Cannot change back emulator choice per Rom (solved)

[Aryetis]

Hello there,

For quite sometimes now (a month or so), I have a problems with emulators. Once I pick an emulator for a specific ROM I cannot change my pick anymore. It does not seems to be a write/read permissions issues as emulstation/runcommand has no problem whatsoever when I set the emulator for a specific ROM for the first time. But once it's done, it is DONE !
Am I the only one in this case ? Any clues ?

Thanks

---

Specs : Raspberry Pi3
Power Supply : Aukru 5V, 3A
RetroPie Version : 4.2.10,
No logs, no errors
How to replicate the problem:
1/ Launch whatever emulators and roms you feel like, then mash a button to get the runcommand/setup screen.
2/ Change the Option 2 "Select Emulator for ROM()" to whatever value you feel like
3/ This value is now locked ... You cannot change it anymore, it is effective, and no ammount of "Remove Emulator choice for ROM" will delete this choice.

[Aryetis]

Looks like the /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulators.cfg got corrupted I deleted it and made sure that pi did has permissions to write in the config files directory (sudo chown -R pi:pi /opt/retropie/configs) and it's all fixed.

[Robertdan]

This is the exact problem I had and deleting the emulators.cfg file fixed it. Thank you for sharing this info!

[estefan3112]

Confirmed, it also solved my problem! Very valuable information, many thanks!

[benjiman]

Sorry. Is there a noobs step by step for this? Do I need a computer or can I do it on my pie with a keyboard? Thanks😊

[mitu]

@benjiman What is the problem that you're having ? Simply deleting one file might not solve it.

[benjiman]

@mitu I chose a default ROM and find out it won't run the game so I try and change it and it sticks as the 1st choice. I also can't remove ROM choice. No error messages just stays as it is.

[benjiman]

@mitu example if I chose mame4all I hope it works cause it's Going to stay on that ROM. I have heard it can be caused by adding games through a flash drive which is how I do it.

[mitu]

@benjiman No, that's not the way you get a problem emulators.cfg. The file you seek is in /opt/retropie/configs/<system>/, where <system> is the name of the ROM folder.
If you used the arcade folder for your ROMs and then, through the Runcommand launch menu, changed the emulator for a certain ROM, the file that keeps this setting is /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/emulators.cfg. To change its permissions (which seems to be your problem), you can exit Emulationstation, then run from the command prompt (using a keyboard):

sudo chown pi:pi /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/emulators.cfg
chmod +w /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/emulators.cfg

[benjiman]

@mitu thank you 😎

[ahmad8mk]

I did exactly what mentioned here but still can`t change anything any ideas. @mitu

[ahmad8mk]

I did exactly what mentioned here but still can`t change anything any ideas @Aryetis

[jackyracer]

Hi! I know this entry is pretty old, but since I got the same problem very frequently I thought I‘d share what I did to resolve it, so people who might still find this thread during their search (as I did recently) have something else to try ;) On my system it really seemed to be the configs/all/emulators.cfg file which somehow got corrupted, and weird stuff got written to the file. If I opened it with notepad I simply had to remove that weird stuff/characters and then was able to write to the file again (e.g. changing an emulator for a specific rom, remove it again and so on). So I didn’t have to delete the file and lose all settings/changes made to it (which can be quite a lot). Maybe this helps someone...

[Knuckles78]

@jackyracer Complete new here having the exact same problem. Could you possibly help guide me to that config file?

[mitu]

@Knuckles78 The emulators.cfg file is in \\retropie\configs\all - if you're using File Shares to access your RetroPie installation.

[Knuckles78]

@mitu I’m accessing it directly through terminal. I attempted the “sudo chown pi:pi etc.” you posted previously with no results. Like I said I’m pretty new and I think it’s because I’m still in Raspberry pi rather than RetroPie inside terminal.

[mitu]

@Knuckles78 said in Cannot change back emulator choice per Rom (solved):

I’m accessing it directly through terminal

The command I posted works from the terminal. How are you checking that it's working/not-working ? You can list the rights on the file(s) by running:

ls -l /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulators.cfg
ls -l /opt/retropie/configs/arcade/emulators.cfg

[IanDaemon]

@mitu I love the ls -l look. Aside from requiring the extra characters that more than double the command's length it's great. XD

[Clyde]

@IanDaemon -l stands for "long listing format" with good reason. :)

[mitu]

You can always create 'aliases' for long commands. ll is a oft used alias of ls -l, just add

alias ll='ls -l'

to your $HOME/.profile and that's all.
Favorite command today apt-get moo.