Author Topic: Crash on startup. Multiple monitors?  (Read 1527 times)

COS

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Crash on startup. Multiple monitors?
« on: June 10, 2023, 07:08:03 PM »
When starting RetroFE (v0.10.26) it will sometimes not open requiring that I run it several times before it does open. I believe this has something to do with multiple monitors. I have monitors set to 1 rather than 3. If I delete the meta.db it will usually start on the first try. Log shows no discernible errors that would cause this.

Pieter Hulshoff

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Re: Crash on startup. Multiple monitors?
« Reply #1 on: June 10, 2023, 07:17:32 PM »
Yes, there were some problems with certain versions of SDL in combination with layouts supporting multiple monitors while having only one monitor. Does this issue still persist with the latest version of RetroFE? There are some people working on including the latest version of SDL; if the latest RetroFE doesn't solve it, that may do the trick.
Can you upload a log.txt file for me to take a look at?

COS

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Re: Crash on startup. Multiple monitors?
« Reply #2 on: June 10, 2023, 09:19:51 PM »
Here you go. Thank you for your contributions to the emulation community.

Pieter Hulshoff

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Re: Crash on startup. Multiple monitors?
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2023, 07:54:58 AM »
Strange. Windows SDL seems convinced you have 2 monitors instead of 1. It probably grabs the non-existing one, and then crashes when it tries to do anything with it. Can you give 0.10.31 a try to see if that helps? I hope to put out a new release this summer with the most recent SDL release.

JonahUK

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Re: Crash on startup. Multiple monitors?
« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2023, 12:08:04 PM »
Log shows 2 monitors detected (physical) but only 1 requested (as the settings.conf is set to 1)

Change the settings.conf accordingly.

Code: [Select]
numScreens             = 2
screenNum0             = 0
screenNum1             = 1

fullscreen0            = no
horizontal0            = stretch
vertical0              = stretch

fullscreen1            = no
horizontal1            = stretch
vertical1              = stretch

You use a different build than I do but the process is still the same,
« Last Edit: June 11, 2023, 12:17:24 PM by JonahUK »

blayes84

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Re: Crash on startup. Multiple monitors?
« Reply #5 on: June 20, 2023, 06:02:28 AM »
I have the same issue when only wanting to use 1 monitor. Reverting to 10.31 and using the settings.conf file and core folder from it, appear to fix the issue for me. Hard to tell as it's inconsistent, but so far so good. I do occasionally like to use 2 monitors, so I'll write a script, for now, to copy over my previous core folder and settings.conf file when wanting to use 2 monitors.

Pieter Hulshoff

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Re: Crash on startup. Multiple monitors?
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2023, 06:56:02 PM »
I had to program this blindly, since people wanted the feature of multiple monitors, but I don't actually have a multi-monitor setup. As such, it's rather difficult for me to test the cause of this problem as well. I've never had it crash on me.

blayes84

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Re: Crash on startup. Multiple monitors?
« Reply #7 on: June 24, 2023, 03:21:19 AM »
FYI: Looks like it’s still happening. It’s only when you set settings.conf to use only one monitor but you have two connected. If you allow retrofe to use both monitors, even without a layout for the 2nd it works fine. I’ve only learnt of it now as I’ve just started using 2 monitors as I like to keep one up for browsing, but have my main monitor running retrofe.

JonahUK

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Re: Crash on startup. Multiple monitors?
« Reply #8 on: June 27, 2023, 11:14:53 AM »
FYI: Looks like it’s still happening. It’s only when you set settings.conf to use only one monitor but you have two connected. If you allow retrofe to use both monitors, even without a layout for the 2nd it works fine. I’ve only learnt of it now as I’ve just started using 2 monitors as I like to keep one up for browsing, but have my main monitor running retrofe.

See my post above, if you want to continue using the second monitor outside of RetroFE then set "screenNum1 = 1" to be a value higher than your max screens (something like "screenNum1 = 2" would send the output to a non-existent screen (0 is screen 1, 1 is screen 2 etc)). You can have higher than connected but not lower.

numscreens is for physical screens connected, not for how many screens you want to use.

May work, may not.
« Last Edit: June 27, 2023, 11:23:23 AM by JonahUK »

blayes84

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Re: Crash on startup. Multiple monitors?
« Reply #9 on: June 27, 2023, 10:05:22 PM »
Thanks Jonah. Will give it a go.

blayes84

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Re: Crash on startup. Multiple monitors?
« Reply #10 on: June 30, 2023, 11:41:44 PM »
Legend. Setting numscreens to 2 but setting the second screen to a number outside of 1 like 2 or 3 works. Retrofe is opening every time I run it. Thanks for your help Jonah.

JonahUK

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Re: Crash on startup. Multiple monitors?
« Reply #11 on: July 01, 2023, 06:39:38 PM »
Legend. Setting numscreens to 2 but setting the second screen to a number outside of 1 like 2 or 3 works. Retrofe is opening every time I run it. Thanks for your help Jonah.

Cool, thanks for the confirmation and glad its working for you.