RetroArch crashes until I restart the computer

RetroArch Windows devices
#1

To be clear RetroArch always works fine the very first time I launch it after restarting, but each time I close and re-open it there’s a chance that it will decide not to work until I completely restart Windows 10. Windows gives me the “retroarch.exe is not responding”, and when I restart, the computer might quickly bluescreen, or hang on the restart screen until I power it off manually.

Most recently, I think it started happening after I accidentally quickly closed RetroArch after opening it, but I don’t know for sure if that was the cause. It would also quickly happen when using the PS2 core, even if I wait a a minute after closing RetroArch before re-opening, but most recently I don’t think I loaded any game and had only been using mGBA that day.

Honestly, I have the suspicion this might be some kind of issue with my graphics card, rather than RetroArch, but maybe somebody here has any ideas about what I could do instead of restarting Windows. Anyways, here is the log RetroArch generated:

[INFO] RetroArch 1.14.0 (Git e3c92b0)
[INFO] === Build =======================================
[INFO] CPU Model Name: AMD Ryzen 5 1600X Six-Core Processor           
[INFO] Capabilities: MMX MMXEXT SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSE4 SSE4.2 AES AVX AVX2
[INFO] Built: Dec 13 2022
[INFO] Version: 1.14.0
[INFO] Git: e3c92b0
[INFO] =================================================
[INFO] [Input]: Found input driver: "dinput".
[INFO] [Environ]: SET_PIXEL_FORMAT: RGB565.
[INFO] [Core]: Version of libretro API: 1, Compiled against API: 1
[INFO] [Audio]: Set audio input rate to: 48000.00 Hz.
[INFO] [Video]: Set video size to: fullscreen.
[INFO] [Vulkan]: Vulkan dynamic library loaded.
[INFO] [Vulkan]: Found vulkan context: "vk_w".
[INFO] [Vulkan]: Detecting screen resolution: 1920x1080.
[INFO] [Video]: Fullscreen set to 1920x1080 @ 60Hz on device \\.\DISPLAY2.
[INFO] [Vulkan]: Found GPU at index 0: "Radeon RX 570 Series".
[INFO] [Vulkan]: Using GPU index 0.
[INFO] [Vulkan]: Using GPU: "Radeon RX 570 Series".
[INFO] [Vulkan]: Queue family 0 supports 1 sub-queues.
[INFO] [Vulkan]: Got 2 swapchain images.
[INFO] [Vulkan]: Using resolution 1920x1080.
[INFO] [Vulkan]: Using RGB565 format.
[INFO] [Vulkan]: Loading stock shader.
#2

In case I forget to update this, I managed to get RetroArch to launch again by closing all programs and then launching RetroArch, so I’ll try to narrow it down to what program is interfering some time later. It might be related to how my DualSense controller sometimes stops responding unless I close Firefox and then reconnect, but that turned out to be because Firefox won’t let go of the XInput slot, so it was more of DS4Windows issue rather than a RetroArch issue…

1 Like
#3

Check that Retroarch isn’t still running in the background. Locked files can keep it from closing completely.

Web browsers are notorious for locking files. We tend to run them while our file manger is focused on a file or folder, locking it with the browser instance.

Happens more often with a file manager that has a user application bar that is used to run the browser.

#4

I’m new here, and I think I can’t create new threads, maybe, this is the most similar.

I have a problem about some cores crashing if I launch them directly fom CLI (command line), If I launch the core/rom from the Retroarch menus, with Retroarch already opened, they/it work/s. Other cores works perfectly. But others (PUAE o GenesisPlusGX, for example) don’t work if Retroarch is “in front” (focused), if I put another window over it while it launchs, it works and I can change to the Retroarch window after it is already loaded.

I know it is confusing, and i on’t know how to explain it better, so, here are 2 vídeos showing what happens:

Thanks.

#5
  1. I use CLI all the time and never had that happen
  2. Post logs
#6

Solved, I don’t know if something got corrupted in the “retroarch.cfg”, or whatever… but, I downloaded a new/clean RetroArch “7zip” file from the web (not the installer), uncompressed it in a new folder, and I copied all my scripts, games, games and controller configs folder, the cores folder, overlays folder, etc. And everything worked fine again.

I could have deleted the “retroarch.cfg”, but, instead, I did rather to download a clean complete emulators/frontend.

I reconfigured the “main configuration” from the emulators menu, and it worked fine with the same configuration than the previous one (and the same “per game”, “per core” and “per directory” configurations from the config folder).

Before deleting al the previous frontend/emulator, I saw that the rewind function was broken in some cores too (in FinalburnNeo, for example, while, by the other hand, I was able to launch it right from CLI)… I don’t really know what happened.

Regards.

1 Like