Stuck on Splash Screen

[mantismoranis]

I have attempted to install Recalbox three times now, and every installation leads me to the splash screen, and it never goes anywhere further than that. Right now, it's been on my screen for about half an hour.

Raspberry Pi Zero W
Recalbox 9.1-Pulstar - Zero / 1 (released 2023-06-18)
Written with Raspberry Pi Imager (via MacOS)
USB wired keyboard and mouse on USB dongle to start

I have done several RetroPie systems. The features available for Recalbox are really appealing, but this splash screen issue is really frustrating and seems to be a widespread problem after searching this forum, Reddit, and Google.

[Damião]

@mantismoranis

Hello,

I saw several times this issue on this forum but there isn't easy solution because the root cause is always different.

One possible reason can be a USB device blocking the boot, take care to disconnect every useless USB device.

Another possible reason could be the SD card.. Which is the brand of yours? If no name / cheap card, you should try reinstalling with a good one.

Damião

[mantismoranis]

@Damião

I have attempted five installs now, on two different SD cards now (one from SanDisk, one from Micro Center) and nothing ever worked with the Zero build.

However, I tried the Pi400 build on the SanDisk SD card and it was the easiest install ever. I love the Recall Box interface. It's fantastic and I'm going to use this for my personal retro gaming box.

I had an extra Zero that I wanted to give my niece as a retro present, but it never worked out with Recall Box. I'm going to attempt a RetroPie on that, as it never gave me problems before.

[Damião]

@mantismoranis

Strange, when you are frozen on the splash screen can you try opening a terminal?

You must have a keyboard plugged and put F4 and after ALT+F2.

If you are friendly with command lines you should enable the debug mode and share us the log file.

Follow this page for more details :
https://wiki.recalbox.com/en/tutorials/troubleshooting-information/enable-debug-mode

Damião

[mantismoranis]

@Damião

I appreciate the help, but after a fresh reinstall and attempt to launch debug mode with a wired USB keyboard (plugged into a USB-A adapter), Recalbox would still not launch, nor would terminal.

I tried a RetroPie install, and it worked perfectly on the first attempt. Gonna go with this for the Zero project.