[zachmorris]

Guys,

Thanks a lot for your help with this issue. I don't have myself an Android device to test so I completely rely on you for testing. Apparently the issue has caught everybody by surprise and it's not easy to find information about how to solve it (if can be solved at all...).

I have found this on Github, which may have some info about the issue. More info from Stack Overflow Can't execute “system” command on Android 8 Oreo. More info from Bounty Source Termux API doesn't work on Android O.

 Yes, our google-fu seems to be about the same.  From the termux-am github repository:

(Activity Manager) command in Android can be used to start Activity or send Broadcast from shell, however since Android Oreo that command only works from adb shell, not from apps. This is modified version of that command that is usable from an app

I haven't been able to find any official Android documentation of that fact though.  I also don't have an Oreo capable device, but I'd be interested to know if the Kodi builtin StartAndroidActivity still works in Oreo - I'm guessing it also wouldn't work.  If it actually does for some odd reason, one option would be to start retroarch with StartAndroidActivity, and then launch a game with similar commands as before (as some users said that works).

Another possible workaround would be to actually install termux-am and change the launch commands to use that.  It appears to be backward compatible with older versions of Android, so I'll install it and see if that may work.