Couldn't find rom partition!

[MCU-Amateur]

Please help how to solve this issue. Thanks!

01:36:03.587 -> Showing boot menu
01:36:03.775 -> Menu selection is /spiffs/tetris.nes
01:36:03.775 -> NoFrendo start!
01:36:03.775 -> Starting main loop with file: /spiffs/tetris.nes
01:36:03.775 -> free heap after sound init: 4444584
01:36:03.822 -> Game controller initalizing
01:36:03.822 -> NES Control initated
01:36:03.822 -> free heap after input init: 4442148
01:36:03.822 -> video driver: Simple DirectMedia Layer at 486555958x240
01:36:03.822 -> vid_init done
01:36:03.822 -> vid_init done
01:36:03.916 -> PPU memory allocated and cleared
01:36:03.916 -> Couldn't find rom partition!
01:36:03.916 -> abort() was called at PC 0x401054f2 on core 1
01:36:03.916 ->
01:36:03.916 -> ELF file SHA256: 0000000000000000
01:36:03.916 ->
01:36:03.916 -> Backtrace: 0x4008e000:0x3ffb1de0 0x4008e279:0x3ffb1e00 0x401054f2:0x3ffb1e20 0x400e57cf:0x3ffb1e40 0x400e1686:0x3ffb1e60 0x400e1a5f:0x3ffb1e90 0x400d76ba:0x3ffb1ee0 0x400e296b:0x3ffb1f10 0x400e29e3:0x3ffb1f50 0x400e28b9:0x3ffb1f70 0x400d1d77:0x3ffb1f90 0x400e3ea1:0x3ffb1fb0 0x4008f24e:0x3ffb1fd0
01:36:03.916 ->
01:36:03.916 -> Rebooting...

[CornN64]

I am not sure why your boot looks different (like no sound init and lots more ram available after heap is freed also vid_init done twice?)
Did you use the ESP V1.04 board manager when compiling?
here is my boot text for reference

Menu selection is /spiffs/SnowB.nes
NoFrendo start!
Starting main loop with file: /spiffs/SnowB.nes
Finished initializing sound
free heap after sound init: 232436
Game controller initalizing
NES Control initated
free heap after input init: 230000
vid_init done
PPU memory allocated and cleared
partition type = 0.
partition subtype = 17.
partition starting address = 150000.
partition size = 140000.
partition label = app1.
partition encrypted = 0.
Reading rom from /spiffs/SnowB.nes
Loaded/Verified 262160 ROM bytes mapped on EEPROM area
Initialized. ROM @ 0x3f420000
Head: 0x3f420000 (4e 45 53 1a)
SRAM Present
Timer install 60Hz

[MCU-Amateur]

Hi, thanks for reply. First of all, I had disabled "//#define CONFIG_SOUND_ENABLED" because I had no idea what sound module in your project. 2nd, I am using ESP32 wrover which has 4MB PSRAM built-in. I enabled PSRAM, that is why my free RAM is high. I tried to disabled PSRAM, the problem still the same "Couldn't find rom partition!". My ESP32 module keep rebooting infinitely which show

12:32:22.383 -> system type unknown, playing nofrendo NES intro.
12:32:22.477 -> PPU memory allocated and cleared
12:32:22.477 -> Couldn't find rom partition!
12:32:22.477 -> abort() was called at PC 0x401054f2 on core 1
12:32:22.477 ->
12:32:22.477 -> ELF file SHA256: 0000000000000000
12:32:22.477 ->
12:32:22.477 -> Backtrace: 0x4008e000:0x3ffb1de0 0x4008e279:0x3ffb1e00 0x401054f2:0x3ffb1e20 0x400e57cf:0x3ffb1e40 0x400e1686:0x3ffb1e60 0x400e1a5f:0x3ffb1e90 0x400d76ba:0x3ffb1ee0 0x400e296b:0x3ffb1f10 0x400e29e3:0x3ffb1f50 0x400e28b9:0x3ffb1f70 0x400d1d77:0x3ffb1f90 0x400e3ea1:0x3ffb1fb0 0x4008f24e:0x3ffb1fd0
12:32:22.477 ->
12:32:22.477 -> Rebooting...

I had no idea why "vid_init done" init twice. My NES ROM in spiffs has no problem which I downloaded from https://www.emulatorgames.net/download/ and has been used with other ESP32 NES emulator with no problem. Please help to check if my config.ini has any problem below. Can help to double the project code you had uploaded here has any problem? I had also disabled all the control hardware at prior. (I don't have any hardware yet). Thanks!

