Freeplay CM3 Image trouble
#1
Hi, I'm having trouble with my Freeplay CM3 2019.  I think I am doing something to corrupt the image.  I have provided a lot of notes, I'm not sure all of them are useful.  At best my system boots up every other time I power it on, at worst it boots up once or twice then I need a new image.  It seems no matter what, if i pull power from the device before it shuts down, the image doesn't work anymore.

It will boot from an image just fine the first time (with restart to complete setup) and I can add some roms with a usb stick.  However it will take a really long time to restart, or won't at all until I make a new image.  I have think that the system is waiting for a keyboard prompt, but doesn't tell me, and the controller buttons will not get me past the prompt.

Do errors get logged anywhere, so I can just posted them, and work through them?
Is there a cheat sheet for using the controller for the File Explorer or other tools?  I can't get out of them unless I plug in a keyboard.

I plan to do a bit more with this device, but I want to get this figured out first.  Thanks!

My build so far:
Freeplay CM3 2019
256GB micro sdxc card https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MZW...UTF8&psc=1
Soft rubber pad X/Y buttons build
BalenaEtcher 1.4.9
Freeplay_CM3_18111301.img (though older images seem to have issues as well.)
SanDisk 128GB usb stick (ExFAT) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00YFI...UTF8&psc=1
I also used a smaller Lexmark 2GB stick with FAT32 formatting both seemed to function the same way (successfully?).

Flash image with Etcher
Power on device with USB power and HDMI.

Initial try with image:
Power device up, green light power light illuminates, runs init sequence, powers down.
Power device up again, takes maybe 3 min to get to EmulationStation.



Using HDMI:
Upon a slow but successful restart I get the message:
"lvl0:    Could not parse Settings file!
       No document element found"


Then when restarting the Emulation Station:
on exit i get:
" lvl0:    Error parsing XML file /home/pi/.emulationstation/gamelists/retropie/gamelist.xml No document element found" then it hangs, for maybe 5 minutes.

Then it ran a very long (30 min) disk checking routine on start up, probably on the SD card since it's 256GB

Errors after the disk check:
[ 1762.139446] EXT4-fs error (device mmcblk0p2): ext4_mb_generate_buddy:757: group 48, block bitmap and bg descriptor inconsistent: 24750 vs 24751 free clusters
[ 1762.157656] EXT4-fs error (device mmcblk0p2): ext4_mb_generate_buddy:757: group 49, block bitmap and bg descriptor inconsistent: 32485 vs 32486 free clusters)

Then it hangs until I hit enter (no prompt to do so), two more similar errors are listed then EmulationStation loads

The EmulationStation also tends to run pretty slow.  Maybe I have too many roms?

I can only see these messages with HDMI, the screen looks white until the disk check completes then it is black.

On another restart:
Some stuff timed out, and dependencies failed.  while the disk check was happening.  But EmulationStation load much quicker.  Maybe 2 minutes total time.

A restart after that:
Full on disk check 30 min or so, hit enter and EmulationStation loads up.

After removing SD card:
It doesn't boot at all, Raspberry pie logo shows up at top of screen (three raspberries) and waits for a few seconds then powers off. 



New image:
USB power no HDMI
Starts up just fine, I get "Re-reading the partition table failed, source is busy...."  I missed the rest  of the error.  It finishes the init sequence, powers off, boots completely when I turn it back on.  

Turn power off, device boots again, a little slowly this time, maybe 2 to 3 minutes.

I'll update as I get more info.
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#2
I’m sorry that I can not give a proper reply at the moment. I am on my phone quick.

2 things jumped up in my head though.

1) You’re using a 256gb SD. You may want to research that. I don’t know if all 256 cards are fully compatible with RetroPie/Raspbian. I think this is likely the problem offhand. Try a smaller SD if you can. See if the system works fine that way as a test.

2) I have heard of some ROMs causing issues similar to this. If you get a bad ROM file in there, the system may not boot properly after it’s installed.
Card Fighters' Clash 2 English Translation ( http://cfc2english.blogspot.com/ )
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#3
The other thing that I should have added is that there is a pretty real probability of getting a counterfeit 256gb SD depending on where you bought it (eBay, Amazon, etc).
Card Fighters' Clash 2 English Translation ( http://cfc2english.blogspot.com/ )
Neo Geo Pocket Flash Cart and Linker Project ( http://www.flashmasta.com/ )
Avatar art thanks to Trev-Mun ( http://trevmun.deviantart.com/ )
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#4
(02-25-2019, 02:46 AM)Flavor Wrote: The other thing that I should have added is that there is a pretty real probability of getting a counterfeit 256gb SD depending on where you bought it (eBay, Amazon, etc).

I didn't even consider that, and I am aware of the counterfeit cards, thanks.  I'll get a new card an update afterwards.  Hopefully I'll have some build images in the near future to share.
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#5
Found another micro SD card, and everything seems to work well. Thanks for the help.
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#6
Great. Thanks for updating us, Rud!
Card Fighters' Clash 2 English Translation ( http://cfc2english.blogspot.com/ )
Neo Geo Pocket Flash Cart and Linker Project ( http://www.flashmasta.com/ )
Avatar art thanks to Trev-Mun ( http://trevmun.deviantart.com/ )
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