Troubleshooting MAME High Scores

[Jason Carr]

1 minute ago, xevious1974 said:

What happens if I put more lives in machine configurations, or I lower the difficulty level or grant more time and so on? It is not a cheat, because it is a board configuration.

I would discourage you from changing anything away from the defaults, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately MAME doesn't make it possible for us to track or prevent changing board configurations (at least as far as I am aware). So some things have to just be left up to trust, and it's always going to be a fairly casual leaderboard system, because MAME emulation is far from perfect. Regardless, I would encourage everyone to be honest and not tweak any board settings to make things easier.

[Jason Carr]

Just now, Underoath13 said:

Fantastic! And props on the quick turnaround time, I really appreciate it ?

I owe all of that to Greatstone. He's really been bending over backwards to help us out and fix anything that is found. So for anyone interested in sending any support or thanks his direction, here's the hi2txt site: http://greatstone.free.fr/hi2txt/

[xevious1974]

1 minute ago, Jason Carr said:

I would discourage you from changing anything away from the defaults, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately MAME doesn't make it possible for us to track or prevent changing board configurations (at least as far as I am aware). So some things have to just be left up to trust, and it's always going to be a fairly casual leaderboard system, because MAME emulation is far from perfect. Regardless, I would encourage everyone to be honest and not tweak any board settings to make things easier.

Yes, I totally agree with you. I was just curious. I prefer to know. knowledge helps always

Oh, I dont have log file atm but for guwange you can insert only oriental chars and highscores does not save. I think it is the same issue of pspikes and baraduke.

[Underoath13]

@Xpendable and anyone else having issues with uploads of high scores.

Not every game is going to work perfect at first, but in my experience so far the solution lies in simply moving or deleting your .hi or game specific nvram folder after each match.

So for example, before Dig Dug was fixed I got my first high score and it uploaded just fine. I played again and beat my score and it didn't upload. Then I deleted my nvram file and played again and it uploaded fine. So If you move or delete the relevant .hi or nvram folder then the game starts fresh and your high scores will upload again. Of course most games don't have this issue, but if they do, all you have to do is start fresh as if you hadn't played before. And if you get a personal best just make sure and make a backup of that file so you can still display it locally.

And no, moving or deleting your scores wont remove them from the leaderboards. It's a pretty simple workaround until more issues are fixed.

[Jason Carr]

1 minute ago, Underoath13 said:

@Xpendable and anyone else having issues with uploads of high scores.

Not every game is going to work perfect at first, but in my experience so far the solution lies in simply moving or deleting your .hi or game specific nvram folder after each match.

So for example, before Dig Dug was fixed I got my first high score and it uploaded just fine. I played again and beat my score and it didn't upload. Then I deleted my nvram file and played again and it uploaded fine. So If you move or delete the relevant .hi or nvram folder then the game starts fresh and your high scores will upload again. Of course most games don't have this issue, but if they do, all you have to do is start fresh as if you hadn't played before. And if you get a personal best just make sure and make a backup of that file so you can still display it locally.

And no, moving or deleting your scores wont remove them from the leaderboards. It's a pretty simple workaround until more issues are fixed.

Do please let us know what other games you're running into this on. As far as I'm aware, this only fixes digdug, but that's also fixed with the updated zip file above. If any other games are having the same issue, Greatstone can look at it and hopefully get it fixed.

[Underoath13]

16 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Do please let us know what other games you're running into this on. As far as I'm aware, this only fixes digdug, but that's also fixed with the updated zip file above. If any other games are having the same issue, Greatstone can look at it and hopefully get it fixed.

It looks like I haven't personally run into another game that does it, but after reading other people's posts it seemed like other people were having a similar issue, like with Xpendable and centipede. So if people do have similar issues, whether its on their end or in general, starting fresh should do the trick. And I'll definitely post if I run into it again.

[Underoath13]

2 hours ago, Emulate said:

 

alright so I figured it out, the system doesn't update actual current high scores it only overwrites new high scores so those of us with actual super hard high scores will never be on the leader bored... its a broken system.

Just backup your scores and start fresh. Old high scores don't work. I'm on the leaderboards for Pacman, Ms. Pacman, and Dig Dug, and none of those scores are as high as my original scores were. It's simply a measure taken to keep people from cheating. Let it motivate you to beat your old high scores 

[Xpendable]

6 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

All I'm asking for is a log file. I understand it's hard to achieve a high score, and that you're upset because it didn't register. We have hundreds of people using the system without issues, including with Centipede. Your invalid assumption was that it's broken for everyone, and perhaps for all or even most games, which you misjudged. Doesn't matter whether you're a developer or not. Even developers make mistakes. I certainly know that one well. But anyways, thanks for the report.

For everyone else's sake, please don't use the same incorrect logic here.

I'm not upset that it didn't register.  However, you should not accuse me of incorrect logic, because that's just totally wrong.  

