EmulationStation Crashed!

StonedEdge

Hi all,

I was messing around a bit with my Pi 4 and suddenly now I cannot boot into emulationstation - blue screen of death message.

Does anyone know how to debug this? I've tried checking the /home/pi/.emulation/es_log.txt file but it's entirely blank. I'm wondering if this is fixable or whether I will need to write a new image to the SD card. Any debugging tips would be appreciated before I attempt a reflash!

windg

Try to run from terminal :

/opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation --debug

You will get the crash message .

StonedEdge

@windg

Thanks for your help! I tried running this in terminal but it returns "segmentation fault"... any other ideas? I did install mesa-vulkan drivers from piKiss but I don't think that would be causing this issue...

Aug 13 22:34:55 lvl2:   EmulationStation - v2.10.3rp, built Jul 13 2022 - 15:01:20
Aug 13 22:34:55 lvl2:   Creating window...
Segmentation fault

windg

I don't know what cause this , we need more information's : https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

You can try to reinstall emulationstation but this maybe will delete your Emulationstation settings.

StonedEdge

@windg Fair enough! Looks like I may just re-install as I have really no idea what is causing this and looks like the debug commands would not provide me with anything useful.

Already tried re-installing both the dev and non-dev versions of emulationstation, didn't help. Most likely a corrupt card I would think, usually that's what segmentation fault means...

Latest log:

Aug 13 22:53:38 lvl2:   Parsing XML file "/opt/retropie/supplementary/emulations          tation/resources/mamenames.xml"...
Aug 13 22:53:38 lvl2:   Parsing XML file "/opt/retropie/supplementary/emulations          tation/resources/mamebioses.xml"...
Aug 13 22:53:38 lvl2:   Parsing XML file "/opt/retropie/supplementary/emulations          tation/resources/mamedevices.xml"...
Aug 13 22:53:38 lvl2:   Creating window...
Segmentation fault

mitu

@StonedEdge said in EmulationStation Crashed!:

I did install mesa-vulkan drivers from piKiss but I don't think that would be causing this issue...

Didn't this also update the mesa packages ? Most likely that's the issue - you may want to re-install the distro's packages if you don't wish to reflash the image.

StonedEdge

@mitu

How would I go about doing that? I think what actually make have killed it was me trying to install 64-bit software with Dolphin (I removed one of the flags rp_module_flags="!all 64bit" in the dolphin.sh script and then executed it) - despite being on 32-bit OS. Is this something that would cause a fatal irreversible problem without reflashing the OS?

mitu

@StonedEdge said in EmulationStation Crashed!:

How would I go about doing that? I

Re-install the mesa packages using apt. If the scripts you used have compiled Mesa from source and installed it over the libraries provided by the system, there might be a chance this work. Otherwise, the safest route would be to restore from backup.

I think what actually make have killed it was me trying to install 64-bit software with Dolphin ... (I removed one of the flags rp_module_flags="!all 64bit" in the dolphin.sh script and then executed it)

This kind of actions remind me of a quote attributed to Charles Babbage:

On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

Is this something that would cause a fatal irreversible problem without reflashing the OS?

No, installing a package shouldn't warrant an OS re-install, but replacing the mesa libraries with an incompatible/non-working version would.

StonedEdge

@mitu I know, it was dumb! Do you have a command line to run? Is it just sudo apt install mesa-vulkan-drivers?

mitu

@StonedEdge said in EmulationStation Crashed!:

Is it just sudo apt install mesa-vulkan-drivers?

List all packages related to mesa:

dpkg -l | grep mesa

then reinstall them using apt install --reinstall.

StonedEdge

@mitu Thanks a lot! Unfortunately this didn't fix it after re-installing them all, so time to reflash!