Did Retroarch mess up my Xbox? Help!

Ark9

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I'm still not sure if this was my fault or not, but ever since installing Retroarch and Durango FTP (retail mode) on my Xbox Series S a few days ago, ALL my Xbox games have been crashing on loading 100% of the time. This MIGHT sound like a coincidence but it would be very strange: everything was working fine immediately before and not working immediately after, and I had been using this console without issues for about 6 months. No other changes were made to the settings, setup or anything else.
I am now half convinced that (although I followed a guide) I may have made some mistakes tranferring files via FTP or managing folders, and consequently messed up the internal storage.
Is this even possible? Any suggestions?


Additional information:
-All games are affected, including Game Pass games, purchased games and even free demos
-Changing user profiles does not resolve the issue
-Cloud gaming, however, works as normal
-One game in particular shows a "failed to load map" error before crashing, adding to my theory that failing to read from the SSD is the issue
 

Ark9

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I did delete some files via FTP (Filezilla), but only within folders created by the Retroarch and Durango apps' installation. They were files I had previously added. I also managed to successfully test Retroarch with a few different cores, so all locations seemed to be correct.

I have since tried a full factory reset, which should have deleted any corrupted or misplaced files I think? But nothing's changed: I can install games an updates without issue, but any loading makes them crash.
It's as if only "reading from" the drive is the problem. Is this even theoretically possible?
 

godreborn

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I did delete some files via FTP (Filezilla), but only within folders created by the Retroarch and Durango apps' installation. They were files I had previously added. I also managed to successfully test Retroarch with a few different cores, so all locations seemed to be correct.

I have since tried a full factory reset, which should have deleted any corrupted or misplaced files I think? But nothing's changed: I can install games an updates without issue, but any loading makes them crash.
It's as if only "reading from" the drive is the problem. Is this even theoretically possible?
are these on an xbox formatted drive? it's possible the drive is the problem, I guess.
 

Ark9

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are these on an xbox formatted drive? it's possible the drive is the problem, I guess.

It's on the Xbox's own internal SSD, so it's not like I can ignore it. Still no idea how just using Durango could cause problems like these though.

What's annoying is it feels like there should be some way to undo the damage without going through all the procedure of sending the console in for repairs and risk getting a different/worse/equally unusable unit.
 

godreborn

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I hope it works for you. Btw, if you have an hdd set as media, you won't have to ftp anything for Retroarch. It's drive D for retail and drive E for dev mode. That's what it'll be assigned on the system.
 

fringle

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It may just be coincidental that it happened at the same time as messing with retroarch but it sounds like your ssd is possibly going bad. Any chance you can get your hands on an external storage addon and test to see if they load from there? If it also happens with xbox 360 games you could just try an external hdd to rule it out. One game I know of that is a series x/s game that works on an external hdd is Ori and the will of the wisps so if you happen to own that game you could put it on an external hdd and see if loads.
 

fringle

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There is a way to reinstall the OS via flash drive. I might as well try that too, thanks.
There is with the series x by doing a full shut down. Pressing and holding the sync and eject buttons and then press the power button. But with the series s not having an eject button I'm unsure how this can be accomplished.

Edit: Just found this on the xbox site

Note The Xbox Series S and the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition do not have Eject buttons. You can bring up the Xbox Startup Troubleshooter on this console by holding only the Pair button (steps 3 and 4) and then pressing the Xbox button .

So just hold the sync/pair button and press the power button. Keep holding the sync/pair button until you get the troubleshooter menu.
 
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Ark9

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I finally got a chance to try the offline update, but unfortunately nothing changed.

It's so weird that everything seems to work as normal except when games need to load data. I guess I'll never know what caused it even if I send it back to Microsoft since they don't report what they fix.
 

godreborn

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I finally got a chance to try the offline update, but unfortunately nothing changed.

It's so weird that everything seems to work as normal except when games need to load data. I guess I'll never know what caused it even if I send it back to Microsoft since they don't report what they fix.
I'm not sure what could be wrong then. the series x does seem to be a bit buggy though. I can't even use remote play with mine, so I have an ethernet cable (coming today) that I plan to hook up just to make sure it's not interference. I was on the phone with microsoft for about two hours a few days ago, so I told them that's what I was going to do about remote play. anyway, you should call microsoft, tell them you installed an app and now everything is crashing. I don't know if they'll care that it was retroarch, but don't mention it. I would delete it before sending it in, but that's kinda obvious. you can set up a warranty claim without speaking to someone. I saw the link on their webpage for xbox related stuff.
 

fringle

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I finally got a chance to try the offline update, but unfortunately nothing changed.

It's so weird that everything seems to work as normal except when games need to load data. I guess I'll never know what caused it even if I send it back to Microsoft since they don't report what they fix.
If you can open it up and hook the SSD up to a pc and basically wipe it and start over, it could just happen to be corrupted data that the update isn't removing. Either that or there is a bad block some where on the ssd and removing and deleting files happened to uncover it. If you are able to hook it up to a pc, you should be able to follow one of the guides for the xbox one hdd replacement as I'm thinking it's the same procedure. Just back it up first and then treat it as a new drive.
 

godreborn

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the ssd may be soldered to the motherboard like it is with the ps5. I think that's why they use an expansion slot for both systems.
 

fringle

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Ark9

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it could just happen to be corrupted data that the update isn't removing. Either that or there is a bad block some where on the ssd and removing and deleting files happened to uncover it.

From what I've tested so far this seems the most likely situation.
Which leads me to a dumb question: what would happen if I tried to delete all the folders I have access to via FTP? I'm assuming it won't actually let me do that to all the files but could it end up restoring some corrupted data or is it just a terrible idea?

Thanks to all of you for the suggestions by the way.
 

fringle

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From what I've tested so far this seems the most likely situation.
Which leads me to a dumb question: what would happen if I tried to delete all the folders I have access to via FTP? I'm assuming it won't actually let me do that to all the files but could it end up restoring some corrupted data or is it just a terrible idea?

Thanks to all of you for the suggestions by the way.
Deleting anything from the internal SSD without backing it up first is just asking for further trouble imho. If you want to delete anything create a folder structure on your pc similar to what the Xbox hdd is and dump what's in those folders first. That way if something goes terribly wrong you can possibly restore it with your pc. If your pc has a spare m.2 slot I'd just put it in, back it up, wipe it and rebuild it. It is possible that deleting files, would delete a system file and render the xbox unbootable and then your only option would be to put it in a pc to get it back to a working state.
 

Ark9

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I think I've found something relevant in an old post on another forum (not sure if I can link it?):

if you use FTP to transfer over folder structures such as a fully prepared PCSX2 folder as described above, make sure to first recreate the full folder structure on you Xbox's system folder.

if you ftp over folders like that, the files will end up in wrong folders and completely ruin your structure, which will mean that you'll have issues launching PS2 games.

recreate the folders and then FTP the files inside them one by one to be save, else you might have to troubleshoot over and over until your files are all placed correctly

Which made me realize the PS2 core was the one I had trouble with. I transferred some files and games in an attempt to make it work, then deleted them, and that's probably when the problems started.
At some point I also tried to restore Retroarch's config with the apposite option and it crashed, which I thought was weird.

Then I thought a full factory reset would fix the issue by wiping/rebuilding the SSD but... apparently not?
Now I'm trying to find what the entire file structure should look like out of the box so I can compare it to mine, but no luck so far.
 

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