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    Running ROMs from a Network Share

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General Discussion and Gaming
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    • J
      JFamily @jpxdude
      last edited by JFamily

      @jpxdude I might be having the same problem but I haven't put much thought to it. Whenever I tell ES to close or tell the Pi to restart from within ES, it just goes to a black screen. I can switch terminals, log in and sudo reboot if I have a keyboard plugged in. I've just started loading PuTTy and sudo reboot'ing from there.

      This didn't happen in my first image with this setup. I thought it might be related to the release I pulled down because I'm manually installing RetroPie which is why I didn't put a lot of thought to it. But if it's happening to you on 3.8.1 then back to the drawing board...

      Edit: Now that I'm getting a better grasp on all the steps required, I might re-image again and see what happens. Hopefully I can refine the process a bit. This is how my relationship with the Pi's (and linux in general) goes. Experiment, experiment, reinstall, experiment, reinstall, experiment, reinstall, EVERYTHING WORKS, enjoy and never touch it again.

      You should see the looks I get when I mention reimaging the MediaPi to try something different out!

      ShakzS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • ShakzS
        Shakz @JFamily
        last edited by

        @JFamily If you added a buncha roms on the network drive when you shutdown the pi emulation station will do a write to all the gamelist files. This will take quite a while if you have a ton of games on the network drive. Which if you are like me....you do.
        https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/FAQ#why-does-shut-down-and-reboot-take-ages

        RetroPie tips, tricks, and tweaks: https://www.youtube.com/eazyhax

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        • J
          JFamily @Shakz
          last edited by

          @Shakz Ah, again another facepalm. I knew that :( -- So basically, according the the document, either deal with it or no updated play counts... Not favorable but play counts aren't really that important to me.

          ShakzS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • J
            jpxdude
            last edited by jpxdude

            What @Shakz says seems to make sense! I'm not interested in meta data so will probably turn this off. I'm in the process of scraping which appears to be working but is equally incredibly slow!

            Edit - just to update, I've turned off the saving of metadata on exit and everything is pretty much now working fine! The only weird thing left is a lack of splash screen, which fails to load on startup, otherwise, everything else works...regular game saves work as well as saving state. I'd also like to scrape faster than use the built in ES scraper, otherwise RetroPie itself is working pretty well so far!

            Thanks for your help @Shakz and @JFamily it is much appreciated!!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • ShakzS
              Shakz @JFamily
              last edited by

              @JFamily Well honestly I don't often shut down my pi. No reason to really. It manages power at an idle state just fine and even with 1000s of games on it; it still really only takes a min or so to shutdown...just gotta be patient.

              RetroPie tips, tricks, and tweaks: https://www.youtube.com/eazyhax

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • D
                doncastermems
                last edited by

                Can't someone do a step by step for this I want to run rooms from my pc the info here doesn't make any sense to normal ppl

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                • V
                  vxjester @doncastermems
                  last edited by vxjester

                  @doncastermems
                  I'll take a shot at it.
                  Step 1: sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.old
                  Step 2: sudo nano /etc/fstab
                  Step 3: add at the bottom of everything that is there //server/share /pathto/mountpoint cifs credentials=/home/username/.smbcredentials,uid=shareuser 0 0
                  Example: //192.168.1.1/share/roms /home/pi/RetroPie cifs credentials=/home/pi/.smbcredentials,uid=pi 0 0
                  Step 4: Press ctrl+o then enter to save.
                  Step 5: Press ctrl+x to exit.
                  Step 6: next sudo nano ~/.smbcredentials
                  Step 7: Add your network drive info to this in this format (you might not need the domain part):
                  username=shareuser
                  password=sharepassword
                  domain=domain_or_workgroupname
                  Step 8: Save and exit just like before in step 4 and 5.
                  Step 9: sudo mount -a
                  Step 10: sudo chown RetroPie: /home/pi/RetroPie
                  Note might need to sudo chmod 0600 ~/.smbcredentials
                  Then sudo mount -a
                  Then ls ~/RetroPie
                  This is to check if you done everything correctly.

                  H R 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • D
                    doncastermems
                    last edited by

                    ok thanks so much ill have a go, so im guessing the blue bit is the bit i edit with my share path details the rest of line i leave as it is ?

                    theres a space between /roms and /home should that be there ?

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                    • V
                      vxjester @doncastermems
                      last edited by

                      @doncastermems
                      Yes there is a space in between /roms and /home because it the end of the directory path and the beginning of another. See what you are telling the pi is you want it to point to your network drive as part of the pi's filesystem. To answer your first question yes the blue is what you want to edit for where ever you have for your network.

                      BuZzB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • D
                        doncastermems
                        last edited by

                        Ok so I'm almost there got the Roms showing and loading from pc but no retropie menu ? I've only copied my Roms folder to the PC should I have copied anything else from the sd card in the pi to the PC folder

                        G 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • BuZzB
                          BuZz administrators @vxjester
                          last edited by BuZz

                          @vxjester said in Running ROMs from a Network Share:

                          @doncastermems
                          Yes there is a space in between /roms and /home because it the end of the directory path and the beginning of another. See what you are telling the pi is you want it to point to your network drive as part of the pi's filesystem. To answer your first question yes the blue is what you want to edit for where ever you have for your network.

                          You should use markdown (click on the compose ? at the top right when editing a message) to format your post, and it will be easier to follow.

                          eg this is a inline preformatted block surrounded by a single backtick

                          #!/bin/bash
                          # and this is a code block using three backticks ```
                          

                          I did an example edit on your message but it could do with some more formatting imho.