//Config file for ESP32 NES emulator Corn 2020
#pragma GCC optimize ("O2")
#pragma once

//Setting FreeRTOS sheduler to 300Hz
#define CONFIG_FREERTOS_HZ 300

//LCD screen & video constants
#define LCD_TYPE_ILI 0
#define LCD_TYPE_ST 1
#define SCREEN_WIDTH 320
#define SCREEN_HEIGHT 240
#define NES_WIDTH 256
#define NES_HEIGHT 240
#define NES_VIS_LINES 224 //This number impacts SPI transfers to the LCD

//Define Display type ILI9341 (currently only ILI9341 works)
#define CONFIG_HW_LCD_TYPE LCD_TYPE_ILI

// NTSC timing defaults if PAL not defined
//#define PAL

//Define to skip menu
//#define SKIP_MENU

// Sound Settings, Note: Do not assign anything else to pins 25 or 26, those are used by I2S
//#define CONFIG_SOUND_ENABLED

//LCD SPI transfer clock rate. With short leads to the display it is possible to run the display at 80MHz however here you can opt to run it slower
//#define LCD_SPI_CLOCK_RATE SPI_MASTER_FREQ_80M //80MHz (If enable 80M, my ili9341 screen did not show anything)
#define LCD_SPI_CLOCK_RATE SPI_MASTER_FREQ_40M //40MHz

//If defined it allows selection in the menu to scale/stretch frame (X axis only) to full screen (with artifacts in scrolling games).
//It will also be slightly slower with stretch screen enabled due to more data needs to be sent over SPI to the LCD
//0 -> defaults to not stretched, 1 -> defaults to stretched
#define FULL_SCREEN 1

//If defined then screen interpolation is bilinear instead of nerest neighborhor sampling (looks better but uses a little more CPU)
//This only works in CPU mode and in interlaced mode for the moment
//Speedy implementation idea from the guys hacking the game and watch console processing all 3 color componets at once //almost like vector processing
#define BILINEAR

// If defined it will run the SPI transfer to the LCD as a separate task and the value indicates which CPU core 0(faster with volatiles) or 1(faster with OS_SEMAPHORE)
#define RUN_VIDEO_AS_TASK 0

// If defined it will use OS semafores (which seems slower!?) else use simple volatile variables to pass info between tasks
//#define USE_OS_SEMAPHORES

// If defined rotate display 180 deg
#define ROTATE_LCD_180

// Use DMA to transfer to screen if defined else use CPU (DMA and CPU are about equally fast...)
//#define USE_SPI_DMA

// Turn on various debugging options
//#define NOFRENDO_DEBUG
//#define MEMORY_DEBUG
//#define MAPPER_DEBUG
//#define SHOW_SPI_TRANSFER_TIME //in micro seconds
//#define SHOW_RENDER_VIDEO_TIME //in micro seconds

//Define and it will directly boot the ROM from the list
//#define BOOT_ROM 0

// LCD Settings using VSPI bus
// LCD pin mapping
#define CONFIG_HW_LCD_RESET_GPIO -1
#define CONFIG_HW_LCD_CS_GPIO 15
#define CONFIG_HW_LCD_DC_GPIO 4
#define CONFIG_HW_LCD_MOSI_GPIO 13
#define CONFIG_HW_LCD_CLK_GPIO 14
#define CONFIG_HW_LCD_MISO_GPIO 12
#define CONFIG_HW_LCD_BL_GPIO -1

// SD card pin mapping
//#define CONFIG_SD_CARD
#define CONFIG_SD_CS 21
#define CONFIG_SD_MOSI 13
#define CONFIG_SD_SCK 14
#define CONFIG_SD_MISO 12

//----------------------------------
//Enable only one controller type!!!
//----------------------------------

// NES input pin mapping
// ___
//DATA |o o| NC
//LATCH |o o| NC
//CLOCK |o o/ 3V3
//GND |o_/
//
#define CONFIG_HW_CONTROLLER_NES //Define to use NES controller
#define CONFIG_HW_NES_DAT -1 // # MISO
#define CONFIG_HW_NES_LATCH -1 // # CS
#define CONFIG_HW_NES_CLK -1 // # CLK

// SNES input pin mapping
// _
//3V3 |o|
//CLOCK |o|
//LATCH |o|
//DATA |o|
// |-|
//NC |o|
//NC |o|
//GND |o|
// -
//
//#define CONFIG_HW_CONTROLLER_SNES //Define to use SNES controller
#define CONFIG_HW_SNES_DAT -1 // # MISO
#define CONFIG_HW_SNES_LATCH -1 // # CS
#define CONFIG_HW_SNES_CLK -1 // # CLK

// PSX input pin mapping
//#define CONFIG_HW_CONTROLLER_PSX //Define to use PSX controller
#define CONFIG_HW_PSX_DAT -1 // # DATA/MISO
#define CONFIG_HW_PSX_CMD -1 // # CMD/MOSI
#define CONFIG_HW_PSX_ATT -1 // # ATT
#define CONFIG_HW_PSX_CLK -1 // # CLK

// GPIO pin mapping (raw button input)
//#define CONFIG_HW_CONTROLLER_GPIO //Define to use GPIO pins on the ESP32
#define CONFIG_HW_GPIO_START -1
#define CONFIG_HW_GPIO_SELECT -1
#define CONFIG_HW_GPIO_UP -1
#define CONFIG_HW_GPIO_DOWN -1
#define CONFIG_HW_GPIO_LEFT -1
#define CONFIG_HW_GPIO_RIGHT -1
#define CONFIG_HW_GPIO_B -1
#define CONFIG_HW_GPIO_A -1
#define CONFIG_HW_GPIO_MENU -1 //Also referred to as Button 2
#define CONFIG_HW_GPIO_POWER -1 //Also referred to as Button 1
#define CONFIG_HW_GPIO_TURBO_A -1
#define CONFIG_HW_GPIO_TURBO_B -1

