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+--- Thread: Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. (/showthread.php?tid=378606)
Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - ms009986 - 2024-08-26
I'm pulling out my hair here guys. I've tried lots of things to get games working. I've downloaded retroarch. I've downloaded individual emulators. I've downloaded that Internet Archive addon. I've spent wayyyy too much time on this.
I have made lots of progress, I have a menu item called games, I have a widget with each game system I care about, I can click on them and go straight to the games list for each system.
But no matter what I do I can't seem to get any games to run. Well, except for Atari 2600 games, they seem to run fine. Every other system I try, I'll choose a game, see the info screen, click Launch, and then get a black screen for a few seconds and then Kodi crashes. No error message or anything.
I just wanna play some games, man. What am I doing wrong? It may be that I don't have the BIOSes installed, but I tried using the BIOS tool and I got a bunch of red entries, so I'm not sure what to do now. I thought the Retro BIOS tool would find the BIOSes for me but maybe not.
Can anyone help me troubleshoot? I'm running Kodi on a Shield Pro.
Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - Hitcher - 2024-08-26
To receive meaningful assistance you will need to provide a full debug log.
The instructions are here... debug log (wiki)
If you are using the Basic Method, then ensure the following is applied...
1.Enable debugging in Settings>System Settings>Logging,
2.Restart Kodi
3.Replicate the problem.
4.Upload the log to Kodi Paste Site manually or use the Kodi Logfile Uploader. (wiki) With either method post the link to the log back here.
If you are using the Advanced Method ensure you have correctly created and applied the advancedsettings.xml file (wiki)
In both instances, you should see the word DEBUG throughout the log.
Note: Full logs only. No partial or redacted logs
Do NOT post your logs directly into the forum. Use the Kodi Paste Site. Post the link to your pasted log in the forum
RE: Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - ms009986 - 2024-08-26
All right, Mr. H...
https://paste.kodi.tv/sejefureta
RE: Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - ms009986 - 2024-08-27
Anything else I need to do?
RE: Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - garbear - 2024-08-27
Hi @ms009986, I can help you get games working in Kodi. Kodi has a player core called "RetroPlayer" that is in charge of playing games in the app. Ideally you'd be able to add all your ROMs and it would just work like moves, but we don't currently have a game library, so instead I personally use the IAGL add-on. When you run the setup wizard, choose "RetroPlayer".
You need to install IAGL inside of Kodi. There are instructions in the IAGL thread, or you can sideload one of my "builds" which I provide to make games easier to use in Kodi. You can find the builds here: https://github.com/garbear/xbmc/releases . Read the release notes to see if it's something you want to sideload.
If you do use my builds, you can install IAGL from within kodi's add-on manager.
Thanks for posting your debug log, it gave me context into what you're trying to accomplish. If you run into any additional issues, debug logs will usually be helpful in those cases too.
RE: Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - ms009986 - 2024-08-27
Why thank you GB! To start, let's see...
I have IAGL as an addon already installed.
I have RetroArch installed separately, but if RetroPlayer is not the same thing we can ignore that and I'll get rid of it later.
Kodi's already set up and well configured, so if your builds are Kodi bulds that would require a fresh install I'd rather start with what I've got, no offense to your builds, if that's all right by you. :-)
OK...so I've run the IAGL setup wizard before, but I'll run it again and make sure I choose RetroPlayer. Here goes....
OK, so did that, now it says "choose on launch (auto)", install addons, or skip and don't change....Choose on launch (auto)?
Thanks so much for offering to help!!
RE: Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - garbear - 2024-08-28
Yes, you want launch (auto). Another thing you can configure, in the add-on settings (once you're in the add-on push left), is to scroll down on the first page and change the maximum game cache size from 1 game to, say, 64gb.
Another point of friction is that no one has yet curated which cores are the best, so when you launch a SNES game, you'll see around 10 emulators. Some work better than others. For all emulators, I've added a description in the add-on manager (which is also visible on the add-on site) that gives you some background on the emulator to help you make an informed decision. Or just YOLO emulators until you get one that works well.
Let me know if you get stuck on anything else!
RE: Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - ms009986 - 2024-08-28
OK, ran setup, checked launch (auto), now it's processing some files...
OK, Mario music, setup complete. Now I go to...IAGL, I open it, I browse to Colecovsion (my favorite), one big list...
Of course I'll start with Donkey Kong...
Clicking launch...it logs in, downloads the game, says select emulator, info screen at the top says launched RetroPlayer....
I carefully choose Gearcoleco because it's first in the list...(the others are (MSX/SVI/ColecoVision/SG-100 (blueMSX) and Sega-MS/GG (MS Plus GX)...
Black screen for a few seconds...
Error message which disappears quickly as Kodi crashes. :-(
Turn on debugging, go back to IAGL...do the same as above only this time I click the blueMSX one.
Downloading...OK, pick blueMSX...
Black screen for a few seconds...
No error message that I could see, but Kodi still crashes.
Restart Kodi, same thing again, only I try the last emulator....
This time "Failed to play game, the Sega MS/GG (SMS Plus GX) had an internal error." I suppose maybe that's not really a Colecovision emulator since it says Sega and nothing about Coleco, but on the other hand why's it in the list?
