Raspberry Pi SD Card Maxing Itself Out on Its Own [Retroflag Safe Shutdown Script?]

soten355

Hello!

I recently put together a Raspberry Pi 3B into a Retroflag NesPi case and installed the safe shutdown script. The installation was successful and the script works with the button inputs.

However, I'm running into a new issue: the Raspberry Pi is filling it's disk space up on its own. Here are the problems:

Disk had roughly 3GB of free space remaining before issue happened
Error commands then began to generate saying that Emulationstation couldn't find the gamelist.xml
Game saves started to disappear
Gamelists disappear
Meta data is no longer being saved
Disk is now full

Here's what I trouble shooted so far:

Checked disk space on console, it is indeed full.
Tried deleting a ROM (~500MB in size), but space never opened up
Reinstalled the IMG on the SD card (original IMG had no safeshutdown script), then reinstalled safeshutdown script. Issue began to happen again.
Anyone have any idea on what is going on? Any solutions?

Thorr69

The error log is filling your drive. It's a common problem with the NesPI case. I think a search of the forum will net a solution.

mitu

As @Thorr69 said, the internal USB hub on those cases generates a lot of errors and they end up filling the space.
There's at least one old topic - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/18066/ - that discussed this, so you can check if you're experiencing the same situation. The linked issue (https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues/2408) on the RPI foundation repository is closed, since the problem seems to be fixed with a later firmware and kernel update - did you update your RetroPie installation since installing the image ?

soten355

@Thorr69 said in Raspberry Pi SD Card Maxing Itself Out on Its Own [Retroflag Safe Shutdown Script?]:

The error log is filling your drive. It's a common problem with the NesPI case. I think a search of the forum will net a solution.

Ah, thank you! This points me in the right direction.

@mitu said in Raspberry Pi SD Card Maxing Itself Out on Its Own [Retroflag Safe Shutdown Script?]:

As @Thorr69 said, the internal USB hub on those cases generates a lot of errors and they end up filling the space.
There's at least one old topic - https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/18066/ - that discussed this, so you can check if you're experiencing the same situation. The linked issue (https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues/2408) on the RPI foundation repository is closed, since the problem seems to be fixed with a later firmware and kernel update - did you update your RetroPie installation since installing the image ?

Thank you! I do have the latest RetroPie installed and the latest OS. I'll read through the topic you posted and reply here if I run into any issues.

soten355

I wanted to update this thread on my situation:

Through the linked threads @mitu shared, I was able to solve my problem. Here's what I did:

Reloaded the IMG onto the SD card
Ran sudo rpi-update in the console
Reboot
Installed the safe shutdown scripts

For further clarification, my set up is:

Raspberry Pi 3B
Retropie 4.4.11 [updated]
Microsoft Brand Xbox 360 USB Hub
Xbox 360 Wireless Controller
Amazon Basics USB Keyboard

Here are quick notes on what I discovered:

The problem only happens with the Xbox 360 USB Hub, as detailed in the shared links from @mitu.
The problem, with my particular NesPi case, continues to happen with the USB ports on the exterior cover labeled "1" and "2", both located on the bottom-front-right of the case
When connecting to the USB ports located in the "flap", "cover", or "cartridge" portion of the case, I received no error logs
Updating Retropie introduced an unrelated problem with the Xbox 360 Controllers, which can be solved here: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/19605/xbox-360-controller-on-stretch-lights-and-mapping
There are actual counterfeit NesPi cases, so buyer beware when purchasing them. I recommend visiting the Retrolag website first and then using their provided links for purchase.
Counterfeit NesPi cases will lack the quality control and compatibility of the hardware, which can contribute to undervoltage and the problem in this thread.

I hope this helps! Thank you for helping me @mitu and @Thorr69

mitu

Glad you git it working. One minor niggle - rpi-update is no longer a recommended way to update your kernel/firmware, this is taken care by the normal OS/package updates. For the time when the problem was reported - immediately after the 3B+ launch - I think some improvements w.r.t the 3B+ model were added that were only available through the latest development kernel/firmware versions.
Anyway, keep an eye on the disk space and happy gaming!