[CornN64]

You can safely enable audio. It can be connected directly to an analog amplifier (with the filter shown in the ascII drawing) to drive speakers. Other than that I do not have a WROVER chip, I used a WROOM.
Changing some of the hardware specific pins for SPI interfaces will most likely not work since it relies on the hardware to make the transfers work.
what about? -> #define CONFIG_SD_CARD
Are you running on the internal EEPROM or on SD card?
You will need to provide the ROMs in either case and setup the text file accordingly...

[MCU-Amateur]

Thanks for reply again.

1. Tried with ESP32 WROOM module (without PSRAM) - Problem still same. (I had 2 versions on hand)
2. Already enabled sound (#define CONFIG_SOUND_ENABLED) - Problem still same.
3. Tried with SPI pins (18, 19, 23, 5) - Problem still same.
4. Tried with SDCard. Success to read from sdcard. - Problem still same.
5. Currently using SPIFFS. Copied roms.txt and smb1.nes into data folder and upload to SPIFFS (ESP32 sketch data upload using Arduino IDE) - Problem still same.

I think the problem may be due to the library src/nes_rom.c itself. Please advice. Thanks!

17:57:15.073 -> Game controller initalizing
17:57:15.073 -> NES Control initated
17:57:15.073 -> Init SPI bus
17:57:15.073 -> Init SPI bus completed
17:57:15.073 -> Adding screen device
17:57:15.073 -> Adding screen completed
17:57:15.073 -> E (189) gpio: gpio_set_direction(236): GPIO number error
17:57:15.073 -> E (194) gpio: gpio_set_level(178): GPIO output gpio_num error
17:57:15.119 -> E (233) gpio: gpio_set_level(178): GPIO output gpio_num error
17:57:15.119 -> LCD ILI9341 initialization.
17:57:15.166 -> LCD initialization complete.
17:57:15.213 -> Start boot menu init
17:57:15.213 -> Reading rom list
17:57:15.213 -> ROM[1] icon[;] name[Tetris] file[tetris.nes]
17:57:15.213 -> Found 1 ROMs
17:57:15.213 -> Finished boot menu init
17:57:15.213 -> No errors, carry on
17:57:15.213 -> Showing boot menu
17:57:15.401 -> Menu selection is /spiffs/tetris.nes
17:57:15.401 -> NoFrendo start!
17:57:15.401 -> Starting main loop with file: /spiffs/tetris.nes
17:57:15.401 -> Finished initializing sound
17:57:15.401 -> free heap after sound init: 247480
17:57:15.401 -> Game controller initalizing
17:57:15.401 -> NES Control initated
17:57:15.448 -> free heap after input init: 245044
17:57:15.448 -> video driver: Simple DirectMedia Layer at 486555958x240
17:57:15.448 -> vid_init done
17:57:15.448 -> vid_init done
17:57:15.541 -> system type unknown, playing nofrendo NES intro.
17:57:15.541 -> PPU memory allocated and cleared
17:57:15.635 -> Couldn't find rom partition!
17:57:15.635 -> abort() was called at PC 0x401049ca on core 1
17:57:15.635 ->
17:57:15.635 -> ELF file SHA256: 0000000000000000
17:57:15.635 ->
17:57:15.635 -> Backtrace: 0x40089f0c:0x3ffb1de0 0x4008a189:0x3ffb1e00 0x401049ca:0x3ffb1e20 0x400e484b:0x3ffb1e40 0x400e08a6:0x3ffb1e60 0x400e0ca8:0x3ffb1e90 0x400d715c:0x3ffb1ee0 0x400e1abc:0x3ffb1f10 0x400e1b2d:0x3ffb1f50 0x400e1a17:0x3ffb1f70 0x400d1e4b:0x3ffb1f90 0x400e2f11:0x3ffb1fb0 0x4008b1aa:0x3ffb1fd0
17:57:15.635 ->
17:57:15.635 -> Rebooting...

[CornN64]

Assuming that WROOM and WROVER are compatible (all tho I think that WROVER uses some of its pins to connect to the PSRAM which might influence things for the worse). From what I can tell it seems to have troubles opening the file system on either spiffs or the SD card, so maybe try some example that lists the SD card to get things running there first... the other tip is to make sure you use Arduino 1.8.13 and maybe more importantly ESPlib 1.04... I know newer versions had caused problems in other projects

[MCU-Amateur]

Thanks for fast reply again.

1. ESP32 board library is v1.04. - Problem still the same.
2. Read from sdcard. Confirmed can read from SDcard. Exactly same error. "Couldn't find rom partition!" - Problem still the same.

Conclusion. - Give up.......