Commands to quit frozen/bad roms? (not Ctrl + C or F4)
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I'm not sure if this works on RetroPie, but you could try pressing
Ctrl + Alt + F2What this should do is bring up an alternate terminal session and you would see a command prompt. If it does, you could use something like
toporhtopto see running processes and there are commands to kill a process.It's been a minute, but I think the last time I used a trick like this
htopwas the easiest as it has on screen clues as to what key to press to kill a process. And it defaults to the process id of the one using the most CPU so it is easier.EDIT: Or if killing a process seems difficult, I suppose you could just use the terminal to issue the command
sudo shutdown -r now -
@mortalwombat i have not heard of mame/fba games that soft lock. especially within retroarch. can you give an example? you're not overclocking are you?
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@mortalwombat said in Commands to quit frozen/bad roms? (not Ctrl + C or F4):
what's your go-to if you don't mind my asking? (ideally ones with some simple online tutorials to configure a basic safe restart...?).
well, since i only tried it today ... i installed a couple, wasn't fussed on them, but found one that was super simple
and ironically called ... RaspController with a Score of 4.7 and designed for use with the Raspberry Pi :)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=it.Ettore.raspcontroller
just hit the big circle with the + in the middle of (bottom right off screen)
type a device name eg. Rpi4 then enter the Pi's Wifi IP (go to settings in Retropie/Emulationstation and select "Wifi" to get the Address .. next in the app enter logon: pi and password:raspberry and then "connect" and select SSH Shell
then just type : sudo reboot hit Enter key and that's it ... Raspberry Pi safely rebooted without risking SD Card corruption by pulling the power.
all of the above info is saved as a profile with your device name ... so next time, just tap the device name to connect and then type sudo reboot.
PS. The app has a lot of other features that might come in handy one day.
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Hmm lotta good info provided here, gonna try to address it all: @YFZdude , I'll give that keyboard combo a shot, unfortunately so far when these freezes do occur-- and part of the problem is that I haven't been great about documenting which games w/which emulators cause them, in order to replicate the problem (in large part because most of the spreadsheets etc I've seen-- like Roslof's-- focus on which rom/emulator combos DO work, so when a freeze happens, I'll usually just reset, then ultimately delete that particular rom and find another )-- no buttons that I've been pressing on the keyboard or joystick seem to get ANY response... though I'll try that, because not having to incorporate a secondary device would be ideal!
@busywait , did you mean the one by David Grootendorst? Just wanna be sure cuz I did see that there's a SSH Buttons (yep, plural) app on the Play store as well.
And @dreamcastkid , thanks for the suggestion, I DL'd that app, connected it, and it seems to be working great... just to clarify though, do you feel that it is necessary to use the SSH Shell/sudo command? Just ask because I did notice that there's a Reboot Device (as well as a Shutdown one) listed below, and am wondering if there are any hardware/microSD risks of trying either of those instead....
But yeah, I am curious to hear of any other useful commands that the app can do, so if you discover any, let me know!! (I ask in part because I was involved in a topic/walkthrough about getting NeoGeo games to work, and the guy suggested using SSH, my computer and 2 programs on it to do so (neither of which I could easily do, since they were PC ones), so if I did think that I could do whatever the heck he was talking about using my my Android, that would certainly be great!
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@dankcushions I wish I could say I was overclocking, but considering that that's a term I've just seen mentioned/had to watch a short YouTube to see what exactly you meant, I'm gonna say no, heh.
But as far as testing the system's limits, these are all pretty much just 2000 and earlier arcade games run on my 4GB Rpi4, which-- though I have no knowledge of how to overclock yet-- I've been told that it SHOULD be sufficient to run most of these... As mentioned above tho, I haven't been great on documenting which specific roms for which emulators these freezes occur on.
One example I recall though was bioship.zip, which I tried on AdvMame for some reason (I think I got it working using lr-fbneo which I believe was what was recommended, but there have been some cases where I did follow what was recommended & the roms didn't load/just returned to the menu-- possibly due to just being bad roms, I dunno-- and I'd try them w/different emulators, thereby experiencing the freezes), and though the game loaded, the motion was SUPER slow, I couldn't add credits, start the game, Select/Start out of it, and had to restart the Pi.
