[SOLVED] Setup Daphne for Dragon's Lair on rPi3, Black Screen

briankross

Pi Model: 3 Model B
RetroPie Version Used: 3.8.1
Built From: SD Image
USB Devices connected: Standard keyboard, x2 Buffalo Classic USB Gamepad
Controller used: x2 Buffalo Classic USB Gamepad
Error messages received: Black screen, log file shows unable to play lair.m2v file, could not initialize laserdisc player
Guide used: Setup Daphne on Your Raspberry Pi 3 RetroPie
File: n/a
Emulator: Daphne
Attachment of config files: n/a
How to replicate the problem:

Follow guide used, setting up for Dragon's Lair
Everything goes smoothly until it's time to parse the video file
After I press 'any key' I hear "SAVE ME!" and the screen goes black
ESC will get me back to EmulationStation
Searched and read many sources, but can't seem to find a solution

It looks like the laserdisc player could not be initialized.

/opt/retropie/emulators/daphne/daphne_log.txt
My daphne_log.txt

I'll not sure what to do next, any thoughts are welcome!

BuZz

Did you check the wiki ? https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Daphne

Troubleshooting
If you have issues with black screen, try deleting the .dat file as it is generated the first time you parse the video files. If you transferred the .dat file from another system it may not work, so just leave the .dat file out.
It is also case sensitive so if it's not working try making the extensions in the .daphne file lowercase.

briankross

@BuZz said in Setup Daphne for Dragon's Lair on rPi3, Black Screen:

Did you check the wiki ? https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Daphne

Troubleshooting
If you have issues with black screen, try deleting the .dat file as it is generated the first time you parse the video files. If you transferred the .dat file from another system it may not work, so just leave the .dat file out.
It is also case sensitive so if it's not working try making the extensions in the .daphne file lowercase.

Thanks for your reply!

Yes, I failed to mention. I don't see a .dat file however.

Places checked:

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne/roms/
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne/lair.daphne/
/opt/retropie/emulators/daphne/*.*
/opt/retropie/configs/daphne/

All extensions are lower case everywhere I've seen, namely:

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne/lair.daphne/

I'm also trying to figure out the dip switch banks, maybe there's something in there?

BuZz

What's the output of

ls -la /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne/ ?

briankross

@BuZz said in Setup Daphne for Dragon's Lair on rPi3, Black Screen:

What's the output of

ls -la /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne/ ?

lair.daphne/
roms/

Both owned by root

The only thing I can think of is I previewed the lair.m2v on my Mac prior to uploading it to RetroPie, I wouldn't expect that to cause any issues, but maybe it changed the file somehow.

BuZz

Sorry. I meant

ls -Rla /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne/ (you didn't actually post the output as I asked though anyway - I need the raw output as it is on screen, not an approximation)

the files should be owned by the user pi btw - sudo chown -R pi:pi /home/pi/RetroPie/roms

briankross

@BuZz said in Setup Daphne for Dragon's Lair on rPi3, Black Screen:

Sorry. I meant

ls -Rla /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne/

contents of home-pi-RetroPie-roms-daphne

caver01

@briankross what does your lair.txt look like?

You don't need the .dat file, Daphne will build a new one, but it says it can't open your lair.m2v, so it could be in the wrong place according to the lair.txt file (case matters, not just for the extension).

As for dip switches, just leave off the -bank parameters until you have a working game. Then, if you want to mess with the dip switches, depending on the ROM you are using, do some research here

briankross

@caver01 said in Setup Daphne for Dragon's Lair on rPi3, Black Screen:

@briankross what does your lair.txt look like?

Line 1 is blank:


151	lair.m2v

The guide didn't indicate 151 on the second line of code was the path to lair.m2v.

Change to?:


/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne/lair.daphne/lair.m2v

You don't need the .dat file, Daphne will build a new one, but it says it can't open your lair.m2v, so it could be in the wrong place according to the lair.txt file (case matters, not just for the extension).

Understood.

As for dip switches, just leave off the -bank parameters until you have a working game. Then, if you want to mess with the dip switches, depending on the ROM you are using, do some research here

Thank you.

