Help with changing Rom Paths in Launchbox.xml

[MazJohn [Mr Arcade]]

Asking for some help from the community on this one:

I cant seem to successfully edit my rom paths in the Launchbox XML file for the life of me. I wish this had a video tutorial but couldn't find one on how to do this.

I'm using notepad ++ , and I am substituting all paths beginning with the phrase "E:/launchbox" and using the "change to" command to rename to "/games"

my goal is to put all the rom folder paths back into the default launch-box folder location (whereas my rom paths are currently located on a separate E drive for the majority of my platforms}.

So all references to the  E drive path inside the Launchbox.XML  file have been replaced as stated above (had found like 5,700 references to re-name) I confirmed this by checking the XML again afterwards to make sure the new paths did actually save.

Then I re-launch launch-box, and all the previously discovered games are still pointing to the "E:/launchbox/" path... so this is not working at all.

Does Jason or the launchbox team have any plans to add a simple way to easily change existing Rom paths of an existing installation as of yet?  I have a very large library so I need to find the easiest way to do this without losing all of my metadata... this is a sorely needed feature

Appreciate some advice guys.... thanks in advance for any help.

Mazjohn (aka Mr. Arcade)

 

Edited April 10, 2017 by mazjohn

[ckp]

Hi @mazjohn, make sure there is no launchbox or bigbox running when you find/replace text inside the xml files.

And you shouldn't use a forward slash in the path "/". You should use backslashes "\" in the path.

If you are using a very old Launchbox version, you would change launchbox.xml, but in more recent versions, that file isn't used anymore. 

You should change the paths in ALL your platform xml files found inside folder:  ...\Launchbox\Data\Platforms

Edit: in case you don't know, you can open all the xml files at once with notepad++ and when you choose menu Search->Replace, you  can just click the button "Replace all in all opened documents". That makes it super easy to fix all the paths in tons of xml files in one whack. Eazy Peazy. 

Edited April 10, 2017 by ckp

[fromlostdays]

I don't know how to do it that way, but if you delete all the games in a system, then readd from the new folder (don't download any of the artwork etc, it'll still be there) you should be golden.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

[fromlostdays]

This method will preserve all metadata as well.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

[MazJohn [Mr Arcade]]

47 minutes ago, ckp said:

Hi @mazjohn, make sure there is no launchbox or bigbox running when you find/replace text inside the xml files.

And you shouldn't use a forward slash in the path "/". You should use backslashes "\" in the path.

If you are using a very old Launchbox version, you would change launchbox.xml, but in more recent versions, that file isn't used anymore. 

You should change the paths in ALL your platform xml files found inside folder:  ...\Launchbox\Data\Platforms

 

Ahhh... Thanks!  I've been using Launchbox a pretty long time and was un-aware of the changes since.  (I was still thinking the rom paths were controlled by the Launchbox.xml file!)

So drilling down into launchbox\data\platforms then individually editing the paths does work for me... problem solved!

however if there are 30 platforms, it seems i will need to edit each and every one (one at a time) that's STILL easier to me than having to re-import again for many platforms (as also mentioned) - so it will have to do.

My number one feature request would be to have a simple way from the Launchbox UI to modify the rom-path for each platform. This shouldnt be difficult to implement into Launchbox I would suspect ( just a search and replace algorythm for the XML path?)

Thanks for solving this !

Mazjohn (aka Mr. Arcade)

[ckp]

51 minutes ago, mazjohn said:

however if there are 30 platforms, it seems i will need to edit each and every one (one at a time) that's STILL easier to me than having to re-import again for many platforms (as also mentioned) - so it will have to do.

I tried to say in my Edit that you can open ALL the xml files with notepad++. Select all of them and open with notepad++. 

choose menu Search->Replace, you  can just click the button "Replace all in all opened documents". That makes it super easy to fix all the paths in tons of xml files in one whack. Eazy Peazy. 

[SentaiBrad]

Yea, the XML editing is the fastest method, but if you can't get that to work, re-importing and unchecking the image boxes on the LBGDB and EM screen will import without downloading everything and it will all reattach. ckp's got you covered on how to do multiples though.

[MazJohn [Mr Arcade]]

21 hours ago, ckp said:

I tried to say in my Edit that you can open ALL the xml files with notepad++. Select all of them and open with notepad++. 

choose menu Search->Replace, you  can just click the button "Replace all in all opened documents". That makes it super easy to fix all the paths in tons of xml files in one whack. Eazy Peazy. 

CKP, SentaiBrad,

Thanks, I was totally unaware notpad++ could batch replace multiple files at once like that to open documents. That does make it quite a bit simpler to do for sure. In my case, I am very reluctant to re-import but would do so as last resort. While it does also work provided we " uncheck" and do ROMs only, i've admitantly "botched things up" in past by my own doing simply because I fail to re-import sets exactly the same way and find myself having to clean things up a little. (My bad here nothing to do with Launchbox...Launchbox itself has been simply incredible).

Thanks again much for helping to take the time to explain. That was huge.

Mazjohn ( aka Mr. Arcade)... 

[SentaiBrad]

If you do re-import, make sure to only uncheck the media boxes. If you uncheck the check box for the LBGDB, it wont use it at all. I've done that when re-importing. All my games had their media, but weren't attached to any LBGDB ID's.

[CALLSTANLEY247]

This seem helpful for my issue.i think .thanks