Arabian Fight was another one that loaded the same way (I believe on just mame or lr-mame), but I ultimately got-- possibly a different rom, I forget-- working on lr-mame-2016 as recommended.
If I come across other games that freeze up (sometimes before the game animation has even begun), I can try to notate that here, or elsewhere. Is there an alt spreadsheet where we can/should be noting rom/emulator combos that cause crashes? (if only for troubleshooting purposes?). Thanks!
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@mortalwombat yes, I use SSH Button by David Grootendorst.
Raspi Check looks equally convenient.
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@mortalwombat said in Commands to quit frozen/bad roms? (not Ctrl + C or F4):
@dankcushions I wish I could say I was overclocking, but considering that that's a term I've just seen mentioned/had to watch a short YouTube to see what exactly you meant, I'm gonna say no, heh.
But as far as testing the system's limits, these are all pretty much just 2000 and earlier arcade games run on my 4GB Rpi4, which-- though I have no knowledge of how to overclock yet-- I've been told that it SHOULD be sufficient to run most of these... As mentioned above tho, I haven't been great on documenting which specific roms for which emulators these freezes occur on.
overclocking is a potential cause of instability so it’s good you’re not doing it. i would avoid it in general tbh.
One example I recall though was bioship.zip, which I tried on AdvMame for some reason (I think I got it working using lr-fbneo which I believe was what was recommended, but there have been some cases where I did follow what was recommended & the roms didn't load/just returned to the menu-- possibly due to just being bad roms, I dunno-- and I'd try them w/different emulators, thereby experiencing the freezes),
you’re trying the same .zip on several different arcade emulators? this is the wrong approach. a given .zip is for a specific romset version number, and each arcade emulator supports a specific romset version number (there is potentially some overlap between certain emulator but it’s best to assume zero). this is all explained here: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Validating%2C-Rebuilding%2C-and-Filtering-ROM-Collections/
note, you do not need to go down the path or rebuilding/validating romsets. just get the right romset for the specific arcade emulator you are testing.
and though the game loaded, the motion was SUPER slow, I couldn't add credits, start the game, Select/Start out of it, and had to restart the Pi.
advmame does not have any bindings set up by default so unless you have manually set them up you won’t be able to do anything. see here: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/MAME/#advancemame-094 (not sure what version you’re using)
Arabian Fight was another one that loaded the same way (I believe on just mame or lr-mame), but I ultimately got-- possibly a different rom, I forget-- working on lr-mame-2016 as recommended.
mame (no lr-) is the same. it requires manual configuration
i don’t think you’re getting crashes, just a bad approach plus no controller config...
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@dankcushions said in Commands to quit frozen/bad roms? (not Ctrl + C or F4):
@mortalwombat i have not heard of mame/fba games that soft lock. especially within retroarch. can you give an example? you're not overclocking are you?
I hit an example of RetroPie+RetroArch locking my Pi today using lr_mame with an out-of-date ROM. I could not find any way to get local access to a command prompt using either the controller or my keyboard. (Tried Ctrl+Alt+F2 and Select+Start)
I used ssh to connect to the machine and ran
killall retroarchto get back to EmulationStation to try again:pi@rpi-tv:~ $ ps au USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND root 513 0.0 0.0 5620 2804 tty1 Ss 08:09 0:00 /bin/login -f pi 566 0.0 0.1 8884 4032 tty1 S 08:09 0:00 -bash pi 1650 0.0 0.0 7676 2876 tty1 S+ 08:36 0:00 /bin/bash /usr/bin/emulationstation pi 1657 0.0 0.0 1940 368 tty1 S+ 08:36 0:00 /bin/sh /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation.sh pi 1660 0.3 1.1 137568 44456 tty1 Sl+ 08:36 0:06 /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation pi 1683 0.0 0.0 1940 412 tty1 S+ 08:36 0:00 sh -c /opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ mame-libretro /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-libretro/aste pi 1684 0.0 0.1 8772 4088 tty1 S+ 08:36 0:00 bash /opt/retropie/supplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh 0 _SYS_ mame-libretro /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-libretro/aster