ES flickers then crashes in startup

Jeeptruck1976

I have a RPI 4 and have had retropie installed and playing on my TV successfully since Oct 2023. I bought pre-loaded retropie sd card off Amazon from Sonicon with double games from what I had installed. I took out my SD card and undetected newly purchased card. During startup, all that appeared on screen was vertical green lines and then it crashed. I tried adjusting HDMI cord. Then I shut it down and reinserted the card, but got the same result of green lines

I took out the new sd card and inserted my working card but now emulation station flickers and crashes after about 4 seconds. I tried several times and the same result occurs. I have never had ES crash.

Any thoughts on what might have happened and how to get it fixed?

abj

@Jeeptruck1976

Forum don't provide support for preloaded images.

Please use only the Official RetroPie image from here: https://retropie.org.uk/download/

Jeeptruck1976

@abj,
I followed the guide for Retropie First Installation , downloaded Retropie Imager and followed the instructions to
get the Retropie image for Pi4. I used a 128 GB SanDisk Ultra mSD card that I knew worked well. I installed into my RPI4. The fan came on, but nothing appeared on the screen. I tested the HDMI with another device and found it working well.

I found a 64GB card (Samung) and followed the exact same process and got the exact same result, so I don't think it's the card.

Any thoughts?

BTW: as I mentioned in Post 1, the RPI worked flawlessly until I put that stupid pre-loaded card from Amazon into it. I was able to get that card to boot and it does work with sound but, but it flickers really badly.

Jeeptruck1976

This post is deleted!

abj

If you boot the system without an sd card, does the diagnostic screen appear?

Jeeptruck1976

@abj nothing appears if I boot without an SD card.

abj

@Jeeptruck1976

You can try few things

Remove any peripheral and try to boot again
Test both Hdmi ports
power off/ power on the Tv
Power on the Tv before the pi
Try a second Hdmi cable and Tv if you have.
Check the troubleshooting guide : https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/configuration.html#led-warning-flash-codes .

Jeeptruck1976

@abj I got a new HDMI cord and it worked.

Doh!

Thanks for the help!