[SOLVED] lr-gambatte > no green color anymore with "custom" GB-colorization

Anti-You

Hello guys,

out of nowhere suddenly my old GameBoy-games are only shown in black-white with lr-gambatte ("GB colorization" set to "custom").

Expected behavior:
green color like found in the custom palette in "home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/palettes/default.pal"

Current behavior:
no color at all. Same output as when you disable "GB colorization". Black and White only.
I only get the green color back, when I enable "Internal" in "GB colorization". But I like the default-palette from RetroPie more.

My system:
OS: RetroPie v4.7.19 (latest commit: 461af661)
Board: Raspberry Pi 4 (2GB Ram)

Error out of nowhere. So what did I do?
I do regularly a RetroPie internal update, nothing else. No changes to the system/configs by myself lately.

Things I tried to fix the problem:

tried another SD-card and installed the current RetroPie image. Gambatte works as expected there. Custom palette working.
I deleted the custom palette "default.pal" in BIOS/palettes folder and replaced it with the "default.pal" from a fresh RetroPie image. Still black and white
I replaced all the gambatte-config with default entries in file "/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch-core-options.cfg". Still black and white.
The file "/opt/retropie/configs/gb/retroarch.cfg" is still the default one. No changes
I replaced the gb.cfg in "/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/config/Gambatte/" with a default one. Still not working. Picture still black and white.

HELP!
Any help is much appreciated. It seems, that lr-gambatte just can't find the custom palette default.pal. Any ideas?

I really do not want to reset my whole system, only because one core is messed up. There has to be some messed up config file, which I am missing.

Is there a way to create a log file when starting lr-gambatte? Hopefully there is the key, why my custom palette is not working anymore.

Best regards,

Anti

Update 06. Nov 2021

Root cause:
there is a bug in lr-gambatte, that it can't read sometimes the default palettes file.

Solution:
I installed lr-gambatte via "source". It's fixed in the newest version.

Step by step solution:
Menu > Setup > RetroPie Setup > Manage main packages > lr-gambatte > Install from source
Reboot.
Done!

Many thanks to mitu & sleve_mcdichael for helping!

sleve_mcdichael

@anti-you said in HELP: lr-gambatte > no green color anymore with "custom" GB-colorization:

Is there a way to create a log file when starting lr-gambatte? Hopefully there is the key, why my custom palette is not working anymore.

Best regards,

Anti

When you launch a game, the brief menu pops up "press a button to configure...". Press any key or button while this menu is up to access the runcommand launch menu.

* if you have launch art enabled: the menu is not shown. Press the key or button immediately after the image clears. You have two seconds.

* if the menu doesn't appear (and launch art is not enabled), or if nothing happens when you press a button: access the Runcommand Configuration from the RetroPie menu in the main system carousel. Ensure Launch menu and Launch menu joystick control are both ENABLED (or use a keyboard to access the menu if you want to leave joystick control disabled.)

Once the menu is accessed, you can select "Launch with verbose logging."

After you quit the game, the log will be saved to /dev/shm/runcommand.log.

This location is a temp filesystem that only exists in memory. You must access the file while the Pi is running, without shutting down or rebooting. (Specifically, you cannot pull the SD card and read the file off it from another computer.)

Unfortunately, this location is also not accessible via the network share. You should copy it to one that is.

Use the File Manager from the RetroPie menu to copy the file /dev/shm/runcommand.log to /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/.

Alternatively, connect a keyboard and press F4 to exit EmulationStation, or connect remotely from your PC on the same network via SSH (you will need to enable SSH on the Pi first through Raspi-Config) and copy the file from terminal with command:

cp /dev/shm/runcommand.log /home/pi/RetroPie/roms

(Linux is case-sensitive. Capital R and P in "RetroPie".)

Use any of Ctrl-D, logout, or exit, either to end the current bash login and restart EmulationStation via the autostart function, or to close the remote SSH login.

Once you have the file copied, you can get on your Windows PC on the same network, and access the roms folder via \\retropie\roms (use back-slashes.) Post the log file's contents to pastebin.com and share that link here.

Edit: however, I'm looking at one of my logs right now and I'm not seeing any reference to the palette file, so...I'm not sure what to look for but maybe someone else can help once it's up? Posting the log is gonna be the first step in any case...

mitu

You may have stumbled upon this bug. Can you try updating from source again and try loading a game to see if the palette works ?

Anti-You

@sleve_mcdichael said in HELP: lr-gambatte > no green color anymore with "custom" GB-colorization:

Once the menu is accessed, you can select "Launch with verbose logging."

After you quit the game, the log will be saved to /dev/shm/runcommand.log.

This location is a temp filesystem that only exists in memory. You must access the file while the Pi is running, without shutting down or rebooting. (Specifically, you cannot pull the SD card and read the file off it from another computer.)

Unfortunately, this location is also not accessible via the network share. You should copy it to one that is.

Many thanks for the hint. I did know about that feature, but I couldn't find the exact path of the log-file! Your info will help me alot in the future. Thanks!!

@mitu said in HELP: lr-gambatte > no green color anymore with "custom" GB-colorization:

You may have stumbled upon this bug. Can you try updating from source again and try loading a game to see if the palette works ?

That's it. FIXED. Many thanks!!!