pi 2484 99.8 5.4 494852 213280 tty1 RLl+ 08:37 26:48 /opt/retropie/emulators/retroarch/bin/retroarch -L /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mame/mamearcade_libretro.so --config /op pi 2891 1.1 0.0 8488 3788 pts/0 Ss 09:03 0:00 -bash pi 2902 0.0 0.0 9788 2572 pts/0 R+ 09:03 0:00 ps au pi@rpi-tv:~ $ killall retroarch pi@rpi-tv:~ $ ps au USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND root 513 0.0 0.0 5620 2804 tty1 Ss 08:09 0:00 /bin/login -f pi 566 0.0 0.1 8884 4032 tty1 S 08:09 0:00 -bash pi 1650 0.0 0.0 7676 2876 tty1 S+ 08:36 0:00 /bin/bash /usr/bin/emulationstation pi 1657 0.0 0.0 1940 368 tty1 S+ 08:36 0:00 /bin/sh /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation.sh pi 1660 0.5 3.7 256368 146488 tty1 Rl+ 08:36 0:08 /opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation pi 2891 0.3 0.0 8488 3792 pts/0 Ss 09:03 0:00 -bash pi 2934 0.0 0.0 9788 2464 pts/0 R+ 09:04 0:00 ps auSteps to reproduce:
System:
Pi4B 4GB
RetroPie 4.7.3
Kernel 5.10.7 32 bit
Full KMS+HDMI Audio (ARM-side audio driver, not BroadCom)
I have lr-fbneo and lr-mame2003-plus working (both very nice: mame2003 plus preferred for old game because it offers additional options for vector game rendering and better colour pallets on DKong, Mario)ROM
asteroids.zip (two versions):- From the FinalBurn Neo romset (the 1.0.0.0 romset, or more recent)
- From the MAME_2003-Plus Reference Set
I installed lr-mame from the experimental packages in RetroPie setup (version 0.244)
When I choose lr-mame as the emulator to run the MAME2003 Plus asteroids ROM then RetroArch starts and shows a black screen with the text "Initializing..." in the middle. Nothing else happened. I waited over 10 minutes, and then killed the retroarch via SSH process to get back to EmulationStation.
Using lr-mame to run the run the more recent asteroids.zip it starts as expected (but does not look as nice as the lr-mame2003-plus core or have the same options to adjust the rendering).
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@dankcushions , feel free to check out @busywait 's own post below mine, as it sounds like he/you were experiencing the same issue: neither Ctrl+Alt+F2 or Select+Start (or any keyboard/joystick combination) seemed to have any effect, so call it a freeze instead, what have you, but Retropie was indeed usable until a reboot.
And while yeah, it may indeed not be the best approach to try the same roms in different emulator folders-- something that I would sometimes try until I discovered Roslof's helpful spreadsheet-- I can almost certainly tell you that the controller configuration doesn't seem to play a factor.
Case in point, I had 2 crashes earlier-- if I knew how to attach a screengrab here yet I would-- where in both cases I received the green pop-up window in the lower-left corner stating "[controller type] configured in port #1." The error messages that came with it differed; on one game-- primrage.zip, Mame 0.139u1 version for lr-mame (granted, that could very well be a version not optimized for lr-mame, but then that's one of the things I'm here trying to learn here), which is the emulator the Roslof SS seemingly suggested-- I got a purple-hued box that said "Loading Complete" in the center of a thin grey rectangle in an otherwise black screen. On the other game-- raiden.zip, also the Mame 0.139u1 version on lr-mame-- it had the same purple-hued box w/blurry lettering on the same screen.
So again, those could indeed just be roms that just aren't designed to work w/lr-mame (on the site I usually DL from, I saw there were versions labeled plain "MAME," however both links were dead), but while I've had plenty of ROMs that just didn't load before, those that have frozen the Pi are few and far between. But again, I acknowledge that I'm new to this world, and maybe that's part of the trial and error involved in figuring out what works with what?
In any event, for the moment it seems there are external methods/programs to reboot the Pi when these freezes happen (assuming that the reboot command is the safest option), just would be convenient/cool if someone could figure out a safe method that didn't require having to turn to one's computer or smartphone...
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@mortalwombat : Choose one arcade emulator (hint, choose FinalBurn Neo which supports RetroArch features like RunAhead really well, and has a focus on performance which is helpful on the Pi, supports a wide range of systems, and is actively maintained).
Then find a matching romset for your emulator that is dated in the last 6 months or so. (For FinalBurn Neo, look for a FinalBurn Neo Complete Romset from an archive on the internet).
