@grimfusion said in Updating to 6.1.1 on an ODroid XU4:

1366x768

After dinking around, I stumbled across a copy of a boot.ini file online that had far more video mode options.
https://github.com/mdrjr/5422_bootini/blob/master/boot.ini

Found one that matched my 1366x768 resolution precisely, so I copied the lines into my XU4's boot.ini file.

1366x768 without monitor data using generic information

setenv videoconfig "drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=edid/1366x768.bin"

I then made sure all other video configurations were once again commented out.
Guess what? Didn't work. My TV is still just as dark as the first day I tried this out.

I'm going to re-image again. I know this specific flavor of RecalBox for the XU4 is a fork and y'all probably aren't the best folks to reach out to when I'm running your OS off of super-specific hardware, but jesus it's hard to find sensible documentation.

I think I figured it out - sort of.

After upgrading to 6.1.1, I forgot to jump into the boot.ini file and comment out a display mode.

However, the option which worked under previous versions is no longer sending video to my television.

I have a Sanyo FW32D06F which supports 720p at 60hz, but with a really weird resolution of 1366x768.

Previously, I commented out the line:
setenv videoconfig "drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=edid/1280x720.bin"
and made sure no other lines were commented out.

That worked under the old version of RecalBox. Doesn't seem to work under 6.1.1 though. I'ma give this one more shot with a fresh image. I have a feeling this might be happening because notepad under windows isn't saving the file in a unicode format, but if that ain't the problem, I'm kinda stumped.

This morning, I decided to finally update RecalBox running on my XU4 to 6.1.1. I install RecalBox from EMMC and generally boot from a microSD card.

Up until pulling the EMMC module out of my XU4 this morning, the entire system was working fine. I verified the XU4 image SHA, wrote it to my EMMC in balenaEtcher, verified successful image write, reinstalled in my XU4, and while I can tell the board is booting, I get no video output at all. I've tried letting the XU4 sit for about 15 minutes hoping it was just writing boot files to my microSD, but nothing happens. The TV does detect a video signal - but it's black and remains that way.

I've verified that the XU4 is set to utilize the EMMC as opposed to SD card. I've seen on some forums that switching from EMMC to SD and back sometimes helps, but I don't understand how it would and I'm hesitant to try anything at this point without guidance or the ability to determine if my XU4 just bit the dust.

I've also heard that trying different televisions and monitors might help, but I've been using the same TV for the last year and from the point of initial boot, it's always worked, so I don't see how my TV could suddenly not be supported.

The microSD card still has all the files from the previous version. Am I perhaps running into this problem because the installation is noticing existing files on the SD and refusing to continue to the point of initializing video?

I'd like to clarify this before spending hours pushing the thousands of games and saves on my microSD to a new drive just to find out the end result is the same. Has anybody else been in this predicament and is there a possible resolve?

I totally understand that. With the Storage option in Recalbox set to AnyExternal, Recalbox was writing boot profiles to every device I plugged in. Since a fresh boot profile gets written, so do basic Kodi files, and every time I'd inadvertently load a boot profile from a drive I didn't intend to, loading either RecalBox or Kodi resulted in my entire rom/media libraries getting overwritten.

I fussed with that option so much trying to get it to work that I was scared of booting into RecalBox with my external hard drives plugged in at all; which means I never saw the option to set a static individual drive as a Storage option.

Okay, I think I got it now; Sorry for seeming obtuse. The setting is a little confusing because it asks about Storage. I figured that meant I should be pointing it at my storage drive, not the one I wanted to boot from. I should have probably realized it didn't mean storage when it started writing boot profiles to everything I plugged in.

Last time I tried to tweak the Storage setting, I didn't have either of my externals plugged in for fear my Kodi library would be overwritten, so I wasn't even aware single drives could be selected as long as they're detected on boot.

Might I suggest renaming the setting "Boot Profile Device" in the English version so the intent is a little more clear? Anyway, all solved. Thanks for the assist, y'all!

@paradadf said in Prevent Booting from Specific Removable Media Drives:

you can select from which specific external device should recalbox boot

I get that, but it's tough to explain what I'm aiming for, I guess. I have an XU4 with a MicroSD card in it I prefer to boot from if I'm just running emulators. I also have two 6TB external HDDs I often plug in to watch stuff in Kodi. The first of the two HDDs has a recalbox boot profile on it and the second one isn't supposed to.

Whenever I boot my XU4 with both external HDDs plugged in, Recalbox seems to write a new boot profile to the secondary drive, and from that point on, it's almost random which external HDD Recalbox chooses to boot from, but when it chooses the wrong one, it boots into a blank profile with no access to my emulator or media paths.

I've been just manually going in and deleting the /recalbox directory on the secondary drive, but that only works until I accidentally boot with both drives plugged in again. I guess I could give up on the dual booting idea and store my boot profile on the internal SD then recreate paths to all my media directories, but that would make for a pretty messy library in both recalbox and kodi.

Is there anything I can do with the config files in the recalbox directory on the secondary drive to tell Recalbox to skip trying to boot from the drive?

I run Recalbox and Kodi from an Odroid XU-4 and I have AnyExternal set as my boot device option. For the most part, that works, but I have two 6TB hard drives I use with Kodi to play stored media.

It'd be nice to have a boot profile on one, not the other - and leave them both plugged into my XU4 to prevent excessive cable/port wear, so I'm looking for a more granular way to control which drives RecalBox writes boot profiles to.

Is there something I can change the recalbox directory name to or a file inside I can modify to tell RecalBox to stop looking at said drive for boot profiles?

I've tried writing all of the boot devices I want active then changing the boot option to Internal, but that ended up borking my entire Kodi library and I had to recreate it from scratch.

Re: How do you install alternative cores?

I'm getting lead in major circles here. On one hand, I see guides for EmulationStation and RetroPie that instruct folks to 'build an emulator core' then import it through SSH or whatever.

On the other hand, I'm coming across a ton of tutorials that state adding cores to RecalBox is impossible, but that RecalBox offers far more than the Libreto cores and we can switch by accessing the EmulationStation menu in-game.

Trouble is, when I try to do this following the controller button combo in the Odroid XU4 flavor of RecalBox, it just resets the game. I can't access the menu and therefore can't select an alternative core. I've tried to do that through RecalBox's menu before getting into a game and the only flavor of core for every emulator is Liberato. There's no other options.

I'd really like to use cheats on some of my games and imported a list of cht files, but can't access them using Liberato's cores apparently.

I'm not good with Linux, SSH, or shell access, but I'd be willing to learn. Just kinda lost on which guide to follow for proper results. All the info I'm getting seems to conflict and I'd rather not completely bork my RecalBox install or any of my existing emulators following bad directions. Anybody got a link to a comprehensive article?