black screen after retropie update

hagakure72

Pi Model or other hardware : X86 PC on Radeon HD 6450/7450/8450 res. desktop@1440x900
RetroPie Version Used 4.5 latest on linux mint 19 64bit cinnamon ( update kernel 4.15. generic yesterday )
Built From: RetroPie upgrade script
USB Devices connected: joystick, wifi mini dongle
Error messages received: blackscreen ( ? video res / cinnamon env. crash ) after rom launch impossible to exit w/ f4 also try to launch verbose same things happened.
all this started after added psx roms , terminal rom's scaping and bios and an update of the retropie from the setup from the terminal. ( before all worked perfectly )
Log: it's not possible i 've to restart after crash
Emulator: all type ( mostly arcade mame neogeo commodore psx )
wait for your gentle reply.
p.s. as a newbie in retropie system i can't find in linux sys there i can find diffent logs ad es. i found only the log for the retropie gui but not the data of the crash from retroarch or other emu.
thnx a lot x what you can do to fix this problems.

mitu

@hagakure72 said in black screen after retropie update:

p.s. as a newbie in retropie system i can't find in linux sys there i can find diffent logs ad es. i found only the log for the retropie gui but not the data of the crash from retroarch or other emu.

Emulator log can be found in /dev/shm/runcommand.log, EmulationStation log is in $HOME/.emulationstation/es_log.txt, you might want to get the contents of those files and post them on pastebin.com to take a look at them.
What does 'crash' mean ? You get a blackscreen when you launch a game and that's all ? Aren't there any error messages shown on the screen or on the terminal ? Can you Alt-Tab and see the launching terminal or launch another program ?

hagakure72

@mitu Thnx a lot for the fast reply, first of all.
No i think cinnamon or Xorg going on crash, yes blackscreen and nothing more ..
i can't find no log ( i think because of the necessary hard reset and boot ) at all.
No messages on the screen i can't resolve on terminal cause i can't use Alt_Tab no way at all, i've always had to hard reset and reboot.
this also tryin also other resolution and emulators type and solution in the joystick selection menu before the launch.
now i try only with arcade mame or neogeo.
This, as i said, it occured after a s.o. update.
before of this all work perfectly with i think past version ( 4.4 ? ) of the retropie and emustation.
Yesterday i also tried to find other log. for Xorg or gpu crash or problems also other type of driver.. but Xorg don't tell me nothing at all for crash i cant' use other drivers for the card as ubuntu use for this a proprietary one.
I don't also find nothing at all in the web regardin this issues , seem that few people use retropie directly in a linux enviroment working up the s.o.
Infact i also think about some problem of su or admin group !
i don't know at now how to move for fix it.
have a nice day

mitu

@hagakure72 said in black screen after retropie update:

This, as i said, it occured after a s.o. update.

So why is this a RetroPie issue ? It may be that your proprietary driver doesn't work anymore after you've updated your OS/kernel/xorg,

Try looking at Troubleshoot Xorg errors - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg#Troubleshooting is a good page to start. You might also check what exactly did the OS update installed and revert the package in question.

hagakure72

@mitu said in black screen after retropie update:

update installed and revert the package in question

thnx a lot, i don't realize this.. infact days ago there's also the kernel update..
something goes wrong/change with it. i try to revert the packages in question ...
i don't think in that way cause in other enviroments and emulations such scvumm all works good.

hagakure72

@mitu hi, i tried, as you advice me, information about logs but i can't find strings that i can get as a crash ( i tried also dsmeg for kernel infos ) or no logs at all because of hard reset as i can't bypass on terminal by means of keyoboard shortucts o similar ( also tried to restart X daemon by add new shortcut )then ..As a suggestion in the web i try with snaped edition of retroarch and all go perfectly .. and i don't realize the cause in repository or git complied version of the app for the things goes wrong. there's also other ways to get log information of X or in a hard reset and reboot ? thnx have a nice day

mitu

@hagakure72 said in black screen after retropie update:

there's also other ways to get log information of X or in a hard reset and reboot ? thnx have a nice day

You can start X from the command line (via xinit) and check the terminal output when the crash occurs. You'll probably need to disable the graphical login manager (lightdm or gdm, I'm not sure what your distribution uses by default) and login on the console command prompt.

hagakure72

@mitu said in black screen after retropie update:

