Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More)

cdaters

@rapidedwin08, I just want to post this here to keep it all in one spot...

So i installed the latest RetroPie software on my Pi4, using the image from the site, on a new SD Card. Got it up and running, loaded some roms, etc. that I had scraped using ARRM so I could have images, box-art, videos, etc. Then I installed IMP for background music and the Bezel Project for those 4:3 emus. Things were great! Played some games, had a blast!

Then disaster...

I decided that I want to make sure everything was updated, so updated the install script and told it to update...after updated some of RetroPie. It asked if I wanted to update the underlying RaspberryOS. I said, sure! Why not?

Now I get this...

emulationstation: /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/tmp/build/emulationstation/es-app/src/FileData.cpp:218: void FileData::addChild(FileData*): Assertion `mType == FOLDER' failed.
Aborted

...and a blinking cursor!
I've seen some mention of modifying gamelist.xml to get it working again, but I just plain removed those rom directories that had any content and restarted emulationstation. Same error...I've searched and googled and nothing comes up. Has anyone else encountered this issue?

Using --debug, ES is getting hung up on ~/.emulationstation/gamelists/retropie/gamelist.xml but I don't understand what I am looking for? Other posts relating to that error suggest paths should not refer to files, only directories? I wondered if perhaps it was the html entities you have in the XML for "less than" or "greater than" symbols? I am not sure.

Here is the pastebin of the gamelist.xml that ES is failing on. The offending block of XML is related to the IMP background music player. When I comment out any attributes/elements related to IMP, save, and launch ES, everything works just fine.

This was working just fine prior to updating the underlying OS, so I wanted to know if there is some sort of discontinuity going on that others may have encountered...

Here is a link to my post in the general help and support forum in case this is not an IMP issue and something comes up there that can help others here...

mrmadcatz

@cdaters I had the same issue! What I ended up doing was uninstalling IMP via the /home/pi/imp/imp_setup.sh. Then I rebooted my RetroPie and it was working after that. The issue is that there is an XML file that tells Emulation Station how to organize all of the various IMP menu items within the RetroPie menu. The XML specifically in question is/home/pi/.emulationstation/gamelists/retropiemenu/gamelist.xml. The update does something to the XML that makes EmulationStation forget that some items are folders in that IMP menu. Because it can't parse the XML properly, it freaks out and won't load into EmulationStation.

In the IMP Setup script there is also an option for [retropiemenu] gamelist.xml refresh. I believe that this was intended to fix the XML issue I am describing, but when I tried it myself it didn't work and the uninstall/reinstall was the only fix that worked for me.

One thing that made the uninstall/reinstall less painful was the fact that the /home/RetroPie/roms/music folder seemed to remain intact with anything I had added on my own, although creating a backup is always a smart idea.

@RapidEdwin08 Might have a more elegant solution to all of this, but thought I'd share what worked for me so you're not stuck without being able to use your RetroPie.

RapidEdwin08

@mrmadcatz @cdaters Thanks for the input.

I think the problem might be HTML character codes (or lack there of)...

~~The RetroPie update might have struggled to parse the [gamelist.xml] correctly because of special characters that were neglected to be input in HTMLCode/NameCode~~.

NOT the issue, as pointed out to me, I was confusing this with XML Character Set

Issue could be that the RetroPie update Removed the .mp3 extension from [es_systems.cfg]

The game list xml Refresh currently does Not accommodate for this.

cdaters

@mrmadcatz, thank you for the suggestion, I briefly saw this when I woke up in the middle of the night with the idea that I would try just what you suggested when I woke this morning and was preparing to do just that when I happened to see @RapidEdwin08's response in the Help and Support thread that perhaps the RetroPie upgrade might have removed the mp3 extension entries from the es_systems.cfg file in /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg for the RetroPie Menu. By default, this is usually only .sh or .rp.

So I added those back in per @RapidEdwin08's suggestion and boom! Back up and running!

  <system>
    <name>retropie</name>
    <fullname>RetroPie</fullname>
    <path>/home/pi/RetroPie/retropiemenu</path>
    <extension>.rp .sh .mp3 .MP3 .pls .PLS .m3u .M3U</extension>

cdaters

Okay...So I have overcome an update of RetroPie that had killed my [IMP] experience, and I have enabled SMB shares to get my music on my Pi via feedback from @RapidEdwin08 due to other feedback...

@mrmadcatz your feedback has gotten me back into streaming radio and I have to agree with your feedback, [IMP] is amazing and I think my go-to from here on!

I love! Love! Love! that we can create playlists, incorporate Internet Radio (I've already added a few of my own), etc. into our BGM experience! I am playing with the gamelist.xml file now creating "categories" for [Internet Radio]and [Personal Music] to sort of keep things nice and tidy...

@RapidEdwin08 , thanks again for this gem!

Lolonois

@cdaters to avoid further worries (and also for others stumbling across this): Place a customized copy of es_systems.cfg into ~/.emulationstation/ (user pi). This location takes precedence over /etc/emulationstation/ and is never changed automagically, neither by updates nor by adding extra emulators.

cdaters

@lolonois, thank you very much, done! 😄

mrmadcatz

@cdaters @RapidEdwin08 .mp3 being added as an extension in /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg makes total sense! I'll keep this in mind. Glad everyone has things working :)

RapidEdwin08

@lolonois said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

@cdaters to avoid further worries (and also for others stumbling across this): Place a customized copy of es_systems.cfg into ~/.emulationstation/ (user pi). This location takes precedence over /etc/emulationstation/ and is never changed automagically, neither by updates nor by adding extra emulators.