                          To help us help you - please make sure you read the sticky topics before posting - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

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                          • P
                            peer1979
                            last edited by peer1979

                            I'm trying to seperate the Retropie folder with all my roms and saves from my retropie installation and access them through a samba share. Although i'm now able to play games from that share, i've got issues with my savegames. It seems to be a right issue, i can't get it right (pun intented).

                            What i've tried: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Running-ROMs-from-a-Network-Share
                            I've also checked: http://electricgardener.net/retropie-moving-games-usb-stick and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MountWindowsSharesPermanently.

                            I'm a novice when it comes to linux.

                            My setup:

                            Pi 1

                            • openelec
                            • usb harddrive mounted (NTFS) and accesible throught media/Media/
                            • Retropie pi map in media/Media/Games/Retropie
                            • Rights folder Retropie/saves: drwxrwxrwx
                            • Rights of files in folder Retropie/saves: -rw-r--r--
                            • relevant part of samba.conf

                            [Media]
                            path = /media/Media
                            available = yes
                            browsable = yes
                            public = yes
                            writable = yes

                            Pi 2

                            • retropie
                            • content off /opt/retropie/configs/all/autostart.sh

                            sudo mount -t cifs -o user=root,password=openelec,uid=1000,gid=1000 //168.1.100/Media/Games/RetroPie /home/pi/RetroPie
                            emulationstation #auto

                            My suspisions

                            I think this is a rights issue, because i can play the games from the share. When i try to change the rights in the saves folder it does
                            not work or present any error. Nothing happens. Perhaps it has something to do with NTFS?

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                            • P
                              peer1979
                              last edited by

                              Fixed. Yesterday i saw an extra , in the options list of the mount command and removed it. And voila, it finally works.

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                              • W
                                Waffles
                                last edited by

                                So I am an absolute noob with Linux and the raspberry pi, so I apologize for my ignorance.

                                My first question is, what do I put as my username and password? My computers or network share user and pass?

                                When I copied over all the folders from the retropie installation to my desired share destination, (RETROPIE) is after every folder name, do I leave that?

                                When I'm adding the line of code to autostart.sh, there is one line of text already there, should I put the line of code above or below that? I assumed above that, as that would be the top.

                                When I enter ls RetroPie, what exactly should I be seeing? It looks like 4 folders in blue.

                                Once again I apologize for the probably stupid questions.

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                                • P
                                  peer1979
                                  last edited by

                                  @Waffles

                                  username, password: network shares user and password.
                                  leave folders: If you mean, can i leave the old folders in the original location: yes. Consider it a backup :)
                                  where to put line: I put it above, it worked fine.
                                  what do you see: To test the network share, copy some unique files to the network share (f.e. some new roms) and see if they appear. If so, you're good. I don't know the colorscheme by memory, sorry.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • ?
                                    A Former User
                                    last edited by

                                    Can I buffer the current game on the SD card? I am facing loading issues on big ROMS.

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • G
                                      gavster2002
                                      last edited by

                                      New to forum so would like to say hi to everyone!

                                      I am trying to get my RetroPie to boot noms from network. I have created a share on my NAS \nas\retropie. First question do i put roms folders in here or do I create folder called roms and drop the various folders in there?

                                      I have tried doing using this:

                                      sudo raspi-config
                                      In there, select the 4th option and tell it Yes.

                                      Option 1: Add to autostart.sh (Preferred if using v4.0+)

                                      sudo nano /opt/retropie/configs/all/autostart.sh
                                      Add the following line to the top of that file, being sure to adjust it for your personal settings, paths and options.

                                      sudo mount -t cifs -o username=retropie,password=retropie //192.168.0.10/retropie /home/pi/RetroPie

                                      after reboot emotion station errors that it can't find system and clicking ok returns me to a command prompt.

                                      If I use the guest setting:
                                      sudo mount -t cifs -o guest,uid=pi //192.168.0.10/retropie /home/pi/RetroPie

                                      the system boots but there are no games?

                                      Any help would be appreciated

                                      Thanks
                                      Gav

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                                      • G
                                        gavster2002 @doncastermems
                                        last edited by

                                        @doncastermems

                                        Did you fix this? I also get my roms loaded but retropie menu has gone. Any ideas?

                                        I am using the stab option as I could not get the autostart.sh method to load the roms.

                                        Thanks

                                        J 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • H
                                          HoustoneD
                                          last edited by

                                          This post is deleted!
                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • H
                                            HoustoneD @vxjester
                                            last edited by HoustoneD

                                            @vxjester said in Running ROMs from a Network Share:

                                            Step 10: sudo chown RetroPie: /home/pi/RetroPie

                                            Everything worked out great- thanks! But, can you give any insight on this issue? Rigorously searched around and couldnt find any mention of "invalid spec", but found several mentions of "invalid user"

                                            pi@retropie:~/RetroPie $ sudo chown RetroPie: /home/pi/RetroPie

                                            chown: invalid spec: ‘RetroPie:’

                                            pi@retropie:~ $ ls -l /home/pi/RetroPie
                                            total 0
                                            drwxr-xr-x 2 pi root 0 Oct 19 11:30 BIOS
                                            drwxr-xr-x 2 pi root 0 Oct 19 11:30 retropiemenu
                                            drwxr-xr-x 2 pi root 0 Oct 19 11:31 roms
                                            drwxr-xr-x 2 pi root 0 Oct 19 11:31 splashscreens

                                            I would assume user pi already has root access here. is this the cause, and i am worried over nothing? Sorry, i am trying to figure out how to properly conform to Markdown- does the above warrant codeblock or inline code? Forgive my ignorance .

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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