Please help a Noob. Hit f4 been stuck at black screen for hours.

dan18774

Pi Model or other hardware: 3
Power Supply used: official pi 2.5v
RetroPie Version Used: 4.3
Built From: Pre made SD Image on RetroPie website
USB Devices connected: wifi, keyboard
Controller used: Logitech F310 gamepad

Well i updated packages, installed the Drastic emulator, and added a few roms. Then i hit f4 to exit emulationstation to start using sselphs scraper for the new roms. Now i have been stuck at a black screen going on almost 3 hours. If i turn my tv off and on for few secs i can see a mouse cursor then it goes to black screen. I googled the problem and tried hitting esc, ctrl alt f1 , enter , f4, back, even tried tying emulationstation enter.

I saw on one of the posts when i updated packages in retropie then later hit f4 it might be back to updating. Just don't understand the why it's at a black screen. I'm concerned me hitting all those buttons might have messed up the potential updating if that's what its doing.

Hope some of this makes sense and y'all can understand my problem. I have no idea what i'm doing.

Would like to somehow to get back into emulationstation.

Thanks if anyone has the time to try to help me out. I'd really be thankful.

mitu

@dan18774 said in Please help a Noob. Hit f4 been stuck at black screen for hours.:

Hope some of this makes sense and y'all can understand my problem. I have no idea what i'm doing.

Just type emulationstation at the prompt and then hit the Enter key on your keyboard. What you're seeing is the command line Linux interface, which is prompting you to enter a command to execute. If you're not typing any command it will patiently wait for you until the system is stopped.
If you're still having troubles, then just reboot the PI - either power off/on from the power supply or press Ctrl+Alt+Del on your keyboard.

dan18774

@mitu Thanks for the reply!

I can't get any prompt to enter anything after hitting f4, just been a black screen. I tried ctrl + alt + del and got nothing.

Will turning the power off corrupt my sd card? I just turned the power off and on from the power supply switch and back in emulation station.

Also will i now run into this problem everytime i hit f4 from now on? Was updating the packages a bad idea and do think it was the problem?

Thanks again Mitu!

mitu

@dan18774 said in Please help a Noob. Hit f4 been stuck at black screen for hours.:

Also will i now run into this problem everytime i hit f4 from now on? Was updating the packages a bad idea and do think it was the problem?

You shoudn't need to exit Emulation station (hitting F4) in normal operation. Updating is not a bad idea.
Have you run DraStic before you pressed F4 ? It's known to change the framebuffer (console) paramters and this might have caused the black screen you've experienced. Try pressing F4 right after boot, you should have the command line available.
Just a tip - you can run sselphs scraper from the RetroPie setup menu, see the docs at https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Scraper/

dan18774

@mitu Thanks again for the reply! I tried to exit emulation station so i could use sselphs scraper by hitting f4. It says emulation station can't running in order to use the scraper. Yes i used Drastic to test out one game. Alright i'll do some searching around to find the right framebuffer. That's what had to have caused the black screen i believe / hope.

Yeah stupid question about asking if updating packages is bad.

I appreciate your time Mitu.

mediamogul

@dan18774 said in Please help a Noob. Hit f4 been stuck at black screen for hours.:

Alright i'll do some searching around to find the right framebuffer.

Unfortunately, this is simply a known current issue with DraStic and there's nothing to do about it until the emulator is updated by the developer. In the mean time, just restart after using DraStic if you plan on do any maintenance such as using the command line, invoking the runcommand menu, or using the file manager. Once the system has restarted, it'll be good to go until you launch and exit DraStic again.

dan18774

@mediamogul Thanks for taking your time to reply. Alright i thought it was something i did. Will do exactly what you said Mediamogul from now on when using that emulator. Thanks again.