I can see the font files from my Mac via FTP, and a number of 16x32 fonts seem to be the largest there is. That's fine, I hopefully I can just SSH in for 99% of things.

@adams 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

@dojobaggins OK, so you might have had an older release where there was no 'Hotkey' button present in the input configuration dialog and Start + Select was automatically set. This is what you can do

configure you controller again in Emulationstation when you get the Hotkey selection, just long press the A button to skip it, then save the configuration (press A). there will be a prompt asking you if you want to use the Select button as a Hotkey, since you didn't assign a button to it. Choose yes here.
Now the Hotkey will be mapped to Select and you'll be able to use the same exit shortcut as before.

thanks I will try this out

@chipsnblip I used this fan + case bundle, which has nothing special except it's low prize.
And about the hdmi mode, and basically everything else in the config file, I doubt it is related in any way to the problem because right now it is exactly as it was when the problem was fixed. Anyway, if you need an image, I post it wjen I have one.

@zithro impressive script. I was facing the same problem and used this approach:

1 - create a shortcut on the desktop to a shell script (as you did above)
2 - download and compile ttyecho (instructions here)
3 - shell script contents:

#!/bin/bash #swith to display to tty1 sudo chvt 1 #start emulationstation on tty1. Switch back to tty7 (xwindows) when emulationstation is quit sudo ttyecho -n /dev/tty1 "emulationstation ; sudo chvt 7"

To return to xwindows exit emulationstation using the start menu.

p.s. note that you can switch back and forth between X and Emulationstation by using Ctrl+Alt+F7 and Ctrl+Alt+F1 if you like to keep both running at the same time.