Power Outage causing issues?

Ternous

Pi Model or other hardware: Pi 3B+
Power Supply used: "CanaKit 2.5A USB Power Supply with Micro USB Cable and Noise Filter - Specially designed for the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ (UL Listed)"
RetroPie Version Used (eg 3.6, 3.8.1, 4.1 - do not write latest):
RetroPie-Setup Script Version: 4.5.18 (rpi3 - running on Raspian GNU/Linux 9.11 (stretch)) Last Commit: 9 days ago (3a95bc6d)
Built From: Pre made SD Image on RetroPie website
USB Devices connected: / Controller used:
Top ports - 2.4 GHz Wireless USB SNES Controller for Super Classic Games, iNNEXT Retro USB PC Controller Compatible for Windows PC MAC Linux Genesis Raspberry Pi Retropie Emulator [Plug & Play] [Rechargeable]
Bottom left - SanDisk 128GB Ultra Fit USB 3.1 Flash Drive - SDCZ430-128G-G46
Bottom right - iPazzPort Wireless Mini Keyboard with Touchpad for Android TV Box and Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and HTPC KP-810-21S
Error messages received: None that I have seen or know how to find.. do error logs save from session to session?
Log found in /dev/shm/runcommand.log (if relevant): I do not see a log there using WinSCP, just an empty location
I have followed all official documentation for everything and have used ETAPRIME's youtube videos for some visuals of things.

Hello. I am completely new to anything involving Linux, so I'm not sure if something happened or if I just did something wrong. I bought my pi from Canakit on Amazon last month and my wife and I have introduced our daughters to some of our favorite games from years ago and have loved it. With all the virus stuff going on, I thought it was time to maybe try some new stuff and maybe personalize it a bit more. Everything was working fine until about a week ago when we had a power outage, and since then things have been a bit wonky. I'm sorry if I'm only supposed to have one issue at a time, but I didn't have any issues until the outage.

pre-outage:
-Retro Acheivements
-Comic Book theme with 30s video
-Rookervik's runcommand system splash screens
-using Skraper UI
-BezelProject
-started figuring out how to use FBN and MAME and curate the sets I have

post outage:
-cheevos, theme, runcommand, skraper info all still work fine
-my screen ratio was completely jacked up with the bezels and stuff being overscanned, but I was able to fix that with some forum posts (can't remember which)
-splash screen video no longer works, I tried to use a regular static image splash screen and none of those work. I've tried a regular image, an extra image, the randomizer, and I even uninstalled and reinstalled it from setup. It stays on the initial screen with the raspberries in the top left but no text comes up, then after about 10-15 seconds goes to the emulation station loading screen. If I try to change my boot options in Raspi-Config to splash screen instead of text, it says "the splash screen is not installed so cannot be activated". If I go to RetroPie Setup and check my main packages, splashscreen is at the very bottom, 839, and says installed form binary.
-with the curating, I was able to separate CPS 1/2/3 and NeoGeo into their own separate folders, although it took forever with NeoGeo for reasons I'm sure involved ignorance on my part, so I moved onto the ports to try something new.....
-I've only tried Cave Story and Super Mario War, following documentation as well as ETAPRIME's youtube video for installing Cave Story, but I cannot get them to work or even come up on my pi. For Cave Story, I've tried the Japanese version with the patch, the deluxe version, the retroarch port source code, and the pi nxengine port source code, ranging from only having the data folder and .exe files in my pi to having the whole folder contents in my pi. No ports entry pops up on my pi, but I do see the .cfg files if I go to /opt/retropie/configs/ports/ as well as .sh files if I go to /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ports/ (although the CaveStory.sh file seems to come and go as it pleases - example last night before I went to bed it was there, this morning when I turn on and check it's not). For SMW, I installed from the optional package setup on my pi, but nothing happened from that, though I do see files in the same spots and it does say installed from binary on my pi.

Apologies that this was a short story for what is really only two or three issues, but I don't know what to do or what I did wrong. Did the power outage cause something to happen or did I do something dumb or miss a step along the way?

mitu

It stays on the initial screen with the raspberries in the top left but no text comes up, then after about 10-15 seconds goes to the emulation station loading screen. If I try to change my boot options in Raspi-Config to splash screen instead of text, it says "the splash screen is not installed so cannot be activated". If I go to RetroPie Setup and check my main packages, splashscreen is at the very bottom, 839, and says installed form binary.

The splashscreenin raspi-config is different than RetroPie's similar module. Since you're using an USB stick, try to make sure your splashscreen files (images/videos) are on the SDcard, the USB stick's contents might not be available immediately after boot.

I've tried the Japanese version with the patch, the deluxe version, the retroarch port source code, and the pi nxengine port source code, ranging from only having the data folder and .exe files in my pi to having the whole folder contents in my pi. No ports entry pops up on my pi, but I do see the .cfg files if I go to /opt/retropie/configs/ports/ as well as .sh files if I go to /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ports/ (although the CaveStory.sh file seems to come and go as it pleases - example last night before I went to bed it was there, this morning when I turn on and check it's not).