The Installer is accommodating for Both locations already, but the 0nly time it does so is at Install.
This explains why the Re-Install Resolved the issues @mrmadcatz , but the gamelist refresh did N0T @cdaters .

New release coming soon, it will check es_systems.cfg(s) for this at B00T.

mrmadcatz

@rapidedwin08 Just saw the new commit and that you've added NightRideFM and RainwaveCC to it! Thank you so much! So cool. I really like how RainWave's channels are all listed and available. I'm noticing that NightRideFM is set up as a station with all of it's stations within a single playlist and not selectable like RainwaveCC. Is this intentional? If not, just wanted to bring it to your attention!

RapidEdwin08

@mrmadcatz said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

@rapidedwin08 ... I'm noticing that NightRideFM is set up as a station with all of it's stations within a single playlist and not selectable like RainwaveCC. Is this intentional? If not, just wanted to bring it to your attention!

YES it is intentional.
I included the [NightrideFM-x6.pls] as an Example for Multiple Songs/Channels in a Single Playlist File for Reference.

Thanks for the feedback!

mrmadcatz

@rapidedwin08 This is so cool! Thank you very much for adding these :) Them just being there after the install was a pleasant surprise lol!

On a separate note: I'm noticing a bug. When I have "Fade Volume at Game [ON]" it fades the ES System Volume down to about 22-24% before launching the game. Then, upon exiting the game, the System Volume in ES remains at that low level and has to be manually raised again so that games being emulated are not too quiet.

In my testing, I found that if I don't touch the volume when returning to ES as it's stuck at 22-24%, the music will continue to play. If I adjust it to anything below what the Music Player volume is set to (in this instance 80%) the music will cut out, but will come back as soon as I put the system volume above that threshold.

Would you prefer us report stuff like this here or on your GitHub page in the issues section?

RapidEdwin08

@mrmadcatz said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

@rapidedwin08 I'm noticing a bug. When I have "Fade Volume at Game [ON]" it fades the ES System Volume down to about 22-24% before launching the game. Then, upon exiting the game, the System Volume in ES remains at that low level and has to be manually raised again so that games being emulated are not too quiet.

Would you prefer us report stuff like this here or on your GitHub page in the issues section?

Here is fine.
Volume Fade is the Unicorn of BGM Features...

Was this occurring while Very Rapidly Selecting ROMs?
~~If so, I guess you could call it a Known Issue with the Fade.~~

If you are a Rapid-ROM-Selector, you can try to Increase the [Delay at Game End] Setting to avoid this issue.

EDIT The Fade Scripts were definitely Not acting right, and have been Reverted to an 0lder known working version.
Changes were Very Promptly Applied on github. (Reinstall if needed).
Thanks for Reporting.

mrmadcatz

@rapidedwin08 Funny enough, when I was seeing this consistently, it was only when I was playing ROMs for a length of time and not rapidly switching.

I'll keep this in mind if I see this issue again. Might just turn off the fade option if it has the potential to cause issues.

RapidEdwin08

IMP 2022.02 Released
Fixed issue with ES Not Loading after Retropie Update [es_systems.cfg]
Fixed issue with some Streams N0T Playing (Remove [:443] from Address)
Added Startup Song Setting [../music/bgm/startup.mp3]
Added Music Randomizer Mode
Added [RP/ES] Utilites to Installer Menu
Installer adjusted to Set Volume to %50 upon Install
Installer adjusted to Add Samba Share for [~/RetroPie/retropiemenu/imp/music]
Reverted to 0lder versions of [run-onstart] [run-onend] scripts to address Fade Issues

It's worth noting that Every Change in this Release was Driven by the Community.

Thank You All for your Feedback!

mrmadcatz

Thanks so much for the updates! I'm very honored to have been part of any feedback and excited to see IMP continue to be awesome. Thank you @RapidEdwin08 !

cdaters

@mrmadcatz said in Integrated Music Player for RetroPie [IMP] 2021.10 (Background Music for RetroPie and More):

Thanks so much for the updates! I'm very honored to have been part of any feedback and excited to see IMP continue to be awesome. Thank you @RapidEdwin08 !

Ditto!
Thank you very much @RapidEdwin08 !

cdaters

Okay... I upgraded, and it didn't go smoothly 😢

after backing up my ~/imp folder to ~/imp.bak I uninstalled using the setup script per the instructions.

cd ~/imp && ./imp_setup.sh

After the reboot, I get this:

After I press "A" to quit, I then get this:

I am preparing to run a DIFF of an old 'es_settings.cfg` file against this current one (I happen to have the initial 32GB SD card that I started this journey on, before I imaged it and put it on a 512GB SD card.) to see if there is any wierdness...

RapidEdwin08

@cdaters IMP should have the backup es_systems.cfg in both locations IF they existed at Install.

The issue might be with the paths for home:
[/home/pi/RetroPie-Setup...] or [~/RetroPie-Setup...].
Which does your es_systems.cfg have?

 <command>sudo /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/retropie_packages.sh

<command>sudo ~/RetroPie-Setup/retropie_packages.sh

I think [~/] might be the issue.
Try replacing with [/home/pi/] instead.

cdaters

Nevermind, it seems to be the es_systems.cfg again. My custom one, lol! I've made a Pastebin for you to look at in case it's helpful.

I determined this once again from a --debug session, then a ls -alh
Screen Shot 2022-02-22 at 4.14.46 PM.jpg

To remedy this, I just made a backup of my custom es_systems.cfg and copied the /etc/emulationstaion/es_systems.cfg file in it's place.

cp /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg ~/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg

...and I am back up and running. [IMP] seems to still be there too, I didn't have to make any edits like before, yay!

I'll just have to go in and add my custom systems entries...