@metalgamerfil said in Blank dark screen after boot:

if I plug a keyboard and press ALT+Tab and return to the emulationstation it shows the normal picture.

Are you using the desktop to start EmulationStation ? This is not supported on a Raspberry Pi, EmulationStation (and the emulators it starts) should run outside of the Desktop env.

@sleve_mcdichael

Thanks ! Will give it a try and post result after a couple of tests...

@TimD123 When you write an image it will delete the previous image every time. This temporary fix is outdated. You can now use the retropie 4.8 image.

You can make an older buster image work if you replace some boot files (I don't know what they are) or put it in an older pi4 and update it that way.

@soulfunkdjx

Nice !

Good luck with building it up.

@melvin86
lack of information, please add details as requested here:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

Inside this sticky you can also learn how to find logs and how to paste them.

@buzz Thank you! Flashed and booted perfectly.

@xys7er

Not sure. the only way to know that is to plug in one side of your control panel at a time... or remove the LEDs from the buttons and see what happens. Plug them back in one at a time.

Did you check each switch for continuity? Maybe one of the micro switches is bad giving feedback to the Pi?

I don't know what power source you are using for the Pi as you didn't mention it, but usually 3.5 amp is the sold standards. That should be enough to drive the LED's as well.

@alistairgd having extra loads can increase, whats called, the rise time. no power supply supplies full voltage when first turned on. I work on power supplies and The rise time can be upwards of 100ms. And while that’s a very short time, its enough time to run a few cpu clock cycles on the pi under volted. Add in the extra stuff and you may get a few more dips as those devices power up.

@mitu Thanks for the reply! I’m not at my Pi at the moment but when I get situated, I’ll give that a shot and report back!

@mitu
I can delete files from my PC, but they re-appear when i mount it again. So broken SD card.

Thanks for the help. I would never thought of that.

@dankcushions said in Pi 4b black screen issues:

@luisdent like i said, show us your config file and we can diagnose. there's an extra few lines that helps on some monitors:

hdmi_max_pixel_freq:0=200000000 hdmi_max_pixel_freq:1=200000000

in addition to a working 1080p mode, which for you may be

hdmi_group=2 hdmi_mode=82

ps, can you not SSH in to diagnose via another PC on the network?

Not sure which fixed it, but this made it work properly. It flickers a screen with the terminal/command cursor a few times quickly but i see it and then it displays the appropriate screen following that. So far i've gone in and out of config screens and reboots and it appears to be working now.

Thanks!!!

Now to fix the performance issues ;-) or i should say optimize. it runs fairly well. :)

@greenhawk84 Download the latest image and open it with 7zip to look in the boot partition and read it. This is what it looks like, extracted from the PI4 image:

# For more options and information see # http://rpf.io/configtxt # Some settings may impact device functionality. See link above for details # uncomment if you get no picture on HDMI for a default "safe" mode #hdmi_safe=1 # uncomment this if your display has a black border of unused pixels visible # and your display can output without overscan #disable_overscan=1 # uncomment the following to adjust overscan. Use positive numbers if console # goes off screen, and negative if there is too much border #overscan_left=16 #overscan_right=16 #overscan_top=16 #overscan_bottom=16 # uncomment to force a console size. By default it will be display's size minus # overscan. #framebuffer_width=1280 #framebuffer_height=720 # uncomment if hdmi display is not detected and composite is being output #hdmi_force_hotplug=1 # uncomment to force a specific HDMI mode (this will force VGA) #hdmi_group=1 #hdmi_mode=1 # uncomment to force a HDMI mode rather than DVI. This can make audio work in # DMT (computer monitor) modes #hdmi_drive=2 # uncomment to increase signal to HDMI, if you have interference, blanking, or # no display #config_hdmi_boost=4 # uncomment for composite PAL #sdtv_mode=2 #uncomment to overclock the arm. 700 MHz is the default. #arm_freq=800 # Uncomment some or all of these to enable the optional hardware interfaces #dtparam=i2c_arm=on #dtparam=i2s=on #dtparam=spi=on # Uncomment this to enable infrared communication. #dtoverlay=gpio-ir,gpio_pin=17 #dtoverlay=gpio-ir-tx,gpio_pin=18 # Additional overlays and parameters are documented /boot/overlays/README # Enable audio (loads snd_bcm2835) dtparam=audio=on [pi4] # Enable DRM VC4 V3D driver on top of the dispmanx display stack dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d max_framebuffers=2 [all] #dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d overscan_scale=1

For the PI2/3 models, I think there's a memory setting added that's extra, the rest should be identical.

I got it all working and wrote up notes on what I had to do in this post.

If you have a Linux system, yes. Windows cannot read the SDcard's contents. You may take a backup as an .img (with Win32DiskImager, as mentioned in the docs) and try to open it with 7Zip.

You've probably modified one of the start-up services which you shouldn't have. Post the contents of /etc/profile.d/10-retropie.sh file from your system.

@dreamcastkid
Hi

This way is to make a custom splashscreen .... Ascii art on boot is another think.

@mitu oh ho, I know it's not supported. I tried it as my main configuration for a while and eventually it just would not start any games at all. I'm hoping that because it's on a secondary sd card it'll fix the issues i previously had.

If i had a choice, I would totally prefer to have it on top of raspbian but, whatever.