Video Splashscreen - No video or audio with OMX Player, but videosnaps work normally

usb3pt0

Pi Model or other hardware: Pi 4B
Power Supply used: CanaKit Raspberry Pi 4 3.5A PSU (USB-C)
RetroPie Version Used (eg 3.6, 3.8.1, 4.1 - do not write latest): 4.8
Built From: Premade SD image, filename retropie-buster-4.8-rpi4_400.img.gz
USB Devices connected: Two DragonRise USB zero delay encoders, a 4 port hub, in the hub is a dongle for a wireless keypad controller
Controller used: DragonRise USB Zero Delay Encoder
Attachment of config files: https://pastebin.com/RAJGepDY
How to replicate the problem: Set the Video Screensaver to use OMXPlayer, enable screensaver

Hi guys. I had set this Pi up with a third party image (before official existed) which worked with OMXPlayer for a time, but then it bizarrely failed to work and I had to switch to regular video player, which while it works, doesn't show game info or close the video upon pressing Start to begin that game, both features I value heavily. I copied all my games and bios files off that image and reinstalled RetroPie using the official build as it was beginning to cause new problems, but this OMXPlayer issue still holds.

I have already run all videos through handbrake to fix them (had to do it well before this install) so I'm just baffled as to why it's not working. Anyone have any inkling of what might be going wrong?

sleve_mcdichael

@usb3pt0 ~~can you recreate this issue on the official image, now that one exists?~~

Disregard, apparently I can't read today.

usb3pt0

@sleve_mcdichael No big deal.

Also, I want to amend my post as digging through 3+ year old reddit posts came up with some oddities.

In EmulationStation settings, UI settings, video screensaver settings, selecting to display game info at all causes the black screen. Game info disabled, videos play fine.
Pressing Start to begin the game doesn't stop omxplayer.bin. It will continue to run looping the video unless killed through terminal, or I quit out of the game with start+select and hit any button. Something similar happens with the other video player (I guess it's VLC?) where it will keep playing audio for a while over the game itself.

Not sure what can be done about these, but that seems to be at the root of it.
The game info subtitles aren't anything near as important as shutting it down when START is pressed to start the associated game, though, so if I can at least get that fixed I'll be golden.

usb3pt0

Okay found a 3 month old thread about part of this issue.

Re: OMX Player screensaver not stopping when pressing start to launch game

@mitu I saw your request for a debug log and so I whipped one up. I opened EmulationStation, hit Select on the main menu to start video screensaver, hit Start to begin the game being shown, and wait for a bit. I close out of the game with Start+Select, move around the stick a bit to close OMXPlayer, then close ES.

https://pastebin.com/AqhDCPgi0

Looks like the event to close the screensaver never fires off when the game starts. I don't recall setting up any external scripts, but if they would be in the BIOS folder, roms folder, or config.txt, those are the only files and folders kept from the old install.

Would it have anything to do with the gamelist.xml or media scraped?

mitu

@usb3pt0 said in Video Splashscreen - No video or audio with OMX Player, but videosnaps work normally:

@mitu I saw your request for a debug log and so I whipped one up. I opened EmulationStation, hit Select on the main menu to start video screensaver, hit Start to begin the game being shown, and wait for a bit. I close out of the game with Start+Select, move around the stick a bit to close OMXPlayer, then close ES.
https://pastebin.com/AqhDCPgi0

Your pastebin link doesn't show anything (This page is no longer available. It has either expired, been removed by its creator, or removed by one of the Pastebin staff.). This looks similar to a bug fixed sometime ago in EmulationStation - https://github.com/RetroPie/EmulationStation/pull/790. The fix is not yet in the stable branch, so installing the experimental emulationstation-dev package is necessary to get the latest EmulationStation version.

Would it have anything to do with the gamelist.xml or media scraped?

No, I don't think so.

usb3pt0

@mitu erk. I must have accidentally hit 0. The link is https://pastebin.com/AqhDCPgi .

Based on that advice I installed emulationstation-dev through retropie setup, rebooted, and got into it. Pressing START lists the version as 2.11-DEV so I assume it worked. Hit Select, hit Start...omxplayer still running.

Is there a way to get game info working with VLC btw? or is that still a 100% broken feature?

mitu

@usb3pt0 said in Video Splashscreen - No video or audio with OMX Player, but videosnaps work normally:

Based on that advice I installed emulationstation-dev through retropie setup, rebooted, and got into it. Pressing START lists the version as 2.11-DEV so I assume it worked. Hit Select, hit Start...omxplayer still running.

Hm, weird, can't reproduce the issue with current -dev (or stable). omxplayer always stops when starting the game from the screensaver. Can you also post your es_settings.cfg file, from $HOME/.emulationstation ?

Is there a way to get game info working with VLC btw? or is that still a 100% broken feature?

Using the built-in video player (based on vlc) the game info is shown.

usb3pt0

@mitu Here ya go. https://pastebin.com/4C1ZGUQH

Also, vlc game info has never worked for me, once. I wonder why...

mitu

Can't reproduce the issue with your config also. Not sure what's causing trouble in your install.

usb3pt0

@mitu Well, oddly enough, OMXPlayer is now behaving properly when I go to start a game and closing. Gonna go ahead and assume the problem was ghosts, but who knows? Maybe plugging it into a different TV changed something...whatever.

The only existing issue is with game info. It will still be a black screen with no audio if game info is turned off.

mitu

@usb3pt0 said in Video Splashscreen - No video or audio with OMX Player, but videosnaps work normally:

The only existing issue is with game info. It will still be a black screen with no audio if game info is turned off.

Subtitles are not supported with omxplayer on a Pi4, due to the lack of HW support for OpenVG.
I'd advise you to use vlc instead of omxplayer, next version of RaspberryPI OS has ditched support for omplxayer completely and this means it will also not be available in RetroPie/EmulationStation.

usb3pt0

@mitu Well that can be arranged as I tested the VLC mode and it still worked right, however there's still no game info displayed.

What could possibly be causing that? Something wrong with the chosen fonts? The font files? The resolution I'm forcing it to display at (resolution mode is meant for a screen installed in an Arcade1Up gen 3 cabinet)? I'm trying to think of anything that might mess with its subtitles and can't come up with anything.

EDIT: FINALLY figured it out. In video screensaver settings, VLC Resolution needs to be set to Max. Doing that finally shows the game info. Gonna guess this has something to do with video mode, but I don't know for certain. Either way, that fixed it.