Error loading emulationstation

JosepZ

I installed retropie on a raspbian distribution following gitub instructions, and while the binaries were installing, from time to time I can read "chown: invalid group : 'JosepZ:JosepZ' .

After install it, when I open emulationstation, I get the following errors:

ERROR - tried to write to log file before it was open! The following won't be logged:
lvl2: EmulationStation - v2.0.1a, built Apr 20 2016 - 22:51:41
ERROR - tried to write to log file before it was open! The following won't be logged:
lvl2: Creating surface...
ERROR - tried to write to log file before it was open! The following won't be logged:
lvl2: Created window successfully.
ERROR - tried to write to log file before it was open! The following won't be logged:
lvl2: Checking available OpenGL extensions...
ERROR - tried to write to log file before it was open! The following won't be logged:
lvl2: ARB_texture_non_power_of_two: MISSING
ERROR - tried to write to log file before it was open! The following won't be logged:
lvl2: Loading system config file /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg...
ERROR - tried to write to log file before it was open! The following won't be logged:
lvl1: System "amstradcpc" has no games! Ignoring it.
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'boost::filesystem::filesystem_error'
what(): boost::filesystem::create_directory: Permission denied: "/home/JosepZ/.emulationstation/gamelists/amstradcpc"
Aborted

Long time ago I chaged the pi user name for JosepZ user name, but the system works perfectly, was only a user name change, anyway, could be this the problem? Retropie work only if the user name is "pi", or may I have another problem?

THANKS

JosepZ

I manually created the directory /home/JoepZ/.emulationstation/gamelists/amstradcpc and them this accesing error was fixed, but I get the same error with another file.

I checked the owners of retrpie related directories, and this is the resul:

"JosepZ@raspberrypi:~ $ ls -l -a
total 304
drwxr-xr-x 28 JosepZ pi 4096 Apr 29 21:22 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Apr 1 15:28 ..
-rw------- 1 JosepZ pi 476 Mar 21 22:39 .Xauthority
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 Apr 29 20:52 .advance -> /opt/retropie/configs/mame-advmame
-rw-r--r-- 1 JosepZ pi 69 Mar 18 09:58 .asoundrc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 Apr 29 20:52 .atari800.cfg -> /opt/retropie/configs/atari800.cfg
-rw------- 1 JosepZ pi 24941 Apr 29 22:23 .bash_history
-rw-r--r-- 1 JosepZ pi 220 Mar 18 09:09 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 JosepZ pi 3512 Mar 18 09:09 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x 11 JosepZ pi 4096 Apr 29 21:02 .cache
drwxr-xr-x 18 JosepZ pi 4096 Apr 29 21:02 .config
drwx------ 3 JosepZ pi 4096 Mar 18 09:58 .dbus
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 Apr 29 20:53 .dosbox -> /opt/retropie/configs/pc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 Apr 29 21:19 .eduke32 -> /opt/retropie/configs/ports/duke3d
lrwxrwxrwx 1 JosepZ pi 42 Apr 29 21:22 .emulationstation -> /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation
drwxr-xr-x 2 JosepZ pi 4096 Mar 18 09:58 .fontconfig
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 40 Apr 29 20:53 .fuserc -> /opt/retropie/configs/zxspectrum/.fuserc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Apr 29 20:54 .gngeo -> /opt/retropie/configs/neogeo
drwx------ 2 JosepZ pi 4096 Apr 4 15:35 .gnupg
drwxr-xr-x 2 JosepZ pi 4096 Apr 1 15:33 .gstreamer-0.10
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 Apr 29 20:56 .hatari -> /opt/retropie/configs/atarist
drwxr-xr-x 8 JosepZ pi 4096 Mar 20 02:16 .kodi
drwxr-xr-x 3 JosepZ pi 4096 Mar 18 09:45 .local
-rw-r--r-- 1 JosepZ pi 675 Mar 18 09:09 .profile
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 Apr 29 21:01 .reicast -> /opt/retropie/configs/dreamcast/
drwx------ 2 JosepZ pi 4096 Mar 31 23:48 .ssh
drwxr-xr-x 3 JosepZ pi 4096 Mar 18 09:45 .themes
drwx------ 4 JosepZ pi 4096 Mar 20 17:33 .thumbnails
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 Apr 29 21:14 .vice -> /opt/retropie/configs/c64
drwx------ 2 JosepZ pi 4096 Mar 21 17:53 .vnc
-rw------- 1 JosepZ pi 4977 Apr 3 01:55 .xsession-errors
-rw------- 1 JosepZ pi 1010 Mar 21 17:53 .xsession-errors.old

There is some directories asigned to root user, and some shortcurts to /opt/retropie/configs dir. It is ok? May I change the owner of root asigned dirs?

herb_fargus

@JosepZ please use markdown for formatting code blocks and pastebin or equivalent for large code blocks

http://commonmark.org/help/

JosepZ

ok, sorry, you are right, it´s very confused.

Finally I changed all root asigned dirs to my user and now emulation station started!!
Still I get the write to a file before it was open errors, like that :
.....
"ERROR - tried to write to log file before it was open! The following won't be logged:
lvl2: EmulationStation - v2.0.1a, built Apr 20 2016 - 22:51:41"
.....

But at least emulation station is loading to gamepad configuration screen.
Now it detects my gamepad, but does nothing when I keep a button pressed to configure.

I will keep fighting :-)

BuZz

RetroPie-Setup expects you to have a user that has a matching group of the same name. I suspect you don't.

BuZz

And I suspect your user also lacks the correct permissions to read device drivers - use the default pi user, or set up a user with the same permissions.

Meneer Jansen

@JosepZ said in Error loading emulationstation:

ok, sorry, you are right, it´s very confused.

Finally I changed all root asigned dirs to my user and now emulation station started!!

I learned the hard way you should never do this. Linux does not trust dirs that should only be accessible to root that are accessible to anyone. And generally that's a good safety strategy for an OS. You might need to re-install RetroPie altogether now...

JosepZ

I learned the lesson too.

I did a clean reinstall of raspbian jessi and started from 0. Now I had no issues installing or starting emulation station.

But I have a problem with my gamepad, that I can´t fix after several hours reading, reinstalling all again , etc.

I can read "1 gamepad detected" on emulation station, but when I press a button for configure, nothing happens.

lsubs command show me my logitech rummblepas 2 is detected too. I don´t know what more to do.

Even tried with a wired PS3 gamepad, and is the same, it is detected, but nothing happens when a button is pressed.