Directory Not Found for mounted NTFS drive

RetroArch Linux devices
#1

Hello all. So here’s a puzzler:

I’m using Retroarch 1.7.0, the standard install via the Ubuntu Software Installer.

I’m running a dual boot Windows 10/Ubuntu 16.04 system. Here’s what I’m trying to do:

I have the NTFS partition mounted under /media/windows . I can read/write to it via terminal and file browser as my standard user, not as root.

However, when I go into Retroarch and browse to /media/windows, it gives me “Directory not found.”

The ultimate goal is to have both Windows and Ubuntu point to the same rom/saves/system saves directory so I can bounce between either, but for some reason Retroarch doesn’t want to see the mounted NTFS folder even though the rest of the OS can.

Any settings that I’ve missed please feel free to let me know. Thanks for the support and your patience.

#2

I believe the package that comes from the Ubuntu Software Installer is the Snap package, which is fine, except that their aggressive sandboxing leads to some weird behavior. Don’t worry, though, I use the Snap package myself (I figured if I didn’t, we’d never find all the bugs), and I keep all of my emu stuff on a network drive, as well.

The snap sandbox can’t access things higher than the home directory, apparently. The solution I found was to mount my network share in my $HOME directory (I used ~/smbshare) and then point RetroArch’s directory settings to ~/…/…/…/smbshare/whatever. (that is, ~/ will point to the snap’s home directory, then you need to go 3 steps above it to get to the “real” home directory).

If you’re planning to use a gamepad, I think you also need to run:

sudo snap connect retroarch:raw-usb
sudo snap connect retroarch:joystick

Let me know if you run into any more odd behavior and we’ll see if there’s anything we can do to fix it. :slight_smile:

#3

OK - I did some research and here’s what I tried and what filed. If you want to skip ahead to what works, it’s at the bottom.

First, hunterk thanks so much for the assist! Didn’t work ( :frowning: ) . I think the issue is that snap deals with smbshares differently from drive mounts. There’s a bit on it here:

So I moved the mount to ~/media/Windows and tried the approach of setting retroarch to ~/…/…/…/media/ blah blah blah" - no joy.

What works:

  1. Set the mount to /media (might not matter where - Ubuntu wants to make it /media/[username]/driveId by default".
  2. You need to tell Snap to allow access to “removable media” - if you do: snap interfaces

It will show you all of them. As hunterk showed above, there’s a few that will give access to usb and joystick data to allow.

To allow drives mounted under /media, do:

sudo snap connect retroarch:removable-media

Bingo. Works just find after that.

Anyway, thanks for the advice, and I hope this will fix things for other people with the same issue.

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