MDAndroid66

Just for fun I tried hooking up all the controllers I could find--the paddles, the steering controllers (Indy 500), the keypad controllers...even a trakball. None of them worked. Still haven't tried the Star Raiders pad or the Track and Field controller, but I'm not optimistic...

Okay, I solved the problem and thought I would mention it here in case someone else has the same issue in the future. First, I ended up purchasing a second FB9 Gold, before I took the original one back, to see what would happen. When I hooked it up, without a firmware update, I had the same issue--no games would play. I did notice that there was no background music, however, which I thought was odd because the first one had background music when I first set it up (before I turned it off in the settings). Then I realized that, after updating the firmware of the first console, I never bothered to turn off the background music, and yet there was no sound. Hmmm... Something I forgot to mention when first describing my issue--the Flashback was hooked up to the TV via an HDMI switchbox (along with an NES classic, SNES classic, and PSX classic). Since the sound was not getting through, I wondered if the issue might have to do with that...even though I was seeing the menus on the TV. So, I unplugged the FB9 from the switchbox and instead plugged it directly into the TV. Voila! Now I have sound and the games on the SD card work! I'm still not sure why this is the case, as when I hooked it up before the firmware update I was able to see and play games even though I was using the switchbox. And, if it was the firmware update that had an effect on using an HDMI switchbox, then the second unit I just bought would have worked fine because I didn't update the firmware. Oh well...best not to think too hard about it... Thanks to those who responded. TL:DR= Don't use an HDMI switchbox with the Flashback 9 Gold...

Forrest-- I hadn't considered that possibility, so thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, it did not fix the problem. (I put the SD card back in the portable, just to check, and could still play the games as before). During my attempt to install the firmware update again, some commands appeared on the screen. I took a picture because they were only on the screen briefly, and unfortunately the first couple of characters in each line were cut off due to the size of my TV screen, but I have transcribed the lines as follows (bold are the characters I am guessing, because they were cut off at the edges of the screen): Stopping Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD Daemon: avahi-daemon …fail! Stopping system message bus: dbus. ? :lock: can’t open ‘ /dev/misc/rtc’: No such file or directory Stopping syslogd/klogd: no syslogd found; none killed Server disabled Stopping rpcbind daemon… ? : running. Configuring network interfaces… ifdown: interface eth0 not configured Done. Loading all processes the TERM signal… Loading all processes the KILL signal… Mounting remote filesystems… ?ndom stop: failed. Activating swap… Mounting local filesystems… Rebooting… _ Not sure if this means anything to anyone, or if it will help pinpoint the problem. I may just take the system back to the retailer and try with another one, but since it seemed to work just fine before the attempt at installing new firmware, I'm thinking it is not a hardware problem so another unit will experience the same issues. Maybe... Thanks, Mark

I've owned multiple Flashbacks over the years, but finally decided to obtain the Flashback 9 Gold just for the SD card slot. I have been using the SD card on the Flashback Portable, but wanted the large screen TV experience. So...I updated the firmware using the link at the beginning of this thread (AT Games' site has a newer (Feb 2019) firmware update for the FB 9, but it specifically says it is not intended for the FB 9 Gold). I choose to update the firmware, then it brought me back to the main menu. So far, so good. When I selected the SD Card option, the Flashback 9 Gold recognized the SD card, as I saw blue and yellow icons for all of the games. Awesome! Except, when I tried to play one, the screen went dark for a moment, then returned to that same screen. I checked the game titles, and there were no spaces, so that was not the issue. Okay, well, until I figure it out, at least I still have the games included on the console, right? WRONG! Now, not a single game works...even those included on the console! Selecting any title causes screen to go black briefly, as if trying to load, then returns me to that game info screen. Before I tried using the SD card, I had paired the joysticks and tried a few games, so I know that they *were* working. I tried re-installing the firmware update, but am still having the same issue. Is anyone experiencing this? Did I just brick the console thanks to the firmware update from this thread? Thanks, Mark