Emulation Station crashed! problem

filo96

Pi Model or other hardware: Raspberry Pi 3 B+ with 64GB of micro SD memory
Power Supply used: official power supply
USB Devices connected: usb controller, usb mouse and bluetooth keyboard
Error messages received: see attached image

Hello community,
Maybe I'm asking for a problem that many people have already encountered before, however I followed some of the questions already posted but I didn't find a solution.
I'm using Retropie (official OS). Some days ago I worked a lot on it in order to configure the various options to correctly enable the LXDE Pixel to navigate the desktop.
Also, I put a lot of roms inside the SD memory.
To do the mentioned, I updated the various parts of Retropie (from the script to the core packages).
The fact is that when I switch on the Raspberry, while Emulation Station is loading the various parts, SOMETIMES I obtain the following error message:

After that I must proceed via command line directly writingemulationstation, then it re-runs the loading of the various parts but it doesn't fail.
I was using the Carbon theme, however I tried to switch to a different theme but the problem persists.
I'd like to show you an error log but I didn't find it. Anyone have any idea where i can find the logs?
The only file I found is the following one called emulationstation, where I see the following lines (there are 26 lines but I show you only a half of them):

# save current tty/vt number for use with X so it can be launched on the correct tty
TTY=$(tty)
export TTY="${TTY:8:1}"

clear
tput civis
"/opt/retropie/supplementary/emulationstation/emulationstation.sh" "$@"
if [[ $? -eq 139 ]]; then
    dialog --cr-wrap --no-collapse --msgbox "Emulation Station crashed!\n\nIf this is your first boot of RetroPie - make sure you are using the correct image for your system.\n\nCheck your rom file/folder permissions and if running on a Raspberry Pi, make sure your gpu_split is set high enough and/or switch back to using carbon theme.\n\nFor more help please use the RetroPie forum." 20 60 >/dev/tty
fi
tput cnorm

mitu

@filo96 said in Emulation Station crashed! problem:

I'd like to show you an error log but I didn't find it. Anyone have any idea where i can find the logs?

EmulationStation's log file is in $HOME/.emulationstation/es_log.txt.
Please add the rest of the info asked in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

filo96

@mitu thank you for your answer.
Version of RetroPie:

pi@retropie:~/RetroPie-Setup $ git show
commit 04a74980e27b23102c015a930e25ad5dcb1f219e (HEAD -> master, origin/master, origin/HEAD)
Merge: 259d94a2 d7844112
Author: Jools Wills <buzz@exotica.org.uk>
Date:   Thu Nov 11 02:06:42 2021 +0000

    Merge pull request #3426 from RetroHursty69/master
    
    Update esthemes.sh with new theme

And here the version of the LXDE:

pi@retropie:~/RetroPie-Setup $ cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)"
NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="10"
VERSION="10 (buster)"
VERSION_CODENAME=buster
ID=raspbian
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianForums"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianBugs"

Today, when I started the Raspberry Pi, no errors appeared. I don't know what is the condition that triggers the event of crash.
Thus I searched fo the es_log.txt and I found the following content: es_log.txt.
I immediately note that all the logs refere to the 27th November. However I also encountered the problem yesterday (I don't remember if also the 27th Nov I had the problem, maybe yes).
I see a lot of warnings .

mitu

@filo96 said in Emulation Station crashed! problem:

Today, when I started the Raspberry Pi, no errors appeared. I don't know what is the condition that triggers the event of crash.
Thus I searched fo the es_log.txt and I found the following content: es_log.txt.

Yeah, there's no crash here. The warnings are ok, they're just the usual messages when a configured system doesn't have games present or warnings from the default theme.

filo96

@mitu I can delete es_log.txt and then, next time I obtain a crash, I look at the folder to see if the file has been written.
Do you have any other suggestion?

mitu

@filo96 If the crash is reproducible, use gdb to capture a backtrace, this might show where the crash occurs and could lead to a bugfix.

filo96

@mitu I have an update. It's surely not the solution but I'd like to share this.
Today I opened again Retropie. No crashes.
Then I go to the Desktop and I look again at es_log.txt. The strange thing is that now it shows the log of yesterday! I don't understand how it updates the file.
However looking inside it now I see some errors (although yesterday I didn't see any error/crash).
Here the log: es_log.txt

MarioPato

I'm getting that same error thrown after the first time powering the pi, i reboot and sometimes it works other don't. There are other times where emulationstation failed with a 'joy' file and i can't use my keyboard, it randomly works after that.
I'm using retropie 4.7.1 on a Pi3A+, have used 3 different sd cards and writing it from scratch. That always happens after putting the roms to the image, been trying to make it work correctly for more than a week now

mitu

@mariopato Update to the latest RetroPie-Setup and EmulationStation version and report back if you still get a crash.

MarioPato

@mitu I did it, used another pi, with just 1 zero delay usb controller, it worked everytime, even with the other cards i was getting this error.

Then connected my new setup of 2 zero delay with illuminated buttons via a usb hub and got segmentation fault 2 times in a row. Weird.

My guess is the boards are drawing a lot of current since they all have individual cables for the leds, instead of all in series like the ones i have used before.

I even tried it on an orange pi pc which has more power for usb ports but it just freezes while starting.

Thanks for the help

mitu

@mariopato said in Emulation Station crashed! problem:

Then connected my new setup of 2 zero delay with illuminated buttons via a usb hub and got segmentation fault 2 times in a row. Weird.

If the controllers disconnect frequently and randomly, then it's not weird. Solve the underlying problem and ES will not stop/crash randomly because the controllers are not reliably working.

PiKiller

Press "OK" and type reboot when the command line opens at the bottom. Worked for me.