Follow the documentation on this, it's all it takes. But if the shortcut comes and goes, that's a different issue.

The CaveStory folder is created after installing the lr-nxengine package, you should copy there the game's files and it should be enough.

For SMW, I installed from the optional package setup on my pi, but nothing happened from that, though I do see files in the same spots and it does say installed from binary on my pi.

Have you restarted EmulationStation after installing it ? Are you keeping your ROMs on an external USB stick ?

Ternous

@mitu So the splash screen files were indeed on the stick and not the card so I got that switched and now they work fine. I uninstalled smw to focus on one port at a time, but yes all my ROMs are on the external 128gb USB stick.

I uninstalled and reinstalled lr-nxengine and got Cave Story.sh back into my roms/ports/ folder. I created the CaveStory folder, redownloaded the Cave Story game files, put them all in the folder, and still got nothing. Does it matter whether lr-nxengine is installed by binary or source? I have it as binary. I know I'm missing something small and I'm gonna feel really dumb when I figure out what it is...

mitu

@Ternous said in Power Outage causing issues?:

Does it matter whether lr-nxengine is installed by binary or source?

No, it doesn't matter. Can you post a listing of the CaveStory folder ?

Ternous

@mitu Yes... if I knew how. I can paste a snip of my WinSCP looking at it if that works. I do have PuTTY but I don't know Linux/PI commands so I'm not sure how to pull it up.

mitu

That's ok - the listing seems fine, I have the same structure on my system and it works without issues.
When you say 'still got nothing', does it mean you don't see the game entry in the Ports system or that it doesn't work ?

EDIT: My guess is that your USB stick is not mounted fast enough for EmulationStation to read the gamelist/contents and show it. Try restarting EmulationStation after a complete boot and see if it makes a difference.

Ternous

Ports doesn't come up anywhere in my menu carousel so I haven't had a chance to see the menu or the game actually work. I know it's in the theme because I did find out enough to check the folder for that (plus the Comic Book theme is just awesome). I did also switch back to the default Carbon theme just to check and the Ports folder didn't appear anywhere there either.

Do you mean a full shutdown/restart? I've tried. I've done both a system restart and a system shutdown/reboot. I initially set it up last night and my pi was shutdown overnight. I turned it on this morning and had nothing. I tried one more just emulationstation restart after that before I came to the forums.

If any info is needed from PuTTY I'm happy to do it, I just need to know what commands to enter.

mitu

@Ternous said in Power Outage causing issues?:

Do you mean a full shutdown/restart? I've tried. I've done both a system restart and a system shutdown/reboot

No, I meant use the EmulationStation menu, choose Quit and then Restart EmulationStation.

The theme doesn't matter if the system is configured ok, even if the theme doesn't support that system, it would still show up in the carousel.

Ternous

Still not coming up after just restarting emulationstation. I tried once last night before a full shutdown, then just tried this morning again. I turned it on, waited 5 minutes, then just restarted emulationstation and there is still no folder present.

mitu

@Ternous Do you use a customized es_systems.cfg ?

Ternous

Yes. I changed for fds and added cps1, cps2, and cps3.

mitu

If you customized it by copying in your ~/.emulationstation folder, then any subsequent installations from the RetroPie-Setup of additional emulators/ports will not be automatically added to the list of systems in your customized es_systems.cfg. For new added system you have to add it yourself in the customized .cfg, based on /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg.

Ternous

Ok. I want to make sure I found the right stuff. If I go to /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg I find this coding for ports:

I just copy this and paste this into opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg, yes?

mitu

@Ternous said in Power Outage causing issues?:

I just copy this and paste this into opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg, yes?

Yes, then restart EmulationStation and Ports should appear in the system carousel.

Ternous

Success! Huzzah! I also went and installed SMW and it works perfectly. I went and re-read the documentation as to what I did and I missed about the default file not saving after any manual changes. So I was right and feel like a dummy. If I could ask one more question about it, since I'm using Rookervik's runcommand system splashes for loading screens, how do I put the launching.png files in for these (and future ports)?

mitu

The ports have only 1 splash screen if I'm not mistaken, you can't have personalized (i.e. per-port) splash screens.

Ternous

Ah ok. I wasn't sure since the folder (es-runcommand-splash-master) does have separate folders for them.

mitu

Normally you'd put them in \\retropie\configs\ports, it will pick the launching.png image from there.
You can try to use \\retropie\configs\ports\cavestory or \\retropie\configs\ports\smw to copy them, but if I'm reading the runcommand search path correctly, it will not pick them.

Ternous

@mitu That worked! Thanks so much for your help with everything!

mitu

@Ternous So, did you get 2 different splashscreens to show up or just one (for both ports) ?