RetroPie breaks in different ways everytime I shut down

riel.fox

Hello guys,

First, let me start with what I want to achieve. A stable RetroPie installation which will accept 2 DualShock3 controllers (wired or wirelessly - preconfigured with all emulators) to play various old 2-player games using the emulators and also use Kodi. I wanted this to feel like a console, without needing a keyboard after the initial configurations.

I thought this would be an easy task: I bought a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, a SanDisk microSDXC card 128 GB class 10 (new - got it quite cheaply from eBay and this may be a red flag) and used my mobile phone's charger and my already owned PS3 controller and followed the installation video that the RetroPie site suggests.

First time, after burning the RetroPie image to the SD card and inserting it to the Pi, everything worked correctly except the Bluetooth, which couldn't start and gave me an error log. Fast forward, I configured everything according to the video - including controllers - and got some games on it. Updated everything, rebooted several times, all right. After Shutting Down system from the RetroPie menu (by pressing the Start and selecting ShutDown), I then disconnected the system from power and took it to a friend. As soon as the system booted up, it gave me a message
"EXT4-fs error (device mmcblk0p2): ext4_iget:4173: inode #11685: comm swapper/0: bad extra_isize (1672 != 256)
/bin/sh: 0: can't access tty: job control turned off"

A little bit of google searching later, it seemed like my image was corrupted. So I went, formatted my SD card and started from scratch.
Followed video again, everything went alright, even Bluetooth worked this time around, a few updates and reboots later, the system seemed ready to play games. I did a shut down, disconnected the power once that finished, and upon reconnecting the power, the system went crazy with a lot of messages, giving me "Kernel Panic" and refusing to start.

I formatted the SD card again and the whole circle was repeated a third time, this time Bluetooth again failed to start, but everything else seemed alright. A few reboots and updates later, I did a shut down and disconnected power. Once I powered on the system again, no input whatsoever would display on the screen. I took the SD card and inserted it to my SD card reader and found out that the microSD was called "AC" (it is usually named "boot") and the partition that was visible (around 60 MB) was totally empty.
The previous two times, when the Pi would at least give me some error message, when I inserted the card in my laptop's SD card reader, it would be called "boot" and have some files (for booting the Rpi I imagine) and some config files.

I don't see what I am doing wrong but it's getting tiring to go through the whole set up procedure over and over only for my installation to get corrupted one way or another once the power gets cut from the RPi.

Sorry if anything I posted was posted in the past. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance

RetroResolution

Hi,

I've only had time to quickly scan your post, but I'd firstly look at your phone charger - the Pi 3 absolutely requires a high quality, stable, 2.5 amp, 5 volt supply. I use the official Pi 3 charger for this reason.

Secondly, you flagged the 128gb SD card - it's tricky to avoid cards that have are actually of low capacity, but manipulated to report a higher capacity. You'd really need to run some read/write tests to be sure that the card really is what is purports to be - if not, at any time the system could attempt to write into an address that doesn't physically exist, causing all manner of problems.

Finally, cleanly shutting down is as must - pulling the power always runs the risk of corrupting the filesystem.

I have written about Looking after your Pi – Part 1 – The Importance of a Quality Power Supply (PSU), and Overclocking and Stability Testing the Raspberry Pi 2 – Part 4: SD Storage Testing - this second article doesn't look at whether an sdcard is genuine, rather whether it is stable over read/write cycles.

riel.fox

@RetroResolution
I always cleanly shut the system down, as I said in my post.
I have ordered a RPi 3 power supply and waiting for it.

As for the SD card, what kind of tests would you recommend I run to see if I got what I bought?
Is there an application that can help me?
Thanks!

RetroResolution

@riel.fox sorry, as I said I only had time for a scan of your post. I edited my earlier reply just before you responded, adding a link to an article on testing an sdcard which may help.

riel.fox

@RetroResolution
Thanks, I'll definitely have a look.

riel.fox

@RetroResolution

Hey RetroResolution,
I did the SD card script test using my RPi and Putty, as suggested by the link you have given me.

The test started with:

Testing overclock stability...
reading: 1

No other information was printed for quite a while, but I thought that my card is pretty big (128 GB) so I needed to give it its time.
So, I left the house and left my PC, Raspberry Pi and Putty running to give it as much time as it wanted to complete.
I came home 12 hours later... and it was still at the same stage.

I don't think it will ever finish. Is this an indication of a bad SD card?

Here's the full Putty log for reference:

[IMG]http://i63.tinypic.com/2cf8cpi.png[/IMG]

BuZz

It could also mean your PSU isn't good - to test the card you can do sudo badblocks -v /dev/mmcblk0

How cheap was the card ? There are lots of fakes on ebay.

You may need a new PSU and a new card - but what's the PSU output ? No point testing anything if your PSU is too weak.

RetroResolution

@riel.fox the test can take a long time, but my 64gb class 10 doesn't take 6 hours for one pass (maybe a couple, I can't recall to be honest) - it may be that the Pi crashed.

riel.fox

@RetroResolution
I connected the HDMI to the Pi to make sure it hasn't crashed.
It was still responsive with the controller, so pressed Start and selected Shutdown Device, like always.

