(REQUEST/IDEA) Dynamic marquess .. or interprocess comms...

[del1verance]

@kiro The second display is always outputting. If 'maintitle.png' is in my /home/pi/PieMarquee2/marquee/system/ directory then it displays that. I get a weird error if I use an .mp4 video though.

If maintitle.png is not in that folder, then I see the default.jpg (though it's small and doesn't fit the screen). While browsing games it stays on that image until I select a game and the game loads, then it shows the marquee as intended. Exiting it keeps the game marquee up and never goes back to default.jpg.

No change with using the absolute paths. Just to be sure we're talking about gamelist.xml in /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/gamelist.xml right?

[kiro]

@del1verance Hi, thanks for the info, yes we're talking about the gamelist.xml in your system's folder (so yes /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/gamelist.xml) ... let's try something else, would it be possible for you to exit emulationstation, then run it as emulationstation &> log.txt, go through a couple of games (no need to play them :-) ), exit emulationstation once more and paste the contents of log.txt here?

You should see something like (this is an output from my system), and do not worry about the weird naming of the files, that's just me ;-)

/etc/emulationstation/themes/nostalgia-pure/3do/../_assets/marquees/3do.png#/etc/emulationstation/themes/nostalgia-pure/3do/../_assets/marquees/3do.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/99E47FCF4B89884D153F2522A69859027F6E9082-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/863E882F770C57A40C8BE84AE0F8F7CE20D7CF82-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/863E882F770C57A40C8BE84AE0F8F7CE20D7CF82-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/863E882F770C57A40C8BE84AE0F8F7CE20D7CF82-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/6F15CD748A931575539834586DB9631E07AB839E-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/6F15CD748A931575539834586DB9631E07AB839E-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/6F15CD748A931575539834586DB9631E07AB839E-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/A205744E37F437D49FF94113002EA3DE006B131A-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/A205744E37F437D49FF94113002EA3DE006B131A-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/A205744E37F437D49FF94113002EA3DE006B131A-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/65F7061DAA262FEF6969FD0FA8436E8D9E076B6D-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/65F7061DAA262FEF6969FD0FA8436E8D9E076B6D-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/65F7061DAA262FEF6969FD0FA8436E8D9E076B6D-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/3D00445762E1AF1C5FDA052353D714849722D638-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/3D00445762E1AF1C5FDA052353D714849722D638-marquee.png#/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/3do/marquees/3D00445762E1AF1C5FDA052353D714849722D638-marquee

Thx!

[del1verance]

@kiro I actually get a really strange string of characters in the log.txt file that creates. Tried it twice just to make sure, same thing both times. This is the paste:

[?25l[?1c[?25l[?1c[?25l[?1c[?25h[?0c

[kiro]

@del1verance Well, that's really strange, are you sure you're running the EmulationStation build from my GitHub? https://github.com/zayamatias/EmulationStation , Otherwise you will not see the image names appearing. Could you double-check? Thx!

Maybe I should be more precise, have you actually built emulationstation from my repository? Maybe the build I made is not 100% compatible with your setup.

[del1verance]

@kiro Definitely using your build, or at least following the install instructions (using
cmake -DUSE_MESA_GLES=On -DRPI=On . and then make). Tried again just to make sure and I get that same weird string of characters in log.txt.

I haven't tried installing your emulationstation on a blank/new card from scratch though, and have just been installing it on top of my existing ES installation.

[kiro]

@del1verance Hi, I'm not really sure what to check from here... I assume you're using this an RPI4? To be honest I'm a little bit lost without being able to test on your setup personally...is there anything you might think it could have an impact? Do you use a special encoding for your setup (other than the usual UTF or LATIN ones)? .. I'm not sure about the fact if a new installation would have an impact or if it would be a reason why you have strange characters....what is clear is that if we do not manage to get the filenames in the output, it will not display the images...

[del1verance]

@kiro Actually not sure what encoding I use but in raspi-config I'm just set up for U.S/regular keyboard (assuming that's where that setting you're talking about would be).

Will try a fresh install on a sd card (using a USB 3 SSD at the moment) and see if that works. I'm unsure what else to try on my end either, it's pretty clearly an issue on my system's end!

[kiro]

@del1verance Not necessarily at your end, there are so many variables to take into account that maybe my code works under certain setups and not others. Let me know how it goes!

[del1verance]

@kiro Ok, tried a completely fresh install starting with the official image. Didn't set up anything besides wifi, keyboard, and resolution, and added roms. Installed your version of ES after. It boots up with your default.jpg image on the second display but does not show game marquees in game or in the select screen. Note that on this image I do not have PieMarquee2 installed yet; the other images I was working with already had it installed before attempting to install your build of ES.

I did try to use the &> command to output to log.txt again, and get a similar string of garbage characters, however - this time I opened with sudo nano instead of over SSH, and on the bottom it says "read 4 lines (converted from Mac format). So it may be a formatting issue like you identified before! Which leads to the next question...

How do I change the formatting for the log.txt?

[kiro]

@del1verance Hi, well, good question... If you try displaying it directly on the terminal you're logged into the RPI? (for example cat log.txt)

Just to be sure, did you configure the marquees <marquee>.....</marquee> in the gamelist.xml?

The fact that there's output in the log.txt file is that emulationstation is sending the information about the marquees, we need to figure out if it is the proper information (marquee image path) or not.