Batocera not installing

PZL0013

I’m trying to install a fresh copy of Batocera (v34) onto a PC, the PC seems to boot to USB and there’s a flash that says “Batocera.Linux is loading….” or similiar, then the screen just turns and stays black. What could be causing this?

Also by way of background (in case it helps), the PC used to have Batocera on it (v5.27), but I accidentally deleted the boot files on trying to upgrade (as the boot partition wasn’t big enough to upgrade to v34) and don’t know how to restore the boot files. So while the boot menu clearly says that the first boot priority is the USB drive, I’m not 100% sure it’s not the defunct v5.27 that’s trying to load.

Grateful for any help.

Thanks

Atari

Batocera is very simple. It is a single file in /boot called “batocera”. This is all you need to replace to “upgrade” Batocera to a new version.
Things outside of Batocera, such as what your BIOS might be doing, are outside of Batocera’s jurisdiction.

If you’re at a loss as to what do to, you can always reflash the original image.

mikakunin

From around batocera31, the boot partition has changed from 3gb to 6gb. It cannot be updated as it is. If you are unfamiliar, you should newly flash to another usb memory etc.

PZL0013

Many thanks

Just for my understanding, I originally followed the instructions to upgrade manually at https://wiki.batocera.org/upgrade_manually, specifically by ‘Remove the old version first’ by removing (and backing up) the existing boot files and upgrade (batocera-upgrade).

Given that the existing boot files have been removed and the upgrade failed (which appears to lead to Batocera not booting), how would I restore the backed up boot files? Or is my only option now to try and get Batocera to boot from a fresh install?

mikakunin

Can I get to 5.27 using the batocera-upgrade command via SSH?
If you can’t
Flush batocera5.27 to another usb memory, boot once and copy only the boot file to the original usb memory. I think this will bring it back. (Copy operation can be performed on windows PC)
Alternatively, flash batocera34 to another usb memory, start it once, connect the original usb memory, press F1 to bring up the file manager, and copy the userdata of the original usb memory to the userdata of the usb memory of batocera34.
However, there may be problems with the settings.

PZL0013

Thank you all for your replies

As the previous install of v5.27 can’t boot from the hard drive, I can’t SSH into it.

So to update, I’ve tried every combination of flashing v34 and v5.27 from different USB sticks, and using Rufus to flash instead of Etcher, and waiting up to 4 hours for the USB drive to boot, but it’s all just a black screen and nothing loads.

Also I’ve even tried booting from USB an image of Windows (8.1) which is known to work, and it doesn’t load either.

Anything idea how the boot install could be so hard to achieve?

PZL0013

https://wiki.batocera.org/troubleshooting#boot_issues

Re: “If your BIOS is UEFI and you can’t use legacy boot, make sure you can load bootx64.efi from Batocera’s boot partition.”

How do I make sure I can load bootx64.efi?

PZL0013

https://wiki.batocera.org/troubleshooting#boot_issues

On following the advice in the link above to have Batocera boot to show the boot related messages, how can I scroll up to view and share the messages to help with troubleshooting?

PZL0013

To update, I’ve finally able to get Batocera to boot by using Ventoy as a flasher instead of Etcher, might be a compatibility issue? Thanks to the help at Batocera Discord

Now I’m trying to install Batocera to the hdd from the loaded Batocera on USB via the System Setting option in the menu. When I do so, an error comes up that Batocera is trying to download the image file (about 2.4gb) but there’s isn’t enough room on /userdata to do so. The hdd has 1tb so it’s not lacking physical space.

I’ve tried:

updating /boot/batocera-conf to allow for the auto-resize; and
formatting the hdd (exfat) in batocera

but these don’t seem to be working either.

Any ideas are much appreciated

PZL0013

Finally was able to get Batocera installed on the hdd, leaving some breadcrumbs here in case anyone (especially for those unfamiliar with Linux) runs into the same/similiar set of issues:

Problem background:

Computer is a minipc, was previously installed with v5.27 and objective is to upgrade to latest version of Batocera (v34)
Numerous attempts made to install from a USB boot (trying both Etcher and Rufus to flash, different USB sticks, different partitions, waiting for up to 4 hours for Batocera to load, ensure secureboot is off, both legacy and UEFI boots), however loads are unsuccessful, only a black screen after “Batocera.linux booting…” is shown
As the hdd is a nvme drive (and don’t have a USB-NVME adapter onhand), preference is to install Batocera directly via a soft method rather than pulling out the hdd

Solution overview:

Ventoy was able to successfully boot Batocera in light of the USB boot issues, however Ventoy limits the amount of space on the USB drive in order for Batocera to download images to install
Workaround is to load another OS (Ubuntu used in this case) from USB and then download Etcher (executable as an ‘AppImage’) and the Batocera to flash the hdd directly
On loading of Ubuntu, latest version is 22.04, which happens to not come with fuse, which is required to run the AppImage
Especially on a new installation/‘try’ of Ubuntu, the [respositories] need to be preloaded with the various libraries in order for the fuse package to be installed, otherwise a ‘package not located’ error will be encountered when trying to install fuse
In particular: sudo add-apt-repository universeappears to get all the necessary libraries installed to enable installation of fuse by running sudo apt install libfuse2
Edit: apparently due to this fuse issue, instead of Ubuntu, it’d be better to use Solus instead

Good luck

Atari

For those who also might be reading this thread in the future: you can just flash directly to your intended drive. m.2 to USB adapters are very cheap nowadays and incredibly useful if you can’t boot another OS on your mini PC for whatever reason.