@mitu Here's the text that came out after the commands:

AP///////wBMLe4NAA4AAQEbAQOAeUR4CiOtpFRNmSYPR0q974BxT4HAgQCBgJUAqcCzAAEBBHQA MPJwWoCwWIoAUB10AAAeAjqAGHE4LUBYLEUAUB10AAAeAAAA/QAYSw9RHgAKICAgICAgAAAA/ABT QU1TVU5HCiAgICAgAToCA0/wU18QHwQTBRQgISJdXmJjZAcWAxIsCQcHFQdQPQTAVwcAgwEAAOIA D+MFAwFuAwwAQAC4PCAAgAECAwTjBg0B5Q5gYWVm5QGLhJABAR2A0HIcFiAQLCWAUB10AACeZiFW qlEAHjBGjzMAUB10AAAeAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArQ==

Additionally, after hours of messing with this, when I plugged it in today it was magically working. I had just rebuilt the box after an issue with SSD corruption. I'm still willing to pull data/test to help anyone else who has come across this issue. I also plan on rebooting a few times to see if this is a fluke.

@pojr Cool, glad you got it! I meant to mention that one as well as I has tried it, but it didn't fix
the issue for me.

I have this curse...both at home and I work. I can't figure out a problem to save my life. Then, after I publicly make an ass out of myself by asking...the situation just clears itself up, as if there is some sort of cosmic force at work who wants me to constantly humiliate myself. This situation seems to be no exception. Without changing a thing, it seems to be working the way I want it to the past day or so.

@chuckyp most adapters have a headphone jack on them for audio which is far better quality than the jack on the pi.

Well, I cant delete this anymore, but my Pi works again. Dont know why, but hey. Appreciated.

@jonnykesh I tried downloading asplashscreen.sh from /splashscreen/ but the file will not download, it says it's "unable to open asplashscreen"

I am doing this with root access on my PC but this is just weird.

I have the image for RetroPie 4.3. I was thinking about doing 4.2 instead. Should I, or is there something I'm missing?