This is the message I got once the Shutdown process was complete and as I was ready to power off:

[IMG]http://i67.tinypic.com/21n4pbl.jpg[/IMG]

Then once I booted up again, surprise surprise, the image was corrupted and it ended with a Kernel panic...

[IMG]http://i64.tinypic.com/50nq02.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i65.tinypic.com/314xw8o.jpg[/IMG]

BuZz

@riel.fox Please can you provide me with some information as I requested - What is the specs of your PSU ? (eg 5v 2.5a) - if your new PSU didn't arrive yet, then I would wait before trying anything.

Sorry for butting in the thread @RetroResolution I just don't think there is any point debugging further if the PSU is no good (even if the sdcard is fake). Once we have the PSU sorted, we can check the sdcard. I suspect it may be dodgy though also.

riel.fox

@BuZz
The eBay listing was for:
2016 SanDisk 128GB microSDXC 80MB/s Ultra 128G microSD micro SDXC SD

and the price was £14.99 from uk eBay

I thought it was a great deal. Now it especially seems dodgy to me since the seller has disappeared from eBay.

I am ready to start a case at the Resolution Center for my money back, but is there a way to produce hard evidence with some tool that I got scammed?

I will certainly try the PSU too, although I tried it with two different PSU's (the official PSU will arrive shortly by mail)

BuZz

I doubt that is a real 128GB micro sdcard - way too cheap, that sdcard is around £35-£45 - do not buy sdcards from ebay (unless they are a reputable shop with an ebay store) - if the seller has disappeared I think you have your answer. Time to get a new sdcard.

I am still interested in the specs of the PSUs you tried.

riel.fox

@BuZz

These are the PSU's I have used, both from smartphones.

[IMG]http://i63.tinypic.com/qnnzg0.jpg[/IMG]

The first is the charger for a OnePlus One.

[IMG]http://i63.tinypic.com/2i91g15.jpg[/IMG]

It says
Input: 100-240V~50-60Hz 450mA
Output: 5V -- 2100mA

The other is from Apple, it says:
Input: 100-240V ~50/60Hz 0.15A
Output: 5V -- 1A

I am not very experienced with hardware but I guess it's not right?

The PSU I ordered and waiting for I got exclusively for the Pi3 and is 5V 2.5A.
Should I just wait for it and retry or - meanwhile- request a refund for the SD card?

BuZz

The first one may be enough depending what you are plugging in to the rpi. The second is not.

I'm pretty sure your sdscard is fake - could test it with something like https://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/h2testw-14-gold-standard-in-detecting-usb-counterfeit-drives/

A Former User

@riel.fox

You definitely need a 2.5a power adapter supply for the Pi 3. Without it you run the risk of the Pi being unstable due to insufficient power. When you start using multiple ports, internal Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, the system starts drawing more power.

I would put in a request to dispute the Micro SD card with PayPal or whomever you used to pay with. It is almost guaranteed to be a fake. Get a 64gb-128gb card from Amazon or from someplace local to use for awhile.

riel.fox

@BuZz
Thanks
I'm running the test as we speak.
It will take a while...

Meanwhile, I have opened a case on eBay

RetroResolution

@BuZz no problem BuZz, I missed the notification again anyway -'titally agree with you, without a decent 2.5a supply no testing will be valid

RetroResolution

@BuZz I'd also add that you should be cautious of Amazon resellers / third-parties when it comes to sdcards - when I buy mine I ensure they are being sold directly by Amazon itself.

I recently bought a 64gb class 10 Samsung card for about £12, which arrived in factory-sealed packaging (always a good sign).

First thing I do with new sdcards is a full erase (not a fast / MBR only erase), then write a known-good image taken from an identical card (granted, that isn't always an option) - just to ensure the actual capacity of the card is genuine (plenty of other ways to do this from a bash shell under Raspbian or other Linux distro)

riel.fox

@BuZz
Yep, there's our culprit... The SD card was a scam.
Now I have hard evidence.

Test concluded with:

Warning: Only 127958 of 127968 MByte tested.
The media is likely to be defective.
8.0 GByte OK (16799287 sectors)
116.9 GByte DATA LOST (245258697 sectors)
Details:0 KByte overwritten (0 sectors)
0 KByte slightly changed (< 8 bit/sector, 0 sectors)
116.9 GByte corrupted (245258697 sectors)
0 KByte aliased memory (0 sectors)
First error at offset: 0x0000000200ac6e00
Expected: 0x0000000200ac6e00
Found: 0xaaf3171d41908688
H2testw version 1.3
Writing speed: 8.77 MByte/s
Reading speed: 5.22 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4

Now all I have to do is wait for the return period to end so that eBay may review my case and, hopefully, give me a refund.
I've attached the results of the tests to them.

Thanks for the help guys. I am experimenting with an 8 GB microSD I has lying around (that I know is legit) and it seems to perform well, no corruptions.

BuZz

@RetroResolution yeh. Always best to get direct from known good companies