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    Please do not post a support request without first reading and following the advice in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

    How to restart ES from a script?

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    scriptessystems.cfgrestart
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    • cyperghostC
      cyperghost @BuZz
      last edited by

      @BuZz ... and you ask me? :D

      Bild Text

      TMNTturtlguyT cyperghostC 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • TMNTturtlguyT
        TMNTturtlguy @cyperghost
        last edited by

        @cyperghost @meleu

        That did it! Success....I am now back to running without getting the errors. @cyperghost your script does work well. I am going to upload the update to github. If you are willing it would be great for you to test. It is easy for you to delete the script after testing if you don't find it useful. Thanks for all the help. Will be interested to see how updates to ES will affect this.

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        • cyperghostC
          cyperghost @cyperghost
          last edited by cyperghost

          @BuZz
          The problem is that you can't kill ES with killall command.
          It will return to bash prompt and you are not able to restart in graphical mode on your TV (via SSH yes that works)

          So I seem to kill the latest child process that forces ES to restart IF a es-restart is present in /tmp

          meleus script kills two pids... and then ES is gone like killall.

          Maybe now you understand my "EUREKA" ;)

          BuZzB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • BuZzB
            BuZz administrators @cyperghost
            last edited by

            @cyperghost perhaps he accidently killed the parent bash script. Killing all ES processes or just one shouldn't make a difference. I'll test though.

            To help us help you - please make sure you read the sticky topics before posting - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

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            • cyperghostC
              cyperghost
              last edited by

              @BuZz
              Please test... maybe you understand my EUREKA today, okay?
              This was really tricky

              BuZzB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • meleuM
                meleu
                last edited by

                @cyperghost @TMNTturtlguy
                Some background I would like to share with you guys:

                • when you type emulationstation in the shell, it executes /usr/bin/emulationstation

                • the /usr/bin/emulationstation is a shell script that calls /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation.sh.

                • the /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation.sh calls the /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation and this is the real emulationstation binary.

                • the /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation.sh has a logic to restart ES, restart system and shutdown system based on the existence of some specific files in /tmp. The code of this script can be seen here.

                • in my failed attempt to restart ES from commandline, I was trying create the /tmp/es-restart and kill only the ES binary. According to the emulationstation.sh it's enough to restart ES. But as we saw, my approach is killing the emulationstation.sh too, and that is what is "crashing".

                I'll try something more concise this evening, but if @cyperghost has some free time now and would like to investigate more, my suggestion is to find a way to kill only that very specific binary: /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation.

                I used those metacharacters on my pkill regex to try to match some edge cases (like running a custom branch ES or launching ES with some parameter).

                P.S.: now that I see @BuZz is aboard, I'm sure that the elegant solution is coming. :)

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                • BuZzB
                  BuZz administrators @cyperghost
                  last edited by BuZz

                  @cyperghost I think the problem is just the emulationstation.sh is being killed (which handles the restarting). Should be simple enough to avoid killing that. eg specifying the process name exactly rather than pattern matching.

                  To help us help you - please make sure you read the sticky topics before posting - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

                  cyperghostC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • cyperghostC
                    cyperghost @BuZz
                    last edited by cyperghost

                    @BuZz Please go on.... I think it is not as easy
                    Because I manually lauched /opt.../ emulationstation.sh and that did not workd.
                    @TMNTturtlguy discovered the /tmp thing today +1 for him

                    BuZzB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • BuZzB
                      BuZz administrators @cyperghost
                      last edited by BuZz

                      @cyperghost It should be. I would guess at something like

                      touch /tmp/es-restart; killall -e "/opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation"
                      

                      should be fine.

                      To help us help you - please make sure you read the sticky topics before posting - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

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                      • cyperghostC
                        cyperghost
                        last edited by

                        let me test...

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                        • BuZzB
                          BuZz administrators
                          last edited by BuZz

                          or to work with emulationstation running from any path. (eg with emulationstation-kids etc).

