Black Screen in settings

captfartknocker

Hey all!

I am new to the Raspberry Pi, I bought one of the CanaKit Raspberry Pi 4s in order to put RetroPie in it. I successfully installed the newest version of RetroPie, and got it started up to the config screen, and this is where I run into problems.

Any option I select in the config screen: WiFi, Raspi-Config, etc it just takes me to a black screen. If I let it sit there, nothing happens, but if I push ESC on the keyboard, it will take me back to the RetroPie menu, so it’s not like the unit is completely crashing or freezing. The only settings option I noticed doesn’t take me to a black screen is the RetroArch setting.

Does anyone know why this is occurring? I’d like to hook it up via WiFi, and mess around with resolution and whatever else

PS, I was able to transfer games to the RetroPie via Ethernet and play them, so that aspect does work as well.

mitu

I remember a similar post a while ago (https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/25993/black-screen-in-option-settings/), but didn't found a solution or an explanation for why it's happening.
Can you give more details about your system, as requested in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first ?
If you exit EmulationStation, do you get a command prompt with the RetroPie welcome message ?

quicksilver

What type of display/monitor are you using? It almost sounds like the menu options are being run at a resolution not supported by your display.

captfartknocker

@quicksilver I am using a Vizio TV running at 1080P. EmulationStation itself seems to be running at a bit lower resolution, as it doesn’t fill the full screen, but still looks good

quicksilver

@captfartknocker have you made any modifications to your config.txt?

captfartknocker

@mitu I am using the CanaKit 2gb Raspberry Pi 4 Starter Kit (https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi-4-starter-kit.html) I hope this is the information you are looking for, as this is all the hardware I am using aside from a DualShock 4 and my Vizio TV

captfartknocker

@quicksilver I have not, I am new to the Raspberry Pi so I’m still trying to figure out everything

quicksilver

@captfartknocker are you also using noobs? Did you get your RetroPie image from the official source?

captfartknocker

@quicksilver the microSD came with noobs on it, but when I flashed RetroPie to it, Noobs seems to have gone away, it just boots straight into RetroPie.

Yes, I downloaded the official image from the RetroPie website

mitu

Can you force try adding hdmi_safe=1 to the config.txt file on the sdcard. (edit it from a PC) and see if it changes anything ?

quicksilver

@captfartknocker out of curiosity do you have a different tv you could test on. It might help us determine if its the tv or the pi causing the issue.

captfartknocker

@mitu this worked!! It bumped my resolution down to 480P, but I am playing in the settings to resolve that!

captfartknocker

@quicksilver Mitu’s comment worked for me, trying on a different TV was going to be my next test

mitu

@captfartknocker said in Black Screen in settings:

@quicksilver Mitu’s comment worked for me, trying on a different TV was going to be my next test

In this case, @quicksilver may be right - your TV resolution may not be properly detected - this Vizio TVs are a paint in the rear.

Try forcing a specific resolution in your config.txt (removing the previous option):

hdmi_mode=1
hdmi_group=16

this will force 1080p - see if that's enough for the video to fill the screen.

captfartknocker

@mitu should I also remove the hdmi_safe=1 option?

mitu

@captfartknocker Yes, that's what I meant by 'removing the previous option'.

captfartknocker

@mitu apologies, been a long day. So this option did force EmulationStation itself to go into full screen (it fits the tv correctly), but in the downside it has seemingly broken RaspiConfig again

mitu

Aha, so there's something with the 1080p resolution. Couple of things you can try

Ignore what the TVs says it supports and really force 1080p. Add this to the config.txt:
```
 hdmi_ignore_edid=0xa5000080
 hdmi_force_hotplug=1
```
See if this option manages to display 1080p correctly.
Switch to 720p, by replacing the previous options with
```
hdmi_mode=1
hdmi_group = 4
```

captfartknocker

@mitu Sorry for the late reply, gave both of these a shot and it still displayed a black screen on the RaspiConfig

I also just tried group 63 for 1080P with 120HZ and got the same result