raspberry pi not booting into emulationstation

superdan

@carbonatedwater Do you have any log while booting?

carbonatedwater

@superdan said in raspberry pi not booting into emulationstation:

log while booting?

I'm not sure what you mean. Again, I'm not an expert of this sorts.

mitu

@carbonatedwater The solution @Devenhulk mentioned was to use the mini-HDMI port close to the USB-C port used by the power supply. Did you try to switching the mini-HDMI port on the Pi ?

carbonatedwater

@mitu That is really odd, is there a reason it works when you switch HDMI ports? Also, that method stopped working after I turned it off and back on, and switched the ports back. I didn't have my controller plugged in the first time.

Now I have to leave it off for a while, since that's the only way that worked.

mitu

@carbonatedwater said in raspberry pi not booting into emulationstation:

That is really odd, is there a reason it works when you switch HDMI ports?

Mostly placebo, there's little difference between them when using a monitor. However when switching the ports you're most likely to re-seat the connector, which may fix problems when the cable is not properly connected.

carbonatedwater

@mitu EmulationStation is running, but it's not displaying. At all. Is there an HDMI mode I should enable?

EDIT: Also, the Retropie screen is not showing up either. Also also, the reason I know EmulationStation is running is because I was able to stick the USB Drive into the Raspberry Pi 4 while it was running and it made new folders. It is a display issue.

EDIT 2: Also also also, I did some research and found out you could run EmulationStation in a smaller resolution with a command line "-emulationstation -w 800 -h 600"... but I have no idea where to put it in config.txt.

mitu

@carbonatedwater Are you running on a 4k display ? We've had a few reports of the RetroPie-Setup script not working correctly on such displays - in this case you can try and lower the maximum resolution to 1080p (see this doc page).

carbonatedwater

@mitu I ran it on my monitor which is not 4k. I am pretty sure the tv might be 4k but I had the same problem with both screens.

DarkFaker

Ok so this is probably one of the weirdest issues I've seen. I've had the same problem as @Devenhulk and what he meant and this is what also solved my problem is that the HDMI cable which plugs into the raspberry pi is not in the right spot. My raspberry pi 4 has, as far as I know, two HDMI ports. Plugging the HDMI cable in the port closest to the power port solved the problem for me. I think the emulation station otherwise has some weird problem to detect the monitor and display something on the screen and that's why it is just black. I know the conversation is quite old but maybe this is helpful to some people who have the same problem.

mitu

@DarkFaker I understand, but it's still not a pattern, I think it's just a coincidence. FWIW I've been using the Pi4 with either HDMI ports and never had any issues whatsoever, audio or video. I'm sure other users have had the same experiene aswell. That being said - if you'd like to diagnose this, then please open a separate topic and add more info about your setup before trying to isolate the issue.