Emulationstation crashed and Cannot allocate memory on pi4

quicksilver

Pi4 using the official but unsupported retropie image Ver. 4.5.14. and it looks like Im now suddenly having the same issue as reported here: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/24436/drm_ioctl_mode_create_dumb-failed-cannot-allocate-memory?_=1583298279174

I first started to notice that ES was becoming more unstable and was crashing quite frequently (displaying the standard ES crash message screen) when either launching a game or quitting a game and returning to ES. Although I now have also gotten the "DRM_IOCTL_MODE_CREATE_DUMB failed: Cannot allocate memory" message several times now as well. These issues just started over the last few days and ES had been stable up until that point. The only things I have changed since this issue started are some small modifications to the theme Im using and some changes to the way skyscraper generates gameslists. However these were small changes and nothing out of the ordinary so Im not sure how they could contribute to this issue.

mikeydoom

@quicksilver

What do you have gpu_mem in config set to?

I have mine set to 256 and don't have that issue on my rpi4 with 4.5.14

mikeydoom

@quicksilver

Also set the ES VRAM in emulation station settings to 200mb or higher depending on which pi4 you have.

I have the 4gb model so I set it to 512mb.

BuZz

@mikeydoom gpu_mem is not used in the same way by the rpi4. Or at least not by emulation station

This may be useful:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=244531#p1491512

BuZz

You can experiment with the cma configuration but my rpi4 is fine without any changes from default in ES.

Also see

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=234348 (although we use fkms)

256mb is the default btw.

More info about your set up such as es settings info and config.txt might be useful.

Changing the ES settings as mentioned by previous reply may help.

quicksilver

@BuZz Thanks for the reply. My current ES settings are: gameslist view is set to "video", I dont use videos but the theme Im using makes use of marquees so I have to set to video in order for them to display. I have tested multiple vram settings from 80mb-200mb and the crashing still occurs. I have tried turning screen saver off but crashing still occurs. Im currently using a customized version of the "nostalgia" theme but im going to switch back to carbon to see if the issue is related to the theme Im using. Config.txt is default settings except forcing 1080p mode.

mitu

Can you post the dmesg output on pastebin.com ? Do you have anything configured on the start/stop runcommand scripts ?

VictimRLSH

If you set the GPU mem too high, you'll never be able to boot that SD card again on a Pi 4 unless you reinstall an image OR boot the card on a Pi 3B and reset the GPU memory there. I did that to mine when I set it above 512mb.

quicksilver

@VictimRLSH I don't have gpu mem set at all. Also, the boot partition is accessible from a Windows computer if you need to make edits to your config.txt.

quicksilver

I cant seem to get it to reliably crash anymore. It has been stable all day though I havent changed anything. Will post a dmesg if it crashes again.

quicksilver

ES crashed again today (it has done it a few times since my last post but not reliably). It always seems to occur when ES is either loading or when Im launching a game. I was able to get the dmesg output this time.

https://pastebin.com/mZecJWQ4

mitu

There's no driver errors in the dmesg, so it doesn't look like a kernel driver bug/error. Can you try reproducing with the stock theme or maybe uploading your modified theme somewhere so we can try and see if we get the error ?

EDIT: Are you using the 'normal' EmulationStation install or the emulationstation-dev package ?

quicksilver

@mitu I am using the standard/normal emulationstation install. I will switch to carbon for a bit and see what happens. I am using a modified version of the nostalgia theme https://github.com/supersquared/es-theme-nostalgic-neo

rejesterd

@quicksilver Seems like it was crashing more often before you changed the vram settings and disabled the screen saver. If that's correct, I would start lowering the vram setting in ES again and see if it reproduces more consistently.

Also, have you run emulationstation with the --debug option? That might help clarify what's happening. But it might stop crashing if you just raise vram to 512m (which should be reasonable if you have the 4g model).

quicksilver

So I'm thinking the crashing is related to the theme. I installed the same theme on my previously stable pi 3 now it is crashing occasionally. I don't know much about theming so I can't tell what is wrong here. Would someone be able to take a look at the link I posted above and see if anything glaring sticks out? I have also noticed that this theme takes much longer to boot up though I can't figure out why, all of the different art file sizes seem to be roughly the same size as other themes but other themes boot much faster.

mitu

I've installed the theme yesterday, after you posted the source, and briefly tested it, but didn't get any crash so far. I've left it active, trying to see if I get a crash.
To help debug this, you can run ES through a debugger and get a crash backtrace.

install gdb with sudo apt install gdb
exit EmulationStation and start a SSH session to your PI.
run from the command line (via SSH)

gdb -q /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation -ex run

this should start ES from the debugger

try and reproduce the crash. When it crashes, you should get a message in the gdb session that it did so. Run from gdb prompt

bt full

then get the output and post it here.

press q to exit the debugger.

quicksilver

@mitu
Here is the output:


Thread 2 "emulationstatio" received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0xb4e0b160 (LWP 27358)]
0x001b58dc in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .isra.                                                                                                                     11] [clone .part.12] ()
(gdb) bt full
#0  0x001b58dc in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#1  0x001b58e8 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#2  0x001b58e8 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#3  0x001b58e8 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#4  0x001b58e8 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#5  0x001b58e8 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#6  0x001b58e8 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
No symbol table info available.
#7  0x001b58e8 in nsvg__initPaint(NSVGcachedPaint*, NSVGpaint*, float) [clone .i                                                                                                                     sra.11] [clone .part.12] ()
--Type <RET> for more, q to quit, c to continue without paging--

I didnt get the standard crash message though, so hopefully this is the same issue and not something else.

mitu

@quicksilver Hm, seems we're getting somewhere, but since the output is truncated we don't see the calling site in the EmulationStation code. Do you remember what system was loaded when the crash occured ? I realized I might not have one of the systems from your install and that's why I couldn't - briefly - reproduce the crash.

quicksilver

@mitu In this particular instance I think it was PPSSPP, though it has crashed for me on multiple different systems. And the crash isnt reliably reproduced. A crash can sometimes occur on the first game I launch or I might have several crashes in a row or I might launch many games with no crashing.

mitu

Just for comparison of systems, can your run

find $HOME/RetroPie/roms/ -type d ! -empty -maxdepth 1

and post the output on pastebin.com ? Just want to see what's the difference from my system list.