I recently bought a used clockwork gameshell off of eBay. It seems I’m unable to load cores from retroarch? B let’s me select, when I press B on the core I downloaded it just takes me back to the retroarch menu.
I guess that retroarch did not download the cores into
~/apps/emulators
which is configured as the default core folder for retroarch
so basicly, downloading is ok, but retroarch can not see that
so either you can try to config the downloading folder of retroarch
or download the core manually and then scp into gameshell
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Aha! The mapping of the keys could be wrong!
This could be depending on whether or not the gameshell was built with ABXY in the BAYX orientation.
I also recall some apps, like the pico8 installer would have the accept button mapped as one thing, regardless of what you have it set to. I don’t even remember if this is the case for cores, as I prefer to manually download and update them via Retroarch.
For now, even if selecting the rom requires pushing B to go into the menu, push whatever your gameshell has set as A physically to start the core download. Or rather, push the same button you pushed to get in to start the download.
Also, I’m not sure which version you’re using, but some of the older OS’s used a core from buildbot, but not specifically pointing to the repository with the Neon instructions included. Long story short, it might be worth formatting and flashing a fresh image over what came with your device; unless it came packed with games/features. In which case, be warned. You will lose EVERYTHING!
Try pushing a different button to download the core. 
That’s what I always change my location of RA cores to, to better manage updates etc from within RA’s online updater. That’s the default Retroarch location.
The stock OS 0.5 and earlier has it set to a different location, ie ~/apps/emulators and the download URL is an older one. This is what most of the action.config files point to by default. So if you change it, you’ll need to change all of the action files.
The core manager in options also manages cores based on this location, so if you want it all contiguous, you’ll need to edit the relevant python file. I changed both of these in my DEOT+ images.
Occasionally, in particular with standalone emulators, if and when it crashes, it changes the running directory to whatever was used. This breaks the code, sometimes asking to download a core when it already exists, and the configuration files no longer are where they are expected to be.
I’m not sure how to explain it more eloquently, but luckily it’s something that mainly happens when trying to mess with settings, running configurations that don’t work etc. A restart will always fix this.
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thanks for the correction, I barely forget the location is
~/apps/emulators
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Thank you both for helping, the mapping of buttons is correct, I think the issue is with where the cores are downloading where is the config file?
~/.config/ retroarch / retroarch . cfg ?
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At this stage, is there any reason for not formatting the card and setting it up from scratch? Using someone else’s pre used cards could mean there have been all sorts of alterations made to it that you’re not aware of, and would make it much harder to diagnose any problems.
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It is a new ad card I set it up completely from scratch to the latest firmware there was, I don’t know why I’m having issues. Does mupen64 usually say invalid when trying to load rom?
Ah. It’s Mupen you’re trying to run. You will need to install a bunch of dependencies in order to have it run.
It does sound like lately, everyone wants to play N64 on the gameshelll.
Here’s some info on how to get it running:
Mupen64plus isn’t a core in retroarch, but a standalone. There aren’t any GUI menus or anything to configure, save stats, change settings etc. You’ll need to edit things in the config file if you want to change things.
If it helps, I’ve made a custom image of the OS with Mupen64plus pre installed, and configured, along with a bunch of other things.
Also check out these two:
I’m not sure if they have mupen64plus installed/preconfigured, but they’re definitely worth checking out!