BuZz

That is not what I am after I'm afraid. Please SSH in to the Raspberry Pi, and run the ls from a terminal. It will produce a detailed output.

briankross

Edit: It took a few min to figure out how to ssh to the rPi3.
Edit: Copy / paste from terminal

@BuZz said in Setup Daphne for Dragon's Lair on rPi3, Black Screen:

That is not what I am after I'm afraid. Please SSH in to the Raspberry Pi, and run the ls from a terminal. It will produce a detailed output.

pi@retropie:~ $ ls -Rla /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne/
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne/:
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 4 pi   pi   4096 Jun 26 12:39 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 pi   pi   4096 Jun 26 12:30 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 26 14:14 lair.daphne
drwxr-xr-x 2 pi   pi   4096 Jun 26 12:38 roms

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne/lair.daphne:
total 899700
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root      4096 Jun 26 14:14 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 pi   pi        4096 Jun 26 12:39 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root        91 Jun 26 13:40 lair.commands
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 893769849 Jun 26 13:20 lair.m2v
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  27496826 Jun 26 12:43 lair.ogg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root        14 Jun 26 12:44 lair.txt

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/daphne/roms:
total 28
drwxr-xr-x 2 pi   pi    4096 Jun 26 12:38 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 pi   pi    4096 Jun 26 12:39 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17906 Jun 26 12:38 lair.zip

BuZz

The ownership is wrong as mentioned above (use the chmod I gave). The folders need to be writeable for the pi user.

You can usually copy and paste from an ssh client, which would be easier to work with than screenshots btw.

briankross

@BuZz said in Setup Daphne for Dragon's Lair on rPi3, Black Screen:

The ownership is wrong as mentioned above (use the chmod I gave). The folders need to be writeable for the pi user.

You can usually copy and paste from an ssh client, which would be easier to work with than screenshots btw.

Thank you. I don't see a chmod you gave.

I'll take a backup image from right before I attempted this project and try again. I began using the root user in my FTP client since it's the easiest way for me to edit configuration files without permission issues. But now that I know how to SSH, perhaps that is no longer a concern.

Generally, should all ROMs and associated files be uploaded via the pie user? If so, I need to either redo all permissions or start from scratch and retrace my steps while not using the root user in my FTP client.

I'll report back when I've restored my backup image, and tried again.

herb_fargus

@briankross sudo chown -R pi:pi /home/pi/RetroPie/roms will set all rom folders back to pi

briankross

@herb_fargus said in Setup Daphne for Dragon's Lair on rPi3, Black Screen:

@briankross sudo chown -R pi:pi /home/pi/RetroPie/roms will set all rom folders back to pi

Ah... crap. lol Just started re-imaging from a backup. I'm barely functional in terminal :)

Learning moment, noted. Thank you! Ug.

herb_fargus

@briankross the terminal is a good skill to have. There are lots of guides online including a basic on on the wiki:

https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/ssh

briankross

@herb_fargus said in Setup Daphne for Dragon's Lair on rPi3, Black Screen:

@briankross the terminal is a good skill to have. There are lots of guides online including a basic on on the wiki:

https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/ssh

Thank you.

Absolutely. My command line days were in the 80's and 90's, and just for fun. I certainly have a clue, but it's clear that I need to dig in.

briankross

@BuZz said in Setup Daphne for Dragon's Lair on rPi3, Black Screen:

The ownership is wrong as mentioned above (use the chmod I gave). The folders need to be writeable for the pi user.

You can usually copy and paste from an ssh client, which would be easier to work with than screenshots btw.

That was it, just like you said, it works!

Thanks everyone for your time and expertise.

BuZz

Glad you have it sorted. It is not a good idea to use the root user to edit configuration and to copy files, as you will run into other problems like this. All the RetroPie configurations that are supposed to be user editable should be editable as the Pi user (or whatever user retropie is installed under). Only system configs in /etc/ and /boot/config.txt require root to edit - this can be done via the terminal with sudo nano /boot/config.txt

briankross

@BuZz said in [SOLVED] Setup Daphne for Dragon's Lair on rPi3, Black Screen:

Glad you have it sorted. It is not a good idea to use the root user to edit configuration and to copy files, as you will run into other problems like this. All the RetroPie configurations that are supposed to be user editable should be editable as the Pi user (or whatever user retropie is installed under). Only system configs in /etc/ and /boot/config.txt require root to edit - this can be done via the terminal with sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Many thanks, now I understand. I began down this road by logging in to FTP as root so I could edit some configuration files, as it turns out, I ended up reverting all changes. I didn't understand the larger issue with doing everything as root until today.

Now that I can somewhat confidently navigate and edit via SSH as pi user, I think I'm good to go.

Things are up and working, but I'm going to start from scratch and build up again so I know moving forward that everything is done correctly with the correct permissions.

First though, I'm going research how to transfer my progress from Zelda on NES... No sense in doing that all over again! :-)