won't play my roms
  • Hello.

    I have hooked my pi up to a 7 inch car moniter
    I boot to the piplay main menu, but when i tried to boot up the snes emulator, this message came up:


    Alsact: load_state:1647: cannot open /home/pi/pimame/config/piplay-sound.state for reading: no such file or directory
    Found hadware: "bcm2035" "broadcom minor" "" "" ""
    hardware is initlallzed using a general method
    Have a nice day :)
    Fatal python error: (pigame paraclute) segneatation foult

    Please help

  • everything above 'have a nice day :)' can be ignored.

    'fatal python error: (pygame parachute) segmentation fault' typically means that pygame is not install correctly.

    in command line, type the following:
    python
    import pygame
    pygame.__file__

    does it output this?-> '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pygame/__init__.pyc'

    (press ctrl+d to exit python)
  • No, it says:

    Traceback (most reccent call last):
    File "(stdin)", line 1, in (module)
    AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute '_file_'

    Thanks for the quick response
  • @eddy761 - ok, then that means that pygame didn't get installed correctly. pygame is a python library that we use pretty extensively.

    You may need to do a clean install of piplay to fix this, but before you do, give this a shot:
    in the command line type:
    sudo apt-get install python-pygame


    then restart your pi and see if that works. I check the forums about 3 times a day, so just post on here if this doesn't fix it.
  • I have had this exact same problem and followed everything in this post with identical results. I booted up with my Pi connected to HDMI and everything worked fine, emulators loaded fine, and no issues at all. The next time I booted I was running off the Composite video and the menu comes up fine but I get the fatal python error when I start any emulator.
  • yeah, I'm starting to think that it has something to do with the video. We are looking into it.
  • @eddy761, @jreisinger82 - It's kind of a shot in the dark, but can you give this a try?
    you will need to edit /home/pi/pimame/pimame-menu/pmmenu/romlistscene.py
    Line # 403 looks like this:
    if self.info_container.w: self.boxart_thread = thread.start_new_thread(self.draw_boxart, (5,))
    You need to comment it out (add # at the beginning of the line) so that it looks like this:
    #if self.info_container.w: self.boxart_thread = thread.start_new_thread(self.draw_boxart, (5,))
    then save and try running piplay (note: this will disable the boxart for the time being)
  • I am pretty new at this. I figured out how to edit this file but I am confused about how to save these changes
  • So I have fumbled through this, made the change, saved and rebooted. It does not look like this has made any difference.
  • ok. so after making the changes, is any boxart/game info popping up in the rom list?
  • I get the python error immediately after selecting an emulator. When I am using HDMI, I will come up with a list of Roms for the selected emulator. When I use composite video, it immediately crashes
  • ok, I'll have to see if I can track down a composite video cable and duplicate this.
  • When I am plugged into HDMI, everything functions perfectly with no problems at all. I tested with my flat screen and when everything worked, I dumped it all into my arcade cabinet with an old TV and no emulators worked. I had no idea what happened for about a week until I realized it must have something to do with the change to composite video.
  • Hello,
    I have the same probleme with my Pi. It's plug with an HDMI to VGA adaptator to an old arcade screen. video configuration is hdmi_group=1 hdmi_mode=35. all is great on the screen, the scrapper works well, but when try to launch any emulator game list, it goes straigth to the terminal and says :"Fatal python error: (pigame parachute) segmentation fault". when connected to an hdmi screen, works well.
    Thanks for your help ;-)
  • Another thing I noticed is the layout on the home screen is different when you switch from the HDMI to the 3.5mm jack for video. Also, the raspi-config tool is not visible when using the 3.5 jack but it is with the HDMI.
  • Hi i. am a complete novice with the PI and PIplay i. have spent HOURS now trying to get round this exact problem

    I don't have anything with HDMI to check it with but are you all saying it is defiantly a problem with my av display lead?
  • so, I hooked my pi up to composite video and messed around with all of the settings (everything from default to trying to force an error) but I couldn't replicate this error. Shea comes back from PyCon on Monday, so I'll ask him about it then. See if he has any ideas.
  • I seem to have solved my issues but I am not sure which of my changes actually solved the problem. I switched from a 8gb card to a 16gb card that i found laying around. Then I made some changes to /boot/config.txt.

    hdmi_ignore_hotplug=1
    framebuffer_width=1360
    framebuffer_height=768
    sdtv_mode=0
    sdtv_aspect=3
    sdtv_disable_colourburst=0

    This has fixed the issue of the Python error when trying to start an emulator. Also, the menu looks the same as with HDMI, with 2 rows of icons instead of the 1 row I was seeing when I was having trouble with the composite video. With these settings, the raspi-config icon is visible again. Originally when i had problems, this icon did not show up. I assume it was being cut off the end of the list for some reason.
    After these changes, I tried starting up a few emulators and they all went to the game list, though I only had a few SNES roms uploaded so most of the lists were empty. I played a round of Mortal Kombat 2 just to make sure and everything worked just like it was supposed to. Time to start loading my roms, then I'll dump it all into the finished cabinet that is waiting.
  • Great! I'm glad that this worked for you. Based on the changes that you made, I would assume that the error stemmed from the resolution settings. Let me know if you run into any other problems!
  • Hi all,

    I had the exact problem - using a small approximately 5" screen with the Pi's 3.5mm video-out.

    My problem was fixed by uncommenting the

    framebuffer_width=800
    framebuffer_height=480


    lines in /boot/config.txt, and changing the resolution settings to these figures.

    I tried using the default resolution settings first, but the text was far too small to read. It seems to have little or no effect to how games look, only the user interface.

    I made just the one change, save & reboot to test rather than make all the suggested changes, to identify the exact fix. Looks like it's just having trouble working out the screen size and needs to be given some numbers to work with.

    Thanks everyone for your help - was able to get this fixed within an hour or so of encountering the problem thanks to your help.

    edit: adjusting the resolution down to suit the small screen helped a lot.
  • I have tried both, but still no luck :-(
  • Hi guys,

    I'm having the same problem.

    I've been running everything fine - games all working ok - using HDMI and a 1080p screen. Today the old 4:3 monitor I ordered off the interwebs arrived, tested it on a PC, and it works fine...connected the Pi to the monitor using composite video (instead of HDMI) and it books, gets as far as the main menu, then if I select a games console it drops to command line, and I get:

    have a nice day ;)
    Fatal Python error: (pygame parachute) Segmentation Fault

    As I say, it's been working perfectly for weeks on HDMI - but connect it to a screen using the analogue video output and I can't get past the main menu.

    I'm going to try the fix above and will get back to you all.

    Thanks

    Ben
  • I just wanted to confirm the fix by sandsbyte fixed my issue of using PiPlay with the RCA cables. Now I can connect this to the old TV and game on!
  • Is Mortal Kombat working flawlessly (aweome unintended pun) as I am waiting for my pi2 to get here and that is the #1 game I want to play on it and make into a minicade
  • i see you where playing on the snes emulator.. really wanted the mame version.. anyone know?
  • Hello,

    inserting

    framebuffer_width=800
    framebuffer_height=480

    into the /boot/config.txt solved the pygame parachute segmentation fault issue for me as well (also on a 800x480 screen)

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