RetroArch - no content to download?

Hello!

Am I missing something fundamental? Trying to play xRick, for instance (an old favorite since my Amstrad CPC days…), download the core, go to download the content and it can find nothing to download. Same with other cores, too. I have updated everything but no soap…

Any ideas?

I found that a weak WiFi connection will prevent RetroArch making its connection. Moving closer to the router solves the issue.

LasVegas

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately it doesn’t apply to me… Literally with my GS sitting on the router and getting a nice, fat 100% signal strength, I get a “No Entries” message, whatever content I try to download :frowning:

Would it be possible for you to enumerate the steps you take with RA?

Thanks again!
T

Hmmm getting something… With a little persistence I found entries that have content - like Doom or DOS. But Handheld and Rick still show nothing… can someone confirm if that’s correct?

I get the very same problems here, I can download the xrick core, however no content for it. Online Updater -> Content Downloader -> Rick Dangerous shows up, however selecting it shows: No entries to display.

I did then manually download on my PC the data.zip file that is needed as content, for example from here: xrick-libreto at github
Copied it with to my Gameshell. However loading that one as content did not work either.

Next step was to take the whole source from that github link above, compiled my own xrick_libreto.so with it and then it worked. For some reason the original xrick file from Clockwork PI seems to crash when started.

Now for the moment I have a running XRick, however with two remaining issues that I need to find a solution for:

  • no button assigned yet to fire bullets with rick
  • have a way to start xrick from the gameshell menu with icon, for instance I can only start it by using the RetroArch menu and load the core, then content, …
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THANK YOU! :smiley: It was driving me crazy, at least I know I’m not alone…

Are you able to download other content?

You can launch retroarch cores from the menu by making a .sh file containing:

retroarch -L /home/cpi/apps/emulators/xrick_libretro.so /home/cpi/games/xrick/data.zip

All should be on one line. Locations should Be adjusted to the locations were You saved te .so and data.zip.

Save the .sh file in the folder

~/apps/launcher/Menu/GameShell/

Thank you @Nielsvd, that was what I was searching for. My XRick now works, the one compiled by myself. The core that may be downloaded in retroarch does not work.

@Gryzor, I can download cores, but no content. I get a list of contents shown, among them DOS, with Commander Keen, Raptor and Wolfenstein. However trying to download one of them always fails Task Failed: Downloading …. And for XRick, an item Rick Dangerous is shown in the contents list, however selecting it shows No entries to display, hence nothing to download.

This is weird. Sounds like a fundamental problem, but wouldn’t more people have it? Or did a certain batch make it out of production with some config differences?

Looking under the hood, you will see in RetroArch it’s configuration file /home/cpi/.config/retroarch/retroarch.cfg where it will look for cores index - powered by h5ai v0.29.0 (https://larsjung.de/h5ai/)
and contents index - powered by h5ai v0.29.0 (https://larsjung.de/h5ai/)

This means directly from libretro, not from Clockwork PI. Moreover always the latest nightly build. That would explain that for some users it may work, depending of the download date. Might be that
a few weeks ago Rick Dangerous was correctly running on Gameshell, however the most recent one is not. That is why I had to build it on my own.

It would sure be nice to have a server with working and tested builds just for our Gameshells, however, that also means some work and need of infrastructure.

When in RetroArch and selecting Online Updater → Content Downloader
http://buildbot.libretro.com/assets/cores/.index-dirs is downloaded by the
Gameshell to get the list of content directories, among them Rick Dangerous.

When choosing Rick Dangerours, Gameshell will try to download it, however seems to look at the wrong place, first

https://buildbot.libretro.com/assets/cores/Rick Dangerous/http://buildbot.libretro.com/assets/cores/Rick Dangerous

which fails with HTTP 400, bad request, then

https://buildbot.libretro.com/assets/cores/Rick Dangerous/.index

also failing with HTTP 400, however the .index file works fine on my PC.

What it should look for, and what the .index file tells, is:

http://buildbot.libretro.com/assets/cores/Rick Dangerous/Rick Dangerous.zip

Which does contain xrick/data.zip. I don’t know why RetroArch fails to do this. May be a bug with blanks in URL’s? Something similar happens when I try to download Commander Keen. The URL that Gameshell uses to download the ZIP files is not entirely correct.

My current solution is to download all needed files on my PC then transfer them to the Gameshell, which works fine.

@lasvegas do you still work with the original retroarch as distributed by Clockwork PI on the Gameshell or did you install a newer version? Like the one in Retroarch Megathread and also change the URL in retroarch config for cores and contents as mentioned there ?

Me for example, I am still working with the original retroarch and the original download URL for cores and contents.

Someone wanna make a good write up on how to install this?!

You mean how to get XRick up and running ? I may if you want.

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Would Be Nice :wink:

Ok, will do it this eventing and add a new topic for Rick Dangerous.

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