For fun tried a different game, Donkey Kong Junior, with Gearcoleco.
Black screen...
Kodi crashes.
:-(
I'll paste another log, unless you have anything else I should try off the top of your head.
Here you go:
https://paste.kodi.tv/nanurokira
RE: Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - garbear - 2024-08-28
(2024-08-28, 06:09)ms009986 Wrote: OK, ran setup, checked launch (auto), now it's processing some files...
OK, Mario music, setup complete. Now I go to...IAGL, I open it, I browse to Colecovsion (my favorite), one big list...
Of course I'll start with Donkey Kong...
Clicking launch...it logs in, downloads the game, says select emulator, info screen at the top says launched RetroPlayer....
I carefully choose Gearcoleco because it's first in the list...(the others are (MSX/SVI/ColecoVision/SG-100 (blueMSX) and Sega-MS/GG (MS Plus GX)...
Black screen for a few seconds...
Error message which disappears quickly as Kodi crashes. :-(
Ouch, things are not going your way. But we can fix all these problems. Your log doesn't show any games being launched. Search for "retroplayer", and you'll see that it's only initialized at startup.
If Kodi is crashing, then when you start it the next time, the previous log file is renamed from kodi.log to kodi.old.log. See if you can crash Kodi then grab the previous log file. Hopefully the log uploader can grab kodi.old.log. If not, there's other ways to grab the log from the filesystem.
If you can grab a log showing a game crashing or otherwise not working, I'll be able to reproduce and fix on my end.
RE: Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - ms009986 - 2024-08-29
Oh, I see, sorry...let's see....
I configured the logfile uploader to send the old file. Let's see if it worked...
Well, it had one instance of Retroplayer in it...is this the one?
https://paste.kodi.tv/dujiperuwu
RE: Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - garbear - 2024-08-29
(2024-08-29, 02:42)ms009986 Wrote: Oh, I see, sorry...let's see....
I configured the logfile uploader to send the old file. Let's see if it worked...
Well, it had one instance of Retroplayer in it...is this the one?
https://paste.kodi.tv/dujiperuwu
The last line in the log that I see is
2024-08-28 20:40:06.706 T:31119 info <general>: Loading skin file: DialogAddonInfo.xml, load type: KEEP_IN_MEMORY
Looks like the log is cut off before Kodi fully loads? retroplayer should appear twice in the log once Kodi is fully started. And then many more times when you load a game.
RE: Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - ms009986 - 2024-08-29
I don't need to actually install Retroplayer, this is something built into Kodi? I never have if I was supposed to. I was going to go the RetroArch way, but any way that works is fine.
RE: Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - ms009986 - 2024-08-29
Let's try this again. It's 9:00 pm on the dot my time...Kodi's been up for a while.
9:01, starting IAGL...
Clicking Donkey Kong...
It just changed to 9:02, clicking launch...
Downloading...
Asking for an emulator, I'll wait 'til 9:03...
9:03, black screen, crash.
Starting Kodi again.
9:05, uploading the log file...
https://paste.kodi.tv/icavajoboh
Still only one instance of RetroPlayer, but it matches the time I tried to run it...but you're saying this is not it?
RE: Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - garbear - 2024-08-29
(2024-08-29, 03:00)ms009986 Wrote: I don't need to actually install Retroplayer, this is something built into Kodi? I never have if I was supposed to. I was going to go the RetroArch way, but any way that works is fine.
Right. RetroPlayer is fully built into Kodi.
(2024-08-29, 03:10)ms009986 Wrote: Let's try this again. It's 9:00 pm on the dot my time...Kodi's been up for a while.
9:01, starting IAGL...
Clicking Donkey Kong...
It just changed to 9:02, clicking launch...
Downloading...
Asking for an emulator, I'll wait 'til 9:03...
9:03, black screen, crash.
Starting Kodi again.
9:05, uploading the log file...
https://paste.kodi.tv/icavajoboh
Still only one instance of RetroPlayer, but it matches the time I tried to run it...but you're saying this is not it?
Right. The log is getting cropped somehow. This could be the fault of the log uploader. I can't really help with that.
You can grab the file manually. See the location here: https://kodi.wiki/view/Log_file/Advanced#Steps . The location is Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/userdata/ . You can also install the Android SDK and use the adb tool to grab something called a "logcat" which is everything logged by both Kodi and Android.
A logcat is most ideal but takes some elbow grease to obtain. Try to crash Kodi then grab the logs from Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/userdata/.
RE: Trying to make games work in Kodi. Not succeeding. - ms009986 - 2024-08-29
Oh, wait, did I forget to turn on debug mode? I did. I will keep my day job. Hold on...
OK, trying to kill Kodi again.
Clicked on Donkey Kong to load it, clicked launch, selected the emulator at 10:04 on the dot.
Black screen.
Dead Kodi.
OK. Opened a file manager. Went to org.kbmc.kodi, files, .kodi, userdata.
Well there's a lot of stuff in here, a bunch of xml files, eight or nine folders. I don't see anything that's obviously a log....
I'll do a search...found it, in the temp folder. OK, now how to get it to you....
Oh dang, I think I've got it.
https://paste.kodi.tv/oxisiyezab.kodi
There you are, 29 or so RetroPlayer listings for you. If nothing else I'm proud I got that far.