Need Help with OpenBor & Retropie-Extra (Exarkuniv)

Wrestlnut

@ExarKunIv Thank you, EK!! Can you tell me how to get OpenBor/Retropie Extra to show up on my "dashboard?" The RetroPie Setup does show it's installed, but I can't find a way to launch it to play games. Do I need to have the rom(s) installed first? You can tell I'm not very tech savvy, so I apologize if I sound a bit uneducated here.

sleve_mcdichael

@mitu said in Need Help with OpenBor & Retropie-Extra (Exarkuniv):

@Wrestlnut Try again, it's probably a Github temporary error.

I've not been able to figure out why, but I have noted that (nearly*) all of the external (i.e. RetroPie-Extra) packages do have one trouble or another with updates. Either they will give this 404 and cannot be "updated" without "removing" first and "reinstalling" or, alternatively, they will always say "update is available" even when it's not, such as immediately after an update or a fresh install of the package.

It seems to depend on whether or not a particular branch or commit are specified in the $rp_module_repo field; those that do (ecwolf, jfsw) always show "update is available" even when running the latest or specified version. Those that do not (openjazz, openjk_jo) give the behavior as shown here in the OP (install options disabled, curl (22) error 404.)

ecwolf (branch + commit)
jfsw (branch only)
openjazz (neither)

*(A few of them do report, correctly, "unable to check for this package." lr-duckstation or sorr both download a remote binary, and bgm123 just does an apt-get install with getDepends.)

I've poked around a little, but not been able to find out exactly why this happens. I suppose the function that checks for updates is probably expecting something in this field, and when it returns *nul* it cannot handle it; this may be remedied simply by adding a default branch (usually main or master) to every $rp_module_repo that doesn't have one already -- it still doesn't explain though, why everything wants to have an update all of the time always, even when there isn't one.

mitu

@sleve_mcdichael said in Need Help with OpenBor & Retropie-Extra (Exarkuniv):

Those that do not (openjazz, openjk_jo) give the behavior as shown here in the OP (install options disabled, curl (22) error 404.)

Hm, so maybe the issue is that the branch is missing for these modules. Is the extra repo installed as in ext ?

ExarKunIv

@Wrestlnut No you are all good, asking question is how we learn,
I know thats how i started,

ill take a look and see what i can figure out,

UPDATE

yes all you need to do is install the .pak files in to the roms/openbor folder
and reboot your pi, the new system will come up on emulationstation

ExarKunIv

@mitu so i changed
rp_module_repo="git https://github.com/crcerror/OpenBOR-Raspberry.git" and function sources_openbor-v6510() { gitPullOrClone }

to just function sources_openbor-v6510() { gitPullOrClone "$md_build" https://github.com/crcerror/OpenBOR-Raspberry.git }

and it now has a update from source as a option in the RP menu

im thinking maybe for the ones that are throwing up that error i might switch back to using
function sources_openbor-v6510() { gitPullOrClone "$md_build" https://github.com/crcerror/OpenBOR-Raspberry.git }

mitu

@ExarKunIv said in Need Help with OpenBor & Retropie-Extra (Exarkuniv):

... im thinking maybe for the ones that are throwing up that error i might switch back to using

I don't think that's going to help the 'update' issue - that's based on the rp_module_repo line AFAIK. Once you do the update, the proper retropie.pkg file should be placed in the install folder of the module - that might help with the 'update' detection.

ExarKunIv

@mitu Is there anything i need to do on my end,
as @sleve_mcdichael said in his post we have see different issues come up. and i want to so what i can to not have people worry that something is not working, and posting a question when there really is no need to do so

mitu

@ExarKunIv said in Need Help with OpenBor & Retropie-Extra (Exarkuniv):

@mitu Is there anything i need to do on my end,

I'll have to check - my question was if your repo is installed as a 3rt party repo, under the ext folder ?

ExarKunIv

@mitu yes all of the scripts are install under the ext folder

sleve_mcdichael

@mitu said in Need Help with OpenBor & Retropie-Extra (Exarkuniv):

Hm, so maybe the issue is that the branch is missing for these modules.

Yeah, that seems to be (*one side of) the issue here. I had thought that the "branch" field was optional, but now it is looking more like it should be considered a requirement?

Is the extra repo installed as in ext ?

Correct, the extra scriptmodules are copied to ext/ for use by the setup script.

However, the other issue here ("update is available" even when it's not) was still present, back when I used the scriptmodules dir proper:

@sleve_mcdichael said in Guide: AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake) on RPi 4:

Why does it say "update is available", immediately after installation?

Have you got any insight on this aspect?

mitu

I think there are 2 problems here, both leading to the same issue (lack of proper update detection).

some scriptmodules don't have a 'branch' specified, which makes the update routine unable to determine which branch should be checked for the latest version
checking for an update of the scriptmodule involves at least 2 things:
- checking the remote installation source for an update. For binary packages (when available) this means checking for the date of the binary package. For source installs, this involves checking the remote source repository for the latest update.
- checking the modification date in the git repository of the scriptmodule

The checks are performed against the dates registered in the retropie.pkg file, created at installation time in the module installation folder Both the source repository date and the package install date are registered there.

The error reported here happens because of 1., the problem mentioned by @sleve_mcdichael happens because of 2.

Let me expand on 2. Because the scriptmodule file is unkown to git, the modification date is 'empty', so the update routine always thinks an update is available, since the scriptmodule file is always 'older' then the remote repository.

