Mausberry Shutdown Script Doesn't Save Metadata

meleu

@lostless said in Mausberry Shutdown Script Doesn't Save Metadata:

I learned a hard lesson powering off in the middle of a game and losing about an hours worth of gameplay

Can you share with us what is the exact option for this? I'm highly interested.

I had a similar issue while playing Terranigma after freeing 4 continents. I was playing on my GPD XD (Android device) and left the device in standby but the battery was over. And then the srm file wasn't saved... :( You know, RPGs are very time consuming...

@cyperghost that's why you don't see me talking about Terranigma recently. But I'll try it again!

cyperghost

Can you share with us what is the exact option for this? I'm highly interested.

I'm also highly interested

@cyperghost that's why you don't see me talking about Terranigma recently. But I'll try it again!

Do that! I'm just stick in the middle of the game. You need so much time for RPG but it makes real fun.

meleu

@cyperghost I think I've found it!

The option is autosave_interval. Look here: https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/blob/master/retroarch.cfg#L785

300 should be a good value. 300 seconds = 5 minutes

EDIT: via menu it's Settings -> Saving -> SaveRAM Autosave Interval.

lostless

@meleu that's it. I did some testing a while ago and it only writes a new file if it's been changed. So 10 seconds works good for me.

hansolo77

Good stuff! So just to clarify, that's saving the nonvolatile RAM right? Not creating a Save State? Because of RetroAchievments, I typically just leave my RetroArch in Hardcore mode, which disables Saves States and Cheats.

Sorry about last night and my headache. I wasn't fully following the discussion between @cyperghost and @meleu. When I get a chance, I will try it with the command:

pkill -f "$(sed -n 4p /dev/shm/runcommand.info)"

lostless

@hansolo77 yes just the sram. Not savestates. By default the sram stays in RAM until you exit. This just checks the sram every x seconds and sees if there is a change. If so, it writes to disk.

hansolo77

That added line to the script seems to break the script. I added the 1.3 changes (using the original pkill retroarch > /dev/null 2>&1 bit), then I changed it to the pkill -f "$(sed -n 4p /dev/shm/runcommand.info)". For some reason now, whenever I press the power button nothing happens. At first I thought it was because the pkill command was nested inside the if statement. When I SSH'd into the system and checked top, ES was no longer running when RetroArch was. So the new additions to the script weren't getting picked up. I moved it (as a test) outside if functions. Still nothing happened. I've experimented with doing sudo reboot from the SSH terminal as well as via ES shutdown (from the menu). In both cases, the power button still doesn't work. I can, however, power the system on from a complete power plug pull via the button, so I know the switch is still good. You sure that's the right command?

hansolo77

OK, further "looking around"... the original script (v1.2) wasn't working either. So I went back to the unedited v0.0 (the one Mausberry has you install). That one didn't work either! So I checked out the install script, and saw they're adding a line to rc.local. I'm not sure what that file is, but when I edited it, it had 2 instances of the script path /etc/switch.sh in there. I took one out and rebooted. Now the original script is working right. Gonna try putting in the new changes and see if that was my problem.

EDIT Still a no-go on that 1.3 edit. :(

EDIT 2 Facepalm - I think it might be a file properties issue now... I rechecked the Mausberry install script and noticed they're doing a chmod +777 on the script prior to rebooting. Since I already had a working script, I moved it to a backup file before making changes. I saved the changes to a new file and renamed it to be what it should be. But I suspect the +777 isn't there. So I added that bit in the terminal and just rebooted. The system now shuts down correctly (using the 1.2 script). Now testing 1.3.

EDIT 3 Ha! That was the trick. But it's not saving the metadata. It might be that it's not giving it enough time to return to ES before cutting the power... When I hit the button, it turns off the emulator, and I see the RunCommand box (haven't set up the launching images yet). At the bottom of the screen there is a line that says "Terminated", then the system turns off..

EDIT 4 I don't think this script in it's current form works well. I tried adding a second to the sleep timer. Then tried to test the script just as is before actually launching a game. The script launches, but the system never shuts down. ES closes, but that's it. I don't know if it's getting hung up on the sleep or what. But the only way I can recover is by pulling the plug. With the 2 added (v1.3) lines # commented out, the system fully powers down again. I think there needs to be additional lines of code to include an if/then/else. IF emulator is running, THEN kill and wait, ELSE shutdown ES. But will that even execute if an emulator isn't running? Would it need to read out as "IF emulator, THEN kill emulator and wait, THEN kill ES.. ELSE kill ES"?

PS - I'm done for the night. :)

cyperghost

So I think it we should provide and maintain v1.2 only!
Get the version for Mausberry circuits shutdowns from here

Thank @hansolo77 for testing this
This script will properly shutdown ES and saves it's metadata if you press power button on your mausberry circuit!

Metadata is needed to save scraped games, favorites and last played record upon next reboot
This script will work if your are in EmulationsStation
This script will not properly save metadata if you shutdown during gameplay or if your RPi is locked (So return to ES by pressing start+select on your gampad and then shutdown!)

