RetroPie Commit your changes or Stash them Fix

Lately I have been doing a lot with RetroPie, Attract mode, Bartop Arcades and more. I was recently trying to update my RetroPie Setup Script to the latest version and I kept receiving the following error:

Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:
systems.sh
Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can merge.

It took me awhile to figure out what was actually causing this error but then I realized I updated my systems.sh manually awhile back. I’m assuming since the file size or the contents didn’t match the script wouldn’t let me update. I went an obtained a copy of my RetroPie systems.sh that matched my custom IMG (that was not modified). In this case I was using Reys 128 GB Attract Mode image.

You need to upload your unmodified systems.sh file to the /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/ directory using FileZilla, Cyberduck or a client that can handle Sftp connections.

I needed to figure this out instead of just re-flashing another copy of Reys 128GB Attract Mode image, because I had a lot of modifications/custom controller setups and currently did not have a backup. If you are showing a different file then “systems.sh” with the same “Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can merge” error most likely you have modified that file or that file is corrupt and you need to upload a non-modified version.