Either download the complete romset locally or find how to download just the ROMs that you want from the internet archive that you found.
Play and enjoy. No strange lockups.
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@busywait ha yeah part of the problem I suppose is that I've been going about this by games titles first, when I've heard that it's easier to try to just track down romsets.
For better or for worse, so far I've been able to track down over 300 working arcade roms-- currently spread between my Arcade and FB folders (in fact, I had recently been trying to consolidate more or them into my Arcade folder, and changing the emulator to FB as needed)-- but of course w/these arcade roms, there are some where the controls seem to work better than others (particularly w/the rotary games, which I posted about before).
Ultimately my biggest fear is whether there'll be some update to Mame/Final Burn etc that'll render a lot of what I've already found unplayable (I've also found Mame way more complicated/a pain in the ass w/all the different versions-- Mame2003, 2003plus, AdvMame, lr-mame, libretro etc-- and roms I've seen listed... i.e, 0.139u, 0.37b5, etc).
Unless I missed it, is there one of those numbers that is associated/optimized to work w/FB? I assume if I search on here, I can also find how to upgrade my version of Final Burn? (since most of the packages seem to be versions of MAME, and someone on another post suggested that my version of FB may be out of date...)
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@mortalwombat I share your fear of having to find and update broken roms after a package update.
I think that you could almost completely avoid that issue if you choose lr-mame2003-plus as your emulator, which has a fairly stable romset, good performance, and also has good implementation of RetroArch features and control inputs.
For what it's worth*, I have only two arcade emulators installed now in RetroPie: lr-fbneo and lr-mame2003-plus. You'll find lr-mame2003plus in the experimental packages section of the setup script. It's very reliable.
Did you already see this: https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Arcade/?
And a final hint: some (mostly very old) ROMs have associated sound samples or other assets which you have to copy and organise separately in your RetroPie BIOS share. Any expected sound samples and artwork images are included in the romset, but not in the ROM folders. (I think we're off-topic for this thread now :D )
*I don't know much about MAME, but I when it's working :)
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@busywait said in Commands to quit frozen/bad roms? (not Ctrl + C or F4):
I hit an example of RetroPie+RetroArch locking my Pi today using lr_mame with an out-of-date ROM. I could not find any way to get local access to a command prompt using either the controller or my keyboard. (Tried Ctrl+Alt+F2 and Select+Start)
so the thing to note here is lr-mame is in the 'experimental' section of the retropie package manager. experiments fail :P
to elaborate on this, there's a process to getting a particular version of MAME/FBN into a libretro (
lr-) core, and it's quite difficult because of their vast complex code bases. to that end, many of the lr-mame* and lr-fb* cores are unfinished and/or abandoned cores at various stages of functionality. they crash, they don't control right, and so on.hence the reason we recommend specific versions of mame/fbn here is not just because they're the most performant/compatible for the hardware, but because those listed cores are actively developed and function properly.
So again, those could indeed just be roms that just aren't designed to work w/lr-mame (on the site I usually DL from, I saw there were versions labeled plain "MAME," however both links were dead),
appreciate you're trying to learn but if you continue to follow this approach you will continue to make what is a very simple two step process into a nightmare for yourself. even if one of your random downloads with a randomly selected version of MAME, for my above reasons you may be using an unrecommended core.
Unless I missed it, is there one of those numbers that is associated/optimized to work w/FB? I assume if I search on here, I can also find how to upgrade my version of Final Burn? (since most of the packages seem to be versions of MAME, and someone on another post suggested that my version of FB may be out of date...)
https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Arcade/#step-1-choose-your-arcade-emulators
FB Neo v0.2.97.44-WIP
note this is a subset of the current mame version and will eventually change if you update it (so don't update it if you prefer)
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I use Raspi Check on android tablet/phone, it shows the current running stats of the Pi quite nicely and also has an option to reboot.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.eidottermihi.raspicheck&hl=en_US&gl=US -
@dankcushions said in Commands to quit frozen/bad roms? (not Ctrl + C or F4):
so the thing to note here is lr-mame is in the 'experimental' section of the retropie package manager. experiments fail :P
It wouldn't be an experiment if we knew what was going to happen :)
lr-mame2003-plus seems very reliable for me, with helpful features over lr-mame2003. Is there a list of remaining issues, or a process for that to go through before it becomes a regular optional or main package?
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