# End Emulationstation if condition of running binary is true
# v1.0 07/21/17 by cyperghost - Inital run 
# v1.1 07/22/17 - Added chown command to set right user permission for creating es-shutdown
# v1.2 07/23/17 - Some small improvments, easier to maintain, removed echo, removed else branch 
# greetings @pjft for his famous favorits and @meleu for the RegEx sniplet 
espid=$( pgrep -f "/opt/retropie/supplementary/.*/emulationstation([^.]|$)" ) # detect PID of ES binary only
if [ "$espid" ]; then                                                         # Condition: PID is not equal 0 or empty then use ES shutdown
   touch /tmp/es-shutdown && chown pi:pi /tmp/es-shutdown                     #v1.1 Change file permission of es-shutdown to user:group pi:pi
   kill $espid                                                                #v1.2 use kill@detected PID - easier to maintain now!
   exit
fi
# End Emulationstation if condition of running binary is true

cyperghost

EXPERIMENTAL!!!

Converted from @meleu to kill all emulators
It worked (saved recently used games) for me in SSH but I've no chance to test >> lack of mausberry!

# End Emulationstation if condition of running binary is true (Shotgun-version - no support!)
# v1.0 07/21/17 by cyperghost - Inital run 
# v1.1 07/22/17 - Added chown command to set right user permission for creating es-shutdown
# v1.2 07/23/17 - Some small improvments, easier to maintain, removed echo, removed else branch 
# v1.4 07/25/17 - Shotgun method to terminate all launchs by runcommand (not maintained, use v1.2 for support)
# greetings @pjft for his famous favorits and @meleu for the RegEx sniplet 
espid=$( pgrep -f "/opt/retropie/supplementary/.*/emulationstation([^.]|$)" ) # detect PID of ES binary only
if [ "$espid" ]; then  

#### Experimental part ####
IFS=" "
set – $( sed -n 4p /dev/shm/runcommand.info ) > /dev/null 2>&1
pkill $2 && sleep 4                                                           # v1.4 Sleeptimer to give ES chance to save XML filestate (untestested)
#### Experimental part ####
 
   touch /tmp/es-shutdown && chown pi:pi /tmp/es-shutdown                     # v1.1 Change file permission of es-shutdown to user:group pi:pi
   kill $espid                                                                # v1.2 use kill@detected PID - easier to maintain now!
exit
fi

meleu

@cyperghost some notes

the indentation can be improved :)
the default IFS is space, tab and newline. I think there's no need to set it as space
I'm not getting the reason why you are messing with the set command (unnecessary complexity)...

the suggested command doesn't work for you?

pkill -f "$(sed -n 4p /dev/shm/runcommand.info)"

cyperghost

@meleu yes
pkill -f "$(sed -n 4p /dev/shm/runcommand.info)" Does not work. So you need to extract just binary call... I tested with retroarch, glide64 and zdoom. All were prober working by set-command

meleu

@cyperghost said in Mausberry Shutdown Script Doesn't Save Metadata:

@meleu yes
pkill -f "$(sed -n 4p /dev/shm/runcommand.info)" Does not work.

weird. I'm not able to test on my actual RetroPie, but look the test I've made:

[PROMPT]$ sleep 1000 &
[1] 8648
[PROMPT]$ cat test.info
1st line
2nd line
3rd line
sleep 1000
bla
bla
bla

[PROMPT]$ pkill -f "$(sed -n 4p test.info)"
[1]+  Terminated              sleep 1000

But I noticed an issue when the file to look for the 4th line doesn't exist... then my suggestion is to use this

[[ -f /dev/shm/runcommand.info ]] && pkill -f "$(sed -n 4p /dev/shm/runcommand.info)"

Can you test it on a real RetroPie setup?

cyperghost

@meleu Not now ... Have to work :)
Cya mate!

meleu

@cyperghost I found the problem: that line from runcommand.info has some double quotes wich is confusing the pkill. Here's my current solution:

rcinfo=/dev/shm/runcommand.info
[[ -f "$rcinfo" ]] && pkill -f -9 "$(sed -n 4p "$rcinfo" | cut -d' ' -f1)"

I tested on my retropie here and it seems to work. Please test it when you have a chance.

Cheers!

hansolo77

You guys are just talking gibberish again. For somebody who's unfamiliar with all of this, I'm completely lost. RetroPie is only my 2nd ever Pi project, and really only my first exposure to the scripting side of it. I'm eager to learn, but throwing out seemingly random lines of code without reference or instruction on where to place it doesn't help me any. :) No biggie, I'll get there. I'm just totally unfamiliar with the commands. set sed, IFS.. totally new to me. I only just learned about top like 4 days ago. ^_^

So tomorrow after work, would you rather I test @cyperghost's v1.4 or replace that section with @meleu's? Or would it be better to just wait and let ya'll hash it out some more?

meleu

@hansolo77 haha... sorry for the nerdy stuff. :)

my suggestion is to try this:

espid=$(pgrep -f "/opt/retropie/supplementary/.*/emulationstation([^.]|$)")
if [ "$espid" ]; then
    [[ -f "/dev/shm/runcommand.info" ]] \
    && pkill -f -9 "$(sed -n 4p "/dev/shm/runcommand.info" | cut -d' ' -f1)" \
    && sleep 4
    touch /tmp/es-shutdown && chown pi:pi /tmp/es-shutdown
    kill $espid
fi

hansolo77

Ok cool. I'm going to bed soon so I will test this tomorrow when I get off work. If not right away, I'm off Thursday, so plenty of time then.

cyperghost

@meleu
You can even improve :)

Edit runcommand-onend.sh and add

sudo rm /dev/shm/runcommand.info

or make PR to runcommand.sh :)
Because runcommand.info isn't removed if emulator ends by start+select button :) It isn't really needed but it's a nice cleanup and definates the addition to the GPIO script you made with more sense.

meleu

@cyperghost it can be useful for debugging. I prefer to keep it even after the emulator has finished.