RetroPie forum home
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Home
    • Docs
    • Register
    • Login
    Please do not post a support request without first reading and following the advice in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

    Emulationstation crashed and Cannot allocate memory on pi4

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Help and Support
    crashpi 4es crashed
    66 Posts 10 Posters 5.6k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • quicksilverQ
      quicksilver @Efriim
      last edited by

      @Efriim PSP runcommand display is set to 720p Dreamcast is set to 1080p. Though I don't see how this would cause any issues. Emulation station crashes randomly on many different systems. Even going into retropie setup it occasionally crashes. I haven't rolled back my kernel yet because it looks like the version I'm using is stable for others. I'm undoing the changes I made in skyscraper as a last test. Everything else I have done, and the crashing continues. If this doesn't work I'm going to have to re-image.

      EfriimE 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • EfriimE
        Efriim @quicksilver
        last edited by

        @quicksilver
        No I don't know why it is either but I learn from your answers. Better to be on the same page. I think maybe it is allocating two buffers, or switches, 1 for each screen, there would be a better solution but maybe it is getting hung up on this.

        I notice mine sort of slows down for 4-5 seconds after exiting a game, I don't have a lot of resources to load.

        Have you checked the log at /home/pi/.emulationstation/es_log.txt ? This would probably tell you if it is a problem with resources.

        quicksilverQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • quicksilverQ
          quicksilver @Efriim
          last edited by

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

          Have you checked the log at /home/pi/.emulationstation/es_log.txt ? This would probably tell you if it is a problem with resources.

          Yes I have checked the log but it doesn't show anything out of the ordinary unfortunately.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • quicksilverQ
            quicksilver
            last edited by

            Just a quick update. I restored skyscrapers default artwork.xml and regenerated my gameslist.xml files. So far I have not experienced any crashing since yesterday. Im going to leave it this way for a bit before I draw any conclusions and will report back.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • quicksilverQ
              quicksilver
              last edited by

              I re-imaged RetroPie 4.5.18 and added back the nostalgic-neo theme and my roms (which are on a USB drive) and ES just crashed. Im not sure what to do at this point. I have 36 systems (including favorites, all, and recent custom systems) with tons of games + a graphic heavy theme maybe this is simply too much for ES to handle.

              mituM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • mituM
                mitu Global Moderator @quicksilver
                last edited by mitu

                Let's try to get a full backtrace. Going back to the instructions I posted earlier in the topic:

                • 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
# at the gdb prompt
(gdb) set logging file /home/pi/es_crash.log
(gdb) run
                • wait for ES to crash
                • run from the gdb prompt:
                (gdb) bt full #this should dump the crash log to the file
(gdb) q # exit

                Post the crash file (/home/pi/es_crash.log) to pastebin.com.

                quicksilverQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • quicksilverQ
                  quicksilver @mitu
                  last edited by quicksilver

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

                  I tried your advice but no log gets saved. Below are the commands I used:

                  pi@retropie:~ $ gdb -q /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation
Reading symbols from /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
(gdb) set logging file /home/pi/es_crash.log
(gdb)
(gdb) run
Starting program: /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
Using host libthread_db library "/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libthread_db.so.1".
[New Thread 0xb4e0c160 (LWP 9985)]
[Thread 0xb4e0c160 (LWP 9985) exited]
[Inferior 1 (process 9982) exited normally]
(gdb) bt full
No stack.
(gdb) q

                  Edit: just realized that I pressed f4 to get to the terminal and it crashed while exiting so maybe it didnt work because of that? I will try again by just launching games.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • quicksilverQ
                    quicksilver
                    last edited by quicksilver

                    Just tried again ES crashed on startup:

                    pi@retropie:~ $ gdb -q /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationsta                            tion
Reading symbols from /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstati                            on...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
(gdb) set logging file /home/pi/es_crash.log
(gdb) run
Starting program: /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
Using host libthread_db library "/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libthread_db.so.1".
[New Thread 0xb4e0c160 (LWP 10011)]

