CRASH TO TERMINAL, keyboard stops working, rebuilding doesn't fix

edmaul69

@Dochartaigh are you using a proper shutdown or are you just killing the power or resetting it not through the emulationstation options menu? If you dont have a proper shutdown it is most likely why you keep bricking the system because improper shutdown causes sd card corruption.

Dochartaigh

Hello, proper shutdown every single time. This can also happen as soon as maybe the 3rd or 4th boot.

I would like to re-iterate that I have been seeing posts like mine popping up with frequency for the past month maybe so I know I'm not alone.

Also want to re-iterate that I've literally re-built every conceivable software this system runs on, down to Jessie itself (or at least that's what I think I'm doing ;) with no solution in sight (besides re-formatting and re-installing).

Last, I've tried this on so many different pieces of hardware that the culprit most definitely is something in the code/program itself. There's just no other possible explanation.

BuZz

I have not seen many posts like this and the few I have seen have mostly been down to people using the wrong image or a bad sdcard.

After first install you can try updating retropie-setup, and updating emulationstation from binary. The most recent ES launch doesn't clear the screen on exit so any problem will hopefully be more visible.

If it was a common issue, there would be hundreds of people reporting it - bearing in mind the last images have had over 500,000 downloads

It must be something specific to your set-up.

Just sounds like ES is crashing anyway - runcommand won't log anything - it's not used for launching ES. You might find some data in /home/pi/.emulationstation/es_log.txt but updating ES first would be the best option.

Dochartaigh

@BuZz
You are completely, totally, correct, that crashing to terminal soon after installing is indicative of people using the wrong image (i.e. RP2/3 image on a RP0/1) - and is very common, and is why everybody (including myself) always asks first and foremost the OP which image they used and how many raspberries they see upon booting up. But I'm talking about the others I've been reading about (which as time permits -which is scarce of late- I will link here as I see them) – specifically when the keyboard no longer works when it crashes to terminal and/or typing 'emulationstation' does nothing which is weird and exactly what I've experienced numerous times.

The weird part, and what I hate the most, is there doesn't seem to be ANY fix besides reformatting and starting over. And that's quite extreme don't you think?

You would think that if you run all the sudo apt-get/update/upgrade/dist, isn't that updating/upgrading (essentially rebuilding) the base Jessie linux distro RetroPie is built upon?

And if you then go into the RetroPie setup menu and rebuild everything there as well (from the main packages, to the main and optional and experimental cores, to the drivers, etc) - isn't that essentially rebuilding every single file RetroPie itself uses? ....you would think that does the trick, correct? Not for me, and not for others - and this has happened to me personally maybe 10 times. I'm FAR and away not an expert so these are the only types of things I know to try.

What made me make this topic is I was at my cousin's house where he imaged his own system (i.e. totally different computer, card reader, SD card, and Pi 3 computer than my own setups) and it crashed to terminal. Rebooted and crashed again (x3). We plugged in a keyboard and couldn't type. Same exact thing I've experienced multiple times before...so in the middle of a family party (with tons of kids sitting by looking for something to do ;) I had to reimage the entire card and start over. Then I read about several other people with the same exact weird problem (one last night), and think to myself "there HAS to be a solution to this"...

BuZz

@Dochartaigh don't update everything from source etc. You should also avoid trying to install everything. You should only install things you use (eg don't install all drivers). Updating Jessie packages is unlikely to help too. Please just follow my steps above so we can see why ES is crashing. Thanks.

Despite what you say there are very posts I have seen with this issue unresolved. I will help debug it if you go through the steps.

Dochartaigh

@BuZz
I definitely will Buzz. Thank you as always.

To your steps above, should I enter retropie-setup using this below code? (which will have to be done via SSH since my keyboard never works when it crashes)

cd RetroPie-Setup
chmod +x retropie_setup.sh
sudo ./retropie_setup.sh

Then once I'm in there ONLY update the MAIN packages from binary, correct? - then I'll see the actual error up on screen (since it will no longer clear the screen on crash) - and I can post a photo of my screen, and then we (I mean you ;) can hopefully troubleshoot from there.

I will also go into /home/pi/.emulationstation/ and look for es_log.txt.

I just hope I still have this Samsung 16gb card. I'm pretty sure I markered a big "X" on the back of it in silver Sharpy marker just for troubleshooting purposes as this has been irking me for quite some time now.

BuZz

@Dochartaigh

Nope. That's not what I said :)

You don't need to do chmod +x retropie_setup.sh but yes, the other commands will launch retropie-setup

Then you need to update the RetroPie-Setup script from the main menu, then update just Emulation Station from binary (Manage Packages -> Core Packages)

BuZz

Once you have done that, let me know what happens and I will give you some additional steps.

Dochartaigh

So this is horrible....but I think I either lost that card or more likely re-formatted it and used it for another project. Thankfully (in a sick kinda way), I'm doing my last batch of these (which better be the last friggin batch since I'm getting tired of making these and after this there will be no friends/family left who don't have one!), my last once I made crashed to terminal, the keyboard doesn't work, but I'm SSH'd into it now.

This one that just crashes was made from an ApplePi-Baker backup I put onto a Samsung EVO 16gb card. I know that would make you automatically think that either A.) the backup is bad (which isn't the case as it just worked for me 9 times in a row), or B.) This particular backup didn't copy over to the card correctly this 1 time (which could be the case, but keep in mind this same exact kind of error - to the "t" - has happened to me multiple times from a brand new fresh install from scratch from the image on the RetroPie site).

Here's the Pastebin of /home/pi/.emulationstation/es_log.txt

My 2.4ghz wireless seems to be down (works for SSH, but updating emulationstation keeps on timing out on the download, and I'm getting like 3kbps on my desktop on it (5ghz works weirdly), AND my Realtek RTL8152 ethernet USB hub seems to need special drivers to work on RetroPie so I'm going to have to get that all sorted before I can update and report back.

MWGemini

@Dochartaigh How are you powering the Pis you've seen this problem with? I know when I first started, I had an adequate power supply but what turned out to be really cheap cables, and it was causing brownouts and other problems. Make sure you've got a good power supply AND good cables. That seems like it could be a common denominator in your case, since you've tried so many different hardware components.

Dochartaigh

@MWGemini
For my Pi Zero's I have a couple of the Anker 2-4-port USB wall chargers around the house. They output up to 2.1 amps (might be 2.4) per channel, and I've switched everything over to Amazon Basics micro USB cables which seem very nice. The power supply/cables hopefully aren't the problem as they power all the other working Zero's I have just fine.

@BuZz
I have another topic open about getting my ethernet adapter working since my 2.4ghz wireless has been flaky. Will RetroPie (like version 4.0.2. or maybe 4.1.0) give me a warning if it fails to compile or update something like EmulationStation for example? I know you mentioned RetroPie was JUST updated to NOT clear error messages for better troubleshooting.

I'm wondering because I'm now actually watching my other Pi (not this one I'm having problems with) run all the updates and I don't think I've ever seen that much code flash across the terminal window on the ones which have had issues (it's up to like 15+ pages of code, and it's been doing the update for maybe an hour so far and I don't know how much longer it has to go). I can never remember the problematic ones taking longer than maybe 20-30 minutes to update something which has me wondering if they're really failing to update, and I missed any error message which flashed up, and that's been why I could never fix them.

--once I'm done updating this working Pi Zero I'll see if the malfunctioning one can use the Ethernet adapter (but I'm pretty sure only newer versions of RetroPie can use that ethernet adapter since I could never get it working before - so I might be stuck without internet access to test anything out on the malfunctioning Pi Zero).