Steam Deck: Update/Fix Emulation Station 3.0 (feat. EmuDeck)

If you recently updated your Emulation Station DE (now known as ES-DE officially) you may have found it no longer runs.

In this video, we'll help you fix it - or you can wait for EmuDeck's devs to fix their hand in it :) This video will also cover how to upgrade yourself via EmuDeck.

There are several ways to skin this cat - I'm showing you but one way.

Update: If you do not have an ES-DE folder on the first run, just rename your .emulationstation folder to ES-DE.

NOTE: The metadata mysteriously showed up after I finished filming. I don't know what I did to make it come back - I don't think I did anything, but ... if you happen to run across it, let me know.

[Blyzzard]

I really appreciate how you go step by step with many possible issues. So many expect everything to work right off of the bat.

[GreenArrowDazzie]

Thanks for this video, this update has honestly driven me up the wall! This was a big help.

[granvillehenderson]

You sir are a star. Played emulation station at the beginning of the week without this issue then today, couldn't find my roms collection. Not really explained very well but you've come to the rescue. Many Thanks

[glovedcop]

Windows has been a big pain mine is now completely broken.

[tehpwnerer]

You sir are a legend! Thank you so much for this, I was so confused when I updated it and nothing worked

[LPhooligan]

Thank you so much, just updating everything and thought I lost all my games, but there all back now

[ceogaming]

I think I discovered it. When you're in the file system on Steam OS. Within the.emulastation folder is ANOTHER .emulationstation folder and within that are the json files that contain all your metadata scrapes, gonna move those out into the proper emulation station folder and see what happens.

I posted that in the emudeck discord, didn't work but saw my old themes which I moved over. I had 9, 000 games scraped with metadata all gone, photos andvideos still there. I have to rename all the SCUMMVM games as well to work again.

Question for you, I saw M2 and M3 in your list of emulators, That's the Patreon pre-release? I sub but thought it's only for Android right now.

[Jason]

Thanks. Months later and it's still not fixed, but with your video I was able to move everything over manually

[TsuriaDragon]

I don’t know what happened the emulator was working fine before on my steam deck oled but now whenever I got to try to select an game it’s doesn’t go to the game selection window anymore but just keep going back to the play button menu in Steam? What happened?

[glockenspielmacabre]

Just updated and none of this happened to me. It seemed to move all the files from the original .emulationstation folder to the new ES-DE folder, and now the old .emulationstation folder has been turned into a shortcut. Weird

[Vidikron]

Wow… that’s an obnoxious update. ES-DE should fix this stuff for you.

[krrsvod]

The only question I have is that the audio crackle on games, specially, when I press volume up or down. This problem appeared after this update. Steam games are OK with audio.

[steelas]

shane i watched your video on installing dark and darker on a steam deck...I was hoping maybe you could help me I know that after the update that install guide no longer works but do you know how i could get the game to launch...blacksmith launches fine but the game I can not get to launch at all :( Id appreciate any tips or tricks u may have love hte content

[DeluxeMammoth]

Its absolutely crazy that an update just totally breaks everything that previously worked.

[tehpwnerer]

If you have done all of these steps and your able to play your Roms again, but when you look and notice it says that you haven't played some of the games (says NEVER rather then x Days ago) when you know for sure you have played it and your worried your saved data is gone, don't worry your save data is still there, A lot of the games I had like that still had my last saved data and for emulators like RetroArch, it still launched into my latest savestate.

[GuyManley]

I got an @ everyone or @ here on the emudeck discord warning about this update. I renamed .emulationstation to ES-DE in my home directory. Started ESDE, it updated itself, then I had to restart it like 1 or 2 more times and everything I had custom themes and media wise was still there. Games were found and launched. So not sure where the hick up is but not every that used emudeck is in their discord server. So the warning probably only caught a small percent of emudeck users.

[sandman]

I’m very lost I tried to follow you but mine is talking about moving the path to another I would but I can’t find where their file is why couldn’t they just leave it alone and update without messing things up

[MattAkiyama]

On windows with a fresh install of emulation station 3.0, the data directory seems to automatically be placed in station"
And it's asking me to rename it to ES-DE. So I did that and migrated the files from the old data directory and now everything works, including the metadata. Not sure why the data folder installed somewhere else this time or why it's using the old name by default.

[OgHazeKiller]

Just answered my own question lol how do I fix my steam rom manager it’s not popping up when I use emudeck

[sijonda]

I was pretty angry with the devs with how this was handled. I'm not a Linux user so I had no idea how to show hidden files to even find that folder to follow the incomplete instructions they took the time to setup. I'm currently not seeing errors anymore renaming the folder but I'm not seeing the new interface and I didn't list any of my artwork and the games work.