The solution to 2. is to basically clone your 3rd party repo directly under $HOME/RetroPie-Setup/ext and not just one file at a time. Doing that, git is able to properly detect the modification date and the update check works correctly. Here's openjazz, to which I added the branch in rp_module_repo , after I cloned @ExarKunIv's repository directly under ext/extra:

mitu

As an addendum to the previous post:

Looking over the installation process for the extra repository, I see that the files are copied over to ext from $HOME/RetroPie-Extra, which leads to the update issue. The issue would occur with any file/scriptmodule which RetroPie-Setup doesn't know about (i.e. is not git commit-ed to the local repository).

Maybe we can relax this check and get the modification date of the file, if git doesn't find the last modification of the file. This would solve the 2nd issue I was talking above, but without the need to clone @ExarKunIv's repo completely under RetroPie-Setup/ext (which does indeed slow down the setup script due to the increased number of scriptmodule registered).

Wrestlnut

@ExarKunIv said in Need Help with OpenBor & Retropie-Extra (Exarkuniv):

@Wrestlnut No you are all good, asking question is how we learn,
I know thats how i started,

ill take a look and see what i can figure out,

UPDATE

yes all you need to do is install the .pak files in to the roms/openbor folder
and reboot your pi, the new system will come up on emulationstation

Hi EK! So I tried this and it's still not working. I wonder if I messed something up though. When it didn't work the first time, I deleted the roms/openbor folder manually so I could do a "fresh" reinstall. After I reinstalled, however, I noticed that folder never got recreated, so I added it manually. Now when I add he-man.pak to the folder and restart ES, I still don't see Retropie Extra. Should I maybe uninstall and start over?

Also, I missed a couple of the cd ~ entries when running the initial scripts. Not sure if that makes a difference since everything seems to point to home/pi/RetroPie-Setup anyway, but I figured I would mention it just in case.

ExarKunIv

@Wrestlnut said in Need Help with OpenBor & Retropie-Extra (Exarkuniv):

Also, I missed a couple of the cd ~ entries when running the initial scripts. Not sure if that makes a difference since everything seems to point to home/pi/RetroPie-Setup anyway, but I figured I would mention it just in case.

no that doesn't matter, if there was a issue it would not install the scripts to be ran to start with. if you can install it, then that part worked fine

@Wrestlnut said in Need Help with OpenBor & Retropie-Extra (Exarkuniv):

I still don't see Retropie Extra

it will not be called Retropie Extra that is just what the main folder is called that holds all the scripts that i have made/maintained.

so my question for you, is what version are you tring to install. there will be 2 different ones, in the install menu, one that says openbor that one will install the rom folder in to the ports folder, so you need to look roms/ports/openbor

the version that is in Retropie Extra is called openbor-v6510 and that one will install a folder into the roms folder so this roms/openbor

to test i deleted the roms/openbor, removed the system by using the remove function in the install menu, and then install it again from the same menu, and it also remade that folder when it was done.

not sure what is going on for you, from what i can test the openbor-v6510 is working correctly

Wrestlnut

@ExarKunIv IT'S WORKING!! I did exactly as you described and deleted roms/openbor, removed openbor-v6510, reinstalled from source, and it automatically added roms/openbor back in. I then added he-man.pak and restarted ES, and lo and behold it worked. Apparently the roms/openbor folder I created manually did not have the same relationship to the emulator as the system-created version.

I cannot thank you enough, EK! Also a special shoutout to @mitu and @sleve_mcdichael. I appreciate everyone's fast and detailed responses. You all helped me recapture a big part of my childhood today . Now it's time to go defeat Skeletor and his evil henchmen!

sleve_mcdichael

@mitu said in Need Help with OpenBor & Retropie-Extra (Exarkuniv):

Maybe we can relax this check and get the modification date of the file, if git doesn't find the last modification of the file.

And this quick change to the Extras install will preserve the modules' timestamps when they are copied, so that can be accurately assessed.

https://github.com/Exarkuniv/RetroPie-Extra/pull/147/files

mitu

@sleve_mcdichael said in Need Help with OpenBor & Retropie-Extra (Exarkuniv):

And this quick change to the Extras install will preserve the modules' timestamps when they are copied, so that can be accurately assessed.

That's ok, but I think it will only work after this change is added to RetroPie.

BuZz

@mitu btw I've not merged yet as I want to test but I think I may implement this differently.

sleve_mcdichael

@mitu did I do something wrong?

$ ls -l ext/RetroPie-Extra/scriptmodules/ports/prototype.sh 
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 1377 Jul 21  2022 ext/RetroPie-Extra/scriptmodules/ports/prototype.sh
$ cat /opt/retropie/ports/prototype/retropie.pkg 
pkg_origin="source"
pkg_date="2023-02-21T21:42:33-08:00"
pkg_repo_type="git"
pkg_repo_url="https://github.com/ptitSeb/prototype.git"
pkg_repo_branch="master"
pkg_repo_commit="12d2de8639982db12091ca37eeee9036b54f3fa7"
pkg_repo_date="2020-12-20T17:42:33+01:00"
pkg_repo_extra=""
$ git status
On branch update-package
Your branch is up to date with 'cmitu/update-package'.

nothing to commit, working tree clean
$ sudo ./retropie_setup.sh

mitu

@mitu did I do something wrong?

No, but did you read my previous reply ?

EDIT: Ah, I see you're used by PR to test. Seems it's not working correctly then.

EDIT2: Seems the update trigger is also influenced by the commit hash from source repo declaration - without it works fine. Either remove the commit (keeping the branch) or add the full commit hash - see if it works afterwards.