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Re: Retrostone problems

Posted: Tue 21 Aug 2018 06:05
by outz
ok thanks.

here is the wifi dongle i use. works great w/ my retrostone.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003MTTJOY/

Re: Retrostone problems

Posted: Tue 21 Aug 2018 14:19
by marauder
I have the same kind of problems:

For me the device completes booting only about 1 time out of 5-8, and other than that every time it stops at different random point: sometimes it freezes on the Slim logo, sometimes just black screen, once it was endlessly outputting some console text (longer than 30 minutes), but the screen resolution is too low to recognize what exactly was written, I just noticed that it repeats the same blocks of text all the time.

Those few times when it managed to complete booting, I was able only to browse the menus, but when I only started to play some game, it randomly crashed out of it after few, maximum 30 seconds.

I tried all the suggestions from this forum, OrangePI forum and tutorials, including proper formatting and re-flashing SD card. Even though I'm quite confident in what I'm doing even without those, and that I can recognize any possible partition problems on an SD card.
I even tried a different SD card which used to work perfectly in my Raspberry Pi.

This far I have an impression that this is a hardware issue. Probably some devices including mine did not have proper (if not any) quality control on that factory in China.

And of course this all is incredibly frustrating after 5 months of waiting and looking forward to getting this device.

Re: Retrostone problems

Posted: Wed 22 Aug 2018 09:12
by Akira
This sounds approximately like my problem. Several boots till the main menu is showing. Before this white/bluescreen, black screen, endless text messages, or endless boots.

But after those reboots I am able to play my game (5-10 tries).

This paired with the no sound with headphones problem is very frustrating.

Kind regards

Re: Retrostone problems

Posted: Wed 22 Aug 2018 13:25
by marauder
A little update:

I tried to follow some advices of a guy from OrangePi forum, if you're interested, you can find details here:
http://orangepi.club/showthread.php?tid=2603

Briefly all that I managed to achieve - was to boot the device first time after flashing SD card, which at least allowed me to install the system properly.

But after that it keeps booting successfully only 1 time out of 5-8.

Does anyone else keep experiencing such problem?

It looks pretty much like some malfunction in the hardware, maybe reading from SD-card is performing with errors, or so.

Re: Retrostone problems

Posted: Wed 22 Aug 2018 13:33
by bedfellow
I get this too. Sometimes it will boot past this into Retrorangepi and other times the screen stays with the blue strip at the top. It looks like the system is actually running, as when I press the display control buttons I can see a white line appearing in the blue strip. It's almost as though the whole display is compressed into this blue area. I have tried recharging the unit to full charge, but this does not alleviate the problem.

TBH, I'm really quite dissapointed with the whole display. Not only does it have the above issue, even when working the image quality is very poor. Some of this can be attributed to ES themes not being ideal for the screen resolutions but even when using a suitable theme, the image quality is still poor. Indeed, I have actually stopped using the Retrostone due to this. Sadly, the screen lets down what is otherwise a very nice handheld console.

Image

Re: Retrostone problems

Posted: Wed 22 Aug 2018 13:48
by marauder
bedfellow wrote: Wed 22 Aug 2018 13:33 Indeed, I have actually stopped using the Retrostone due to this. The screen lets down what is otherwise a very nice handheld console.
Yeah, the screen definitely could be better.
Though, I would be satisfied even with such one, if the device at least worked stable.
For me the question doesn't even stand - whether I stop using Retrostone or not, it's simply unusable for me. :cry:

Re: Retrostone problems

Posted: Wed 22 Aug 2018 14:02
by Admin
Sorry that you'r experiencing those issues. This boot issue is new to me, I am tring to find a fix for it. I think it's likely a software issue and it should be fixed.

Sorry you can't experience correctly the RetroStones yet, as we just released them some problems appeared that have not been identified before.

You are sure the memory card got formated correctly? I am not a partition expert but from experience I used to have lot of strange problems solved by formating the memory card with Diskpart.
But if you already tested several SD I guess you know what you'r doing.

Also are you booting with anything connected? To USB, ethernet or even charger?

Re: Retrostone problems

Posted: Wed 22 Aug 2018 14:07
by bedfellow
Admin wrote: Wed 22 Aug 2018 14:02 Also are you booting with anything connected? To USB, ethernet or even charger?
For me, the blue/white screen appears irrespective of whether I have USB power and ethernet plugged in or not. It can take several power cycles to get it to boot past this. Every boot starts with this screen, just some get past it and others don't.

Re: Retrostone problems

Posted: Wed 22 Aug 2018 14:25
by marauder
Admin wrote: Wed 22 Aug 2018 14:02 You are sure the memory card got formated correctly? I am not a partition expert but from experience I used to have lot of strange problems solved by formating the memory card with Diskpart.
But if you already tested several SD I guess you know what you'r doing.
Yes, pretty much sure. I've already tried formatting with various tools on Windows and Mac OS, same as flashing the image with everything starting from Win32DiskImager and finishing with dd command in Mac OS Terminal.
And at every moment I was aware what exactly is happening with the partitions on a card.
Admin wrote: Wed 22 Aug 2018 14:02 Also are you booting with anything connected? To USB, ethernet or even charger?
Most of the attempts I did without anything connected, battery fully charged.

Re: Retrostone problems

Posted: Wed 22 Aug 2018 14:48
by Admin
This makes me thin about what someone told me earlier.

He told me on first boot he got the blue/white screen, he let for 10 min the unit ON. Then switch OFF. Then ON again and the unit could boot correctly.

On first boot there is an installation process that last for about 5-10 minutes.

So I am thinking that maybe there is a problem with the current version of Slim retrostone retrorangepi image. Maybe on first boot it does no display on the LCD while system installs.

Which means that perhaps when you try to boot for first time, get the white blue screen for 30s or 1min, then turn OFF, maybe you turn OFF while the system is installing. Which may result in a corrupted image.

Can you try to boot with HDMI screen connected (in case it displays on HDMI) and try to let the unit for 10-15 minutes on first boot?

Idea n°2 : can you try to install "orangepi PC+" version on the SD card and see if it can boot correctly on HDMI? (the GPIO buttons won't work neither LCD but it will confirm if it's a software problem. Link to download retrorangepi PC+ : http://www.retrorangepi.org/images/4.1/ ... img.tar.gz
Note it's "orangepi PC +" not "orangepi PC", "orangepi PC" won't boot at all.