Thread 2 "emulationstatio" received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0xb4e0c160 (LWP 10011)]
0x001b4fe4 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .isra.                            11] [clone .part.12] ()
(gdb) bt full
#0  0x001b4fe4 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                            sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#1  0x001b4ff0 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                            sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#2  0x001b4ff0 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                            sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#3  0x001b4ff0 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                            sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#4  0x001b4ff0 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                            sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#5  0x001b4ff0 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                            sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#6  0x001b4ff0 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                            sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#7  0x001b4ff0 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--q
Quit
(gdb) q
A debugging session is active.

        Inferior 1 [process 10008] will be killed.

Quit anyway? (y or n) y
pi@retropie:~ $

                    But no log to be found in /home/pi/

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • quicksilverQ
                      quicksilver
                      last edited by

                      So third time is a charm, here is the log file:

                      https://pastebin.com/5WygSKfD

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • mituM
                        mitu Global Moderator
                        last edited by mitu

                        unfortunately it doesn't contain the information of where the crash originated. I think my instructions are not correct and the backtrace is not printed in the logs :/.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • quicksilverQ
                          quicksilver
                          last edited by quicksilver

                          I appreciate your help on this. Do you have any further advice? Im not sure what to do now considering I just started over and the issue persists.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • mituM
                            mitu Global Moderator
                            last edited by

                            Since I can't reproduce it with my data, can you create an archive with all your gamelists ($HOME/.emulationstation/gamelists), which should have both the list of games and the artwork - no ROMs. ? Let's see if we can transplant your configuration on my system.

                            quicksilverQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • quicksilverQ
                              quicksilver @mitu
                              last edited by

                              @mitu you want just the gameslists or do you want the scraped media files too? (no roms)

                              mituM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • mituM
                                mitu Global Moderator @quicksilver
                                last edited by

                                Yes, add the scraped media also, since you said you don't have videos.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • quicksilverQ
                                  quicksilver
                                  last edited by

                                  Ok Ill get started on that, it will take me some time to extricate that info since I now have it stored with my roms. Unfortunately it wont be as easy to copy and paste as before.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • mituM
                                    mitu Global Moderator
                                    last edited by

                                    The following commands should zip all media related .png files into one zip:

                                    cd $HOME/RetroPie/roms
find -type f | grep media | egrep png$ | zip all-media.zip -@
                                    quicksilverQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • quicksilverQ
                                      quicksilver @mitu
                                      last edited by

                                      @mitu Ill give this a shot thanks

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • quicksilverQ
                                        quicksilver
                                        last edited by

                                        Before I made someone else do a bunch of work trying to troubleshoot my issue I decided to start with a stock image and make changes one by one to see when the crashing occured. I narrowed it down to the nostalgic-neo theme. After I reverted back to the default nostalgic theme and rebooting I haven't had a crash and it's been almost a week. I removed the nostalgic-neo theme from my pi 3 rebooted and it is also stable again. Not sure exactly why this theme made emulation station unstable for me but I'm glad to have finally figured it out. The odd thing is that originally when I was troubleshooting this issue I switched to the carbon theme and still had crashing but maybe if it was some sort of memory issue/leak then I should have rebooted in between tests.

                                        EfriimE 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                        • EfriimE
                                          Efriim @quicksilver
                                          last edited by

                                          @quicksilver
                                          Yeah probably got to reboot for that. I didn't bother looking at the theme when you ruled it out, I probably wouldn't be able to notice anything anyway. Glad you figured it out.

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • R
                                            Retropia.rd
                                            last edited by

                                            Hi all, I found out that the problem occurs when the RPi4 is configured to display 4K. If you change the /boot/config.txt and force 1080p, the problem goes away.

                                            shavecatS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • First post
                                              Last post

                                            Contributions to the project are always appreciated, so if you would like to support us with a donation you can do so here.

                                            Hosting provided by Mythic-Beasts. See the Hosting Information page for more information.