default artwork.xml provided by Skyscraper. More examples can be found in '~/.skyscraper'. Be sure to check the full artwork documentation here: https://github.com/muldjord/skyscraper/blob/master/docs/ARTWORK.md -->
<artwork>
  <output type="screenshot" width="320" height="180">
      </output>
  <output type="marquee" resource="wheel"/>
</artwork>

mitu · 17 Mar 2020, 19:11

@quicksilver said in Emulationstation crashed and Cannot allocate memory on pi4:

Could this cause an issue?

I don't think so - the end result is still a png image that EmulationStation loads, artwork.xml is just a set of design instructions for Skyscraper of how to produce that image from the cached artwork, it doesn't influence how EmulationStation loads or displays the resulting image.