Does Retropie hibernate?

Amishgamer

Here's what I got...

Pi 3B+
The 2.5a power supply that came in the cana kit
Retropie v 4.4.12
Wii U pro controller connected via bluetooth, no other usb devices connected
Built From Pre made SD Image on RetroPie website
I'm not sure if it matters, but I also have the Kintaro 9000 case with the beautiful monster heatsink that was included with it, with the safe scripts installed.

Alright, now for my problem.

I leave my Retropie on pretty much all the time. When I'm at work, I like to remote in to my home computer and do stuff with the Retropie, like scraping, etc. Anyway....

If I have EmulationStation up, and I go to the living room and hit the HDMI port that the Retropie is on, the TV will say no signal. The controller is still connected, I hit buttons to wake it up, to no avail. But, from my computer, the Retropie is still accessible via Putty or UNC, etc. So, I know for sure that it's on and seems to be working.

If I hit the reset button on my Kintaro case, the Retropie will then wake up, and I see text scroll across the screen and then it resets, boots to ES, and then I can play.

Or, during one of these deep hibernations, if I go to my computer, pull up Retropie in Putty, and then do sudo reboot, I go back to the living room, see the Retropie restart, boots to ES, and then I can play

Here's where it gets even more confusing...if I have been scraping, ES has been killed. When I go out to my TV and switch is to the Retropie in this scenario...sometimes the TV will tell me no signal, sometimes I'll see the text prompt waiting for my input. I type emulationstation and it starts and I can play.

My goal is to leave the Retropie on all the time, and whenever I go to the HDMI port for Retropie on my TV, it just shows me the Retropie rather than a "no signal" message. How do I make that happen?

Thanks in advance

mitu

I'm not sure this is something on the PI side - it might be just the TV that's shutting down the connection. I leave the PI on all the time and after the TV shuts down (automatically after 2h of inactivity), it's enough to turn it on and I get the Emulationstation screen back.
Is your TV set to game mode for the HDMI connection ?

Amishgamer

I do not know. I didn't think it mattered. But, I can't really set it to game mode because I have an HDMI splitter, and that would effect the other devices (I think). I guess I would run my pi to have it's own cable. Blah. What a mess.

mitu

@Amishgamer On my TV, at least, the Game mode is per-input source (HDMI-port). What's this got to do with the HDMI splitter ?

Amishgamer

All my devices go into the splitter, which then goes into my TV's HDMI port. If I put it on game mode for one, it will be game mode for all, and I'm not sure how my other devices would react to that...but I can try it and find out, I suppose

mitu

Game mode is just a setting, it might not even matter for the TV. You could test without the splitter just to see if that's got anything to do with it.

ericbsmith42

@Amishgamer Generally Game Mode on a TV turns off some image processing such as motion smoothing that can cause a few ms delay in response time. While a few ms delay doesn't really affect enjoyment of movies or TV it can certainly cause problems with games where split second timing is an issue.

Amishgamer

I have this curse...both at home and I work. I can't figure out a problem to save my life. Then, after I publicly make an ass out of myself by asking...the situation just clears itself up, as if there is some sort of cosmic force at work who wants me to constantly humiliate myself. This situation seems to be no exception. Without changing a thing, it seems to be working the way I want it to the past day or so.