RISC OS Upgrade: Common problems (changes)

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Introduction

This page details some of the problems you may experience when upgrading your RISC OS installation, particularly when upgrading from releases prior to RISC OS 5.28.

This list is not intended to be exhaustive. If you encounter a problem not listed here (or if a suggested workaround doesn’t fix the problem) you should consult the forums for advice.

Blank screen on boot-up

Symptoms: When booting-up a Raspberry Pi on the new ROM, the screen remains blank. The desktop never appears.

Cause: This can happen if you are using the wrong firmware (start.elf, fixup.dat etc.) for the new version of RISC OS. You are most likely to experience this issue if you were upgrading from RISC OS 5.26 or earlier.

Fix: Install the appropriate firmware for the version of RISC OS you are using. We suggest you move the old firmware somewhere safe (e.g. to an “OldFiles” directory) in case you need to regress to the old ROM at a later date.

“SWI not known” and/or star commands missing

Symptoms: The message “SWI not known” may appear during boot, or when running an application. Alternatively, you may discover that some features (e.g. certain star commands) are not available.

Cause: One or more modules had previously been unplugged (e.g. to disable an unwanted feature such as BootFX). As the order of modules may have changed in the new ROM, this can cause the wrong module(s) to be unplugged.

Fix: Issue the *Unplug command. This will list all unplugged modules. Now issue *RMInsert commands for each of those modules. For example, if the GPIO module was unplugged you would issue:
*RMInsert GPIO
After issuing all necessary *RMInsert commands, shut down and restart.

Built-in application settings have disappeared

Symptoms: Certain settings for built-in applications (Alarm, Edit etc.) can go missing. For example, Alarm may have reverted to displaying an analogue clock instead of a digital clock.

Cause: The method of saving built-in application settings changed at RISC OS 5.28 – they are now stored in the Choices: directory. Settings previously saved elsewhere (e.g. in a “Desktop Settings” file) are now ignored.

Fix: Re-select the settings for each affected application.

“Sprite doesn’t exist” when dragging an object

Symptoms: When dragging an object in Draw or Paint, the error “SpriteExtend: Sprite doesn’t exist” may appear. This only happens when using a custom theme: it does not affect the standard themes (Iyonix, Morris4, Raspberry, Sovereign, Ursula).

Cause: The selected theme does not have a “ptr_drop” sprite.

Fix: Using Paint, copy the “ptr_drop” sprite from a standard theme to your chosen theme (inside !Boot.Resources.!ThemeDefs.Themes). You may have to temporarily switch to one of the standard themes so that Paint will function normally. The files to change are: Sprites, Sprites22 and Sprites11 (if present).

Double-paste

Symptoms: Some legacy applications may paste text twice into writable icons when you press Ctrl-V.

Cause: Window Manager did not support global copy/paste until RISC OS 5.28. Some old applications had already added copy/paste functionality to writable icons: as a result, both Window Manager and the application will paste the text when Ctrl-V is pressed.

Workaround: To paste into a writable icon, press INSERT instead of Ctrl-V.³

³ The fix would be to upgrade the application, but that is not always possible.