Splash Screen Broken?

[iamthedavel]

I am building a number of Retro Pi consoles for Christmas presents for my kids. One of the builds is in a RetroFlag Nespi 4 case. I have done several installs into this case just playing with the setup and mix of cores and themes etc, however on the last build I was doing I was trying to modify the splash screen on startup and found I only had the normal linux bootup text then the emulation station logo. The retro pi splash screen no longer appeared. I went through the forums and tried several fixes and only found that I could partially hear an MP4 setup as a splash screen. My initial thought was I messed something up with all the changes I was making and reformatted the SD card and tried a fresh build and found I ran into the same problem. I then tried changing from the SD card to booting from the optional SSD that the Nespi 4 case can support and found that after I did the Update in the RETROPIE SETUP, the splash screen stopped appearing.

Pi Model or other hardware: Model 4B - 4 GB
Power Supply used: Canakit 5.1v 3.5a
RetroPie Version: 4.8.9
Built From: Raspberry Pi Imager v1.8.5
Storage: Samsung 64GB evo SD, Samsung 256 evo SD, Samsung 870 EVO SATA SSD 500GB
USB attached: 8BITDO SN30PRO wired / Logitech MX keys wireless keyboard/dongle

How to replicate the problem:
Create a clean install of RetroPie, insert boot and expand file system / Map Controller / Set Localization Options for US keyboard and Canada WLAN / Connect to WIFI / Run RetroFlag safe shutdown script / RetroPie Setup - Run: Basic Install / RetroPie Setup - Run: Update
After this point the splash screen no longer shows up on boot up of the Model 4B.
Doing this same process on the Model 3B+ that I have, the splash screen is unaffected.

[mitu]

Are you using a video or image for the splash screen ? What's the output of

systemctl status asplashscreen.service

[iamthedavel]

@mitu I found the issue when I was trying to change the splash screen to an MP4. After the several reinstalls, I found that it will display nothing including the stock image with no changes but what I listed before, however I do hear audio from an MP4 setup as a splash screen...

[iamthedavel]

@mitu said in Splash Screen Broken?:

systemctl status asplashscreen.service

The output follows:
pi@pidad:~ $ systemctl status asplashscreen.service
● asplashscreen.service - Show custom splashscreen
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/asplashscreen.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (exited) since Fri 2024-11-15 01:56:50 GMT; 9min ago
Main PID: 314 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Tasks: 0 (limit: 4915)
CGroup: /system.slice/asplashscreen.service

Nov 15 01:56:50 pidad systemd[1]: Starting Show custom splashscreen...
Nov 15 01:56:50 pidad systemd[1]: Started Show custom splashscreen.
pi@pidad:~ $

[mitu]

I can reproduce this when I use the 2nd HDMI port instead of the 1st (1st being the one closest to the USB-C power port) to connect the monitor.
Can you try and switch the HDMI port to see if this 'fixes' the splashscreen video missing ? We'll find a proper solution for this, but let's just confirm it's the same problem in your case also.

[iamthedavel]

@mitu I just confirmed that this is the problem with my unit and fixes both the stock static image and mp4's launching as a splash screen. I totally forgot that there were two HDMI ports on the 4... Thank you for your assistance!

[mitu]

@iamthedavel Thank you for the confirmation.

It's not a problem with the unit, it's just that the new (vlc based) splashscreen doesn't behave like the previous version. But we'll fix it so it would work on any connected port.

[mitu]

A fix for this issue has been added to RetroPie-Setup, making the splashscreen work on any HDMI connected port on the current/old Buster release.