                          touch /tmp/es-restart; pkill -f "/emulationstation$"
                          

                          To help us help you - please make sure you read the sticky topics before posting - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

                          cyperghostC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • cyperghostC
                            cyperghost
                            last edited by cyperghost

                            Works fine

                            touch /tmp/es-restart; killall -e "/opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation"
                            
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                            • cyperghostC
                              cyperghost @BuZz
                              last edited by cyperghost

                              @BuZz said in How to restart ES from a script?:

                              pkill -f "/emulationstation$"

                              That let's restart just 2 PIDs... Does not work!

                              touch /tmp/es-restart; killall -e "/opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation"
                              

                              runs fine all 3 PIDs are up to date


                              Man ... I even wrote use the tty1 outputs. So indeed the relauch script was killed

                              BuZzB TMNTturtlguyT 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • BuZzB
                                BuZz administrators @cyperghost
                                last edited by

                                @cyperghost said in How to restart ES from a script?:

                                pkill -f "/emulationstation$"

                                Worked here when I just tested.

                                To help us help you - please make sure you read the sticky topics before posting - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

                                cyperghostC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • cyperghostC
                                  cyperghost @BuZz
                                  last edited by cyperghost

                                  @BuZz Wait I post output in a few minutes...

                                  pi@retropie:~ $ ls /tmp
                                  es-restart  omxplayerdbus.root  omxplayerdbus.root.pid
                                  pi@retropie:~ $ ps -a
                                    PID TTY          TIME CMD
                                    862 tty1     00:00:00 bash
                                    867 tty1     00:00:00 bash
                                    868 tty1     00:00:00 emulationstatio
                                    874 tty1     00:00:00 emulationstatio
                                    877 tty1     00:00:13 emulationstatio
                                    990 pts/0    00:00:00 ps
                                  

                                  The command pkill

                                  pi@retropie:~ $ pkill -f -e "/emulationstation$"
                                  emulationstatio killed (pid 868)
                                  emulationstatio killed (pid 877)
                                  

                                  check with ps -a

                                  pi@retropie:~ $ ps -a
                                    PID TTY          TIME CMD
                                    862 tty1     00:00:00 bash
                                    874 tty1     00:00:00 emulationstatio
                                   1001 tty1     00:00:08 emulationstatio
                                   1071 pts/0    00:00:00 ps
                                  

                                  worked now... sorry... but 2 PIDs alive
                                  If PID 874 in my current setup will be killed than ES is wrecked.

                                  Thank you

                                  BuZzB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • BuZzB
                                    BuZz administrators @cyperghost
                                    last edited by BuZz

                                    @cyperghost use ps -fa as you can't tell what they are from that. probably parent bash scripts (which is correct - they shouldn't be killed).

                                    To help us help you - please make sure you read the sticky topics before posting - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • TMNTturtlguyT
                                      TMNTturtlguy @cyperghost
                                      last edited by

                                      @BuZz @cyperghost

                                      touch /tmp/es-restart; killall -e "/opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation"

                                      runs fine all 3 PIDs are up to date

                                      When i use this in my script, it runs the first time. The second time i try to run it, the script crashes with error "cant remove /tmp/es-restart

                                      cyperghostC BuZzB 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • cyperghostC
                                        cyperghost
                                        last edited by

                                        @BuZz
                                        Thank you I will remember that command!
                                        Very usefull :)

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • cyperghostC
                                          cyperghost @TMNTturtlguy
                                          last edited by cyperghost

                                          @TMNTturtlguy I will check....
                                          I tested all scripts 2 two 3 times... all runing fine

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                                          • BuZzB
                                            BuZz administrators @TMNTturtlguy
                                            last edited by

                                            @TMNTturtlguy said in How to restart ES from a script?:

                                            @BuZz @cyperghost

                                            touch /tmp/es-restart; killall -e "/opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation"

                                            When i use this in my script, it runs the first time. The second time i try to run it, the script crashes with error "cant remove /tmp/es-restart

                                            because custom retropie scripts are actually run as root - ill change that I think, but just make sure you create it owned by pi for now.

                                            sudo -u pi touch /tmp/es-restart
                                            pkill -f "/emulationstation$"
                                            

                                            To help us help you - please make sure you read the sticky topics before posting - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

                                            cyperghostC 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
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