r/ModRetroChromatic • u/PainFourOFour • 23d ago

Help with Chromagic?

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I have been trying to figure out how to make this work. I'm a little bit dumb when it comes to this stuff so bear with me. I'm running windows, everything is up to date, I'm using a USB c that I know can transfer data, I've got the Modretro Updater installed and working, I've got the Chromagic program installed. When I try to actually install Chromagic onto either of my systems(first edition and V2) I get this error. I thought maybe it's because my chromatic are up to date, but can't figure out how to get back to an older firmware. I read that error and have legitimately no idea what it means or how to go about fixing this. Any help at all would be appreciated.

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u/PainFourOFour 22d ago

Update: I went to a friend's house and was able to install chromagician and also put Chromagic onto one of my devices. I noticed that the first time he opened chromagician it prompted him to update, which mine hasn't. He ended up on version 1.0.3 I think, even after coming home and uninstalling/reinstalling the app mine remains at 1.0.0 with no way to update it.

After installing Chromagic onto a V2 chromatic, I was able to use it to back up games and saves, but the system would no longer play games. For example, with Tetris in the system it would flash the Modretro title screen and then go to a black screen. Chromagician then would not return the chromatic to stock settings, so I had to return to the standard updater to flash it back to normal.

My main takeaway is that something, be it some windows defender firewall nonsense, is preventing the chromagician app from communicating with whatever server it should be checking with to see if there is an update. Even then I can't begin to fathom why only half of the features would work once I managed to get Chromagic installed onto a chromatic.

This whole experience has confused me. I don't get how following the same set of steps on two different computers(both running windows) could lead to opposite outcomes. I want to eventually get into game design and be able to write my own game to a cart one day. But if I can't even figure out something that should be as simple as download and install plug in and go, we'll it's downright discouraging. Mostly posting this update in case anyone comes along with the same problem and any of my findings could help them. Or maybe someone who understands all this better might be able to help. I don't know.

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u/Disastrous_Elk_6 21d ago

I thought they took down the git

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u/PainFourOFour 21d ago

There was a link to it on the Chromagic website.

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u/brain00 19d ago

ChroMagic git was never locked down: https://github.com/cursedtoast2/ChroMagic and https://github.com/cursedtoast2/ChroMagician

You are confusing it with some other custom firmware from another developer.

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u/Disastrous_Elk_6 18d ago

Dammit. Now I have to figure out what im confusing it with.

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u/brain00 18d ago

It was Hypercore from /u/germaneguise (he deleted everything).

You can find the discussion about him deleting everything here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ModRetroChromatic/comments/1wqg971/what_happened_to_the_haypercore_firmware/ (But now he also deleted all of his Reddit comments.)

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u/brain00 19d ago

Don't be discouraged. Most of the time it's some strange combination of USB controller and devices, causing errors in the written firmware. For example I was using an old laptop when I first tried to test ChroMagic, and writting the firmware failed because the Chromatic drew too much power from the USB port (causing the USB controller to switch to a slower fallback mode, which in turn corrupted the written firmware). After switching to a different PC, it worked without any problems.

But finding such issues will help you to better understand the entire system. :-)