@hagakure72 said in black screen after retropie update:

there's also other ways to get log information of X or in a hard reset and reboot ? thnx have a nice day

You can start X from the command line (via xinit) and check the terminal output when the crash occurs. You'll probably need to disable the graphical login manager (lightdm or gdm, I'm not sure what your distribution uses by default) and login on the console command prompt.

understand but
-( using linux mint 19 ) the problem i can't see nothing on the terminal also in verbose mode launching emulationstation --verbose because soon as i type it start fullscreen ..there's a mode to go screen reducted !? sorry i'm a totally newbie on this ^_^

i don't understand, sorry, if the terminal commands you advise me , are to launch after or before the crash ..cause as i said before i can't exit no-ways to the black screen crash ( X daemon ? ) to a tty terminal also with special combo keys profile saved on the keyboard .. tryin to restart or kill lightdm ..but nothing happened..

mitu

Try to boot to console - https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/460 - and run start or xinit from the terminal (after you login). Do you get any errors, does the desktop starts ? If no, then start EmulationStation as you normally do. If the X session crashes (as you say), then you'll be back at the text console, where you should see some errors related to the crash.

hagakure72

@mitu thank a lot for the advise but it's funny to say ... tryin to modify the grub boot cfg file at the shotdown reboot i can't go directly to tty mode but it booting and continue black screen ( like the text mode do with no starting mint logo ) but it relove at the lightdm log in.
sorry could i made procedures error in some ways !?

mitu

@hagakure72 said in black screen after retropie update:

sorry could i made procedures error in some ways !?

The procedure might be incomplete. Sorry, I don't have Linux Mint so I can't offer more insight into this. Try disabling the lightdm service and see if you boot to text mode. If not, try to find out what login manager you're using and maybe disable that.

hagakure72

@mitu however thnx a lot i try some kill procedure for lightdm or login. have a nice day ^_^

hagakure72

good evening
as you can see i reach the text mode and effectively emulationstation doesn't start without log error then.. tryin to launch X an error occured:
Xcrashlog
And i also notice that then i return on lightdm the resolution of the desk change, same way when i had to reboot as retropie freeze all desktp.
I don't know now how to proceed to fix errors.
thnx always a lot for your support

mitu

I don't see a fatal error in the XServer log, the only error logged is

[   358.487] (EE) open /dev/fb0: Permission denied

which is from fbdev video driver, not used here since it loads the AMD driver. The end says:

[   359.133] (II) Server terminated successfully (0). Closing log file.

hagakure72

Good evening,
sorry but i can't resolve nothing in text mode; emulationstation can't run for his errors:
error initializing SDL, No avaible video devices, Render failed to initialize , windows failed to initialize. Seem's like X is NOT active but i launch it... i don't know how to do further ..
can you give me gently some more tips on this ?! thnx a lot for eventually reply, i can' use retroarch or similar in my pc at all ..

hagakure72

@hagakure72 in the meantime from google i search for this error i find there's the problem running from lv 3 text.. they proposed to launch from boot and add this line from the grub : systemd.unit=multi-user.target so launch startx or xinit
is this correct !?

mitu

@hagakure72 said in black screen after retropie update:

is this correct !?

No, it's not correct - EmulationStation (and RetroPie) does not use a desktop session/X.org to function and it's not a supported configuration.

hagakure72

understand, so in which mode i can get log files about the crash or fix it !?

mitu

@hagakure72 I still don't get what/where the exact crash is - your X session seems fine, maybe an emulator 'crash' can be found in /dev/shm/runcommand.log ?

hagakure72

@mitu when the crash happen, i hard reset then restart the system as i can't get a tty in a freeze status.. so i go like you suggest me to get log from /dev/shm/runcommand.olg but i can't find nothing. infact as sometime get no crash i find there the log without error as a list the operation in the retropie like type of emulator rom launched etc. so crash without log or log without crash.
i can't go further..infact i can't understand what happened different when one time things go perfect ( sometime i change the kernel ... but second chances to run other rom all crash so i think is not depending on this ) i don't know if depend on using a particular type of emulator : neo geo or version of mame and i don't know, it's own configuration ( video settings, audio .. ) but i can't get log after crash ... so i dont know to proceed to fix. have a nice day and thnx for all the detailed reply.