Kodi won't open from main menu when roms are stored on network

jrhessey

I've set up my my pie to load the roms from a network share. I found the steps to add Kodi to the main menu in the wiki, instead of having to go through the ports menu and followed that, but I get a permission denied error when opening kodi. It shows up on the main menu, when I click on it, it goes to a submenu with only kodi available and I click on it again. That's where I get the permission denied error to /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/kodi/kodi.sh. I found an option to change the %rom% to bash %rom% and that would fix the error but I still get a permission denied error. I then went through the steps without mounting the network share for roms in the fstab file and that worked from the sd card. I thought I did something wrong, so I went through the steps again with the mounted share, same error. I've done the configuration through putty both times. I can write the directories and files needed to the rom directory on the share so I don't think its a permission issue on the share folder, but I'm not sure. Any help is greatly appreciated!

backstander

@jrhessey
I haven't setup network sharing for ROMs but I did network share my movies and music with Kodi.

I have a feeling this is a permission issue or the .sh is not executable from the share location.

What is the out put when you type this from the command line:
ls -l /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/kodi/kodi.sh

After running Kodi and getting the error. Please post your /dev/shm/runcommand.log and any Kodi crash logs.

You can post these long log files to http://pastebin.com/ and put the link to them here.

Also did you follow this walkthrough?
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Running-ROMs-from-a-Network-Share

BuZz

@jrhessey Please provide more information when requesting help (as agreed when registering on the forum). https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

You don't say for example which version of retropie you are running. If you update all packages ports should be launched with bash directly, avoiding the need to have the launch script executable.

You have already done this manually I see, but will need to know the actual error received (Check in /home/pi/.emulationstation/es_log.txt and /dev/shm/runcommand.log

jrhessey

@backstander I will try when I get home. The posted network link is the howto I followed for storing the roms on the network.

@BuZz I am running retropie 4 on a pi 3b, I believe. I'm sorry, I bought a kit off of Amazon. In looking at the forums, the commit I have is from June, 2122b7e86366115a88048fba1adbdaa7dce0ecbf. Maybe that can tell you guys something. Sorry, new to this.

jrhessey

ls -l /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/kodi/kodi.sh results in below

-rwxrwxrwx 1 1031 users 16 Nov 16 14:22 /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/kodi/kodi.sh

there is no file called runcommand.log at that location.

es_log.txt is below as well

/home/pi/.emulationstation/es_log.txt

I can't seem to find the Kodi crash logs if there are any, could you point me in the right direction please? Thanks for your help!

backstander

@jrhessey

ls -l /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/kodi/kodi.sh results in below
-rwxrwxrwx 1 1031 users 16 Nov 16 14:22 /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/kodi/kodi.sh

It does look like it's executable but I'm not sure about the user/group 1031/users
I wonder if we can change that to something like pi/pi

What does your /etc/fstab look like?

I can't seem to find the Kodi crash logs if there are any, could you point me in the right direction please?

You may not have any but they would be in the root of the user folder you are logged in as. In other words /home/pi/.

Since you don't have runcommand.log or Kodi crash logs, it sounds like Kodi didn't launching this session and if/when it does launch, it's not crashing :-)

es_log.txt is below as well

The only mention of Kodi in your es_log.txt is:

lvl2: 	Loading system config file /home/pi/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg...
lvl1: 	  Unknown platform for system "kodi" (platform "kodi" from list "kodi")

But I don't think that would be anything that would stop Kodi from launching.

Also what does your /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/kodi/kodi.sh look like?

BuZz

@jrhessey is that ES log from after launching Kodi ? I don't see any reference - looks like a log after just booting into ES.

runcommand.log is stored in /dev/shm/runcommand.log after launching Kodi from ES - it will be gone after a reboot.

Without a log of the error you are seeing I cannot advise further.

jrhessey

@BuZz

Yeah that's after trying to run Kodi, all I see is that

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/kodi/kodi.sh permission denied error and it goes back to the kodi screen

The only thing I saw about kodi was at the beginning of the file with the invalid file system. I'll try again this evening and see if I get anything different. I may try doing an image myself on a different SD card just to test it.

BuZz

Did you update retropie-setup script and reinstall Kodi from the retropie-setup menu ?

what is the output of grep -A5 "<name>ports" {$HOME/.emulationstation,/etc/emulationstation}/es_systems.cfg

are you launching kodi from the ports menu ?

jrhessey

@backstander

Sorry just noticed your reply

FSTAB below

proc            /proc           proc    defaults          0       0
/dev/mmcblk0p1  /boot           vfat    defaults          0       2
/dev/mmcblk0p2  /               ext4    defaults,noatime  0       1
//192.168.10.131/RetroPie/roms /home/pi/RetroPie/roms cifs username=user,password=password,users,_netdev,x-systemd.automount 0 0
//192.168.10.131/video /home/kodi/videos cifs username=user,password=password,users,_netdev,x-systemd.automount 0 0
# a swapfile is not a swap partition, no line here
#   use  dphys-swapfile swap[on|off]  for that

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/kodi/kodi.sh below

kodi-standalone

BuZz

@jrhessey Please format your post (use a code block - http://commonmark.org/help/)

jrhessey

@BuZz

I did not run the update script. I did INSTALL Kodi from the retropie setup menu.

grep -A5 "<name>ports" {$HOME/.emulationstation,/etc/emulationstation}/es_systems.cfg

/home/pi/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg:     <name>ports</name>
/home/pi/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg-    <fullname>Ports</fullname>
/home/pi/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg-    <path>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ports</path>
/home/pi/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg-    <extension>.sh .SH</extension>
/home/pi/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg-    <command>%ROM%</command>
/home/pi/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg-    <platform>pc</platform>
--
/etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg:    <name>ports</name>
/etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg-    <fullname>Ports</fullname>
/etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg-    <path>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/ports</path>
/etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg-    <extension>.sh .SH</extension>
/etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg-    <command>%ROM%</command>
/etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg-    <platform>pc</platform>

I am trying to launch Kodi from the main rom menu. Followed the steps in the retropie wiki to create the menu option.

jrhessey

@BuZz
Sorry, I was banging my head against the wall trying to figure how to format that so it wasn't all screwed up. Overlooked the ? next to compose.

BuZz

@jrhessey

So - you are maintaining your own es_systems.cfg - it's also out of date, as latest retropie-setup will call bash directly for ports (update retropie-setup and re-install kodi).

To launch kodi via script on a usb drive formatted as a windows fs (fat32/exfat/ntfs etc) you will need to change it to <command>bash %ROM%</command> (retropie-setup does this when updating a port, but you won't get the changes since you are manually managing the config)

If you are launching it as a standalone system, you will also need to make a similar change

  <system>
    <fullname>Kodi</fullname>
    <name>kodi</name>
    <path>~/RetroPie/roms/kodi</path>
    <extension>.sh .SH</extension>
    <command>bash %ROM%</command>
    <platform>kodi</platform>
    <theme>kodi</theme>
  </system>

note the file to edit would be /home/pi/.emulationstation/es_systems.cfg - but bear in mind you will need to keep this file manually synced with /etc/emulationstation/es_systems.cfg which is automatically managed by RetroPie-Setup.

jrhessey

@BuZz

I swore I tried bash in front of the %ROM%. I went back to check and it's not there. I must not have saved it correctly. I will give that a shot. If that does fix it, I'm sorry.

When I was stepping through this howto, I wondered what it would affect when they said it would be maintained manually. Now I know... Thanks!

P.S. They literally just updated the KODI wiki with bash %rom% instead of %rom$ in this section of code. HA!

BuZz

@jrhessey I updated the wiki :)