You’ll have to forgive me, i am horrible in linux. if I say anything that should be obvious, roll your eyes, pat the newbie on the head, and continue on.

i dug around some more. ssh’d into the pi, and tried manually running the command that was showing up in /tmp/runcommand.log.

segfault again.

ah, but this is linux.. and linux people explain things.. somewhere…

–help led me to -v

-v led me to…

RetroArch [INFO] :: Video @ 720x480
RetroArch [INFO] :: Starting threaded video driver ...
RetroArch [INFO] :: [VC/EGL]: Initializing...
RetroArch [INFO] :: [SDL_GL] SDL 2.0.3 gfx context driver initialized.
RetroArch [INFO] :: Found GL context: sdl_gl
RetroArch [INFO] :: Detecting screen resolution 1680x1050.
RetroArch [WARN] :: [SDL_GL]: Failed to set video mode: Could not create GLES window surface
Segmentation fault

so maybe the video resolution is part of the problem?

relaunched the emulator and popped into settings, turned the resolution and refresh to the lowest possible. ran it again.

RetroArch [INFO] :: Xbox Gamepad (userspace driver) #2 configured in port #1.
RetroArch [INFO] :: [udev]: Pad #1 (/dev/input/event7) supports 0 force feedback effects.
RetroArch [INFO] :: Found joypad driver: "udev".
RetroArch [INFO] :: [CPUID]: Features: NEON
RetroArch [INFO] :: ALSA: Using signed 16-bit format.
RetroArch [INFO] :: ALSA: Period size: 384 frames
RetroArch [INFO] :: ALSA: Buffer size: 1536 frames
RetroArch [INFO] :: [CPUID]: Features: NEON
RetroArch [INFO] :: null: [/opt/retropie/configs/gba/content_history.lpl].
RetroArch [INFO] :: [Data Thread]: Initializing data thread.
RetroArch [INFO] :: [Data Thread]: Starting data thread.
Segmentation fault

aaaaaand now i have no clue what else…