At any rate, only 1 score ever uploaded, and it was on my first run of the Centipede after upgrading this morning:

2020-04-16 10:43:16 AM Processing hi2txt output for centiped:
RANK|SCORE|NAME
1|32266|JLT
2|32000|JLT
3|23863|JLT
4|19609|JLT
5|13210|DCB
6|13010|ED 
7|12805|DEW
8|12201|DFW
2020-04-16 10:43:16 AM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 19609 for rom file centiped and name JLT...
2020-04-16 10:43:17 AM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 13210 for rom file centiped and name DCB...
2020-04-16 10:43:17 AM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 13010 for rom file centiped and name ED ...
2020-04-16 10:43:17 AM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 12805 for rom file centiped and name DEW...
2020-04-16 10:43:18 AM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 12201 for rom file centiped and name DFW...

Score #4 was the game that I just played.

I exited the game and after seeing my score, I went back in and played a few more times but didn't break any of my scores, and would not expect an upload:

2020-04-16 10:45:11 AM Processing hi2txt output for centiped:
RANK|SCORE|NAME
1|32266|JLT
2|32000|JLT
3|23863|JLT
4|19609|JLT
5|13210|DCB
6|13010|ED 
7|12805|DEW
8|12201|DFW
2020-04-16 10:45:11 AM MameHighScores.Parse: No new scores found to upload!
 

Now here's where things go weird... I did start breaking my highest score... multiple times, in fact.  But according to this, it's not seeing any scores:

2020-04-16 04:27:42 PM Processing hi2txt output for centiped:

2020-04-16 04:27:42 PM MameHighScores.Parse: No new scores found to upload!

2020-04-16 04:32:57 PM Processing hi2txt output for centiped:

2020-04-16 04:32:57 PM MameHighScores.Parse: No new scores found to upload!

2020-04-16 04:44:43 PM Processing hi2txt output for centiped:

2020-04-16 04:44:43 PM MameHighScores.Parse: No new scores found to upload!

 

 

2020-04-16 08:17:19 PM Processing hi2txt output for centiped:

2020-04-16 08:17:19 PM MameHighScores.Parse: No new scores found to upload!

 

On this last one at 8:17PM, I just scored 44065 which should have been the #2 all-time spot on the Game Database.  Obviously something happened and hi2txt no longer has anything in.  Not sure why that would be.  My scores are still in the game whenever I relaunch.  (I also confirmed that MAME autosave is set to 0).

[Xpendable]

I think I've got a recreate.

You have to play multiple times and fill up the score board with your initials without exiting the game.  When you finally do exit the game, the file is apparently corrupted and will no longer upload scores.

I deleted my centiped.hi and it then it started upload again.  If I played a bunch of times then exited, the fill appears to get corrupted and nothing uploads.  See below:

*** file still corrupted

2020-04-16 08:05:32 PM Music.Pause Start
2020-04-16 08:05:33 PM MameHighScores.Prepare Successful: Saving pre-game scores.
2020-04-16 08:17:19 PM Music.Resume Start
2020-04-16 08:17:19 PM Music.StopAndResumeBackground Start
2020-04-16 08:17:19 PM Music.StopAndResumeBackground Start
2020-04-16 08:17:19 PM Processing hi2txt output for centiped:

2020-04-16 08:17:19 PM MameHighScores.Parse: No new scores found to upload!

 

*** Deleted centiped.h and a new one was created automatically and an upload occurred: 
2020-04-16 08:34:18 PM Music.Pause Start
2020-04-16 08:34:18 PM Music.Pause Start
2020-04-16 08:34:18 PM Music.Pause Start
2020-04-16 08:34:19 PM Begin M3U Check.
2020-04-16 08:34:19 PM RomPath after M3U build: C:\Users\Jason\LaunchBox\Games\Arcade\centiped.zip
2020-04-16 08:34:19 PM Music.Pause Start
2020-04-16 08:34:19 PM MameHighScores.Prepare Successful: Saving pre-game scores.
2020-04-16 08:40:37 PM Music.Resume Start
2020-04-16 08:40:37 PM Music.StopAndResumeBackground Start
2020-04-16 08:40:37 PM Music.StopAndResumeBackground Start
2020-04-16 08:40:37 PM Processing hi2txt output for centiped:
RANK|SCORE|NAME
1|44065|JLT
2|37992|JLT
3|32175|JLT
4|31107|JLT
5|13210|DCB
6|13010|ED 
7|12805|DEW
8|12201|DFW
2020-04-16 08:40:37 PM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 31107 for rom file centiped and name JLT...
2020-04-16 08:40:38 PM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 13210 for rom file centiped and name DCB...
2020-04-16 08:40:38 PM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 13010 for rom file centiped and name ED ...
2020-04-16 08:40:39 PM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 12805 for rom file centiped and name DEW...
2020-04-16 08:40:39 PM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 12201 for rom file centiped and name DFW...
2020-04-16 08:48:24 PM Music.Pause Start
2020-04-16 08:48:25 PM Music.Pause Start
2020-04-16 08:48:25 PM Music.Pause Start
2020-04-16 08:48:25 PM Begin M3U Check.
2020-04-16 08:48:25 PM RomPath after M3U build: C:\Users\Jason\LaunchBox\Games\Arcade\centiped.zip
2020-04-16 08:48:25 PM Music.Pause Start
2020-04-16 08:48:26 PM MameHighScores.Prepare Successful: Saving pre-game scores.

 

*** Played a bunch of times then exited, and now file appears to be corrupted and nothing uploaded:

2020-04-16 09:07:44 PM Music.Resume Start
2020-04-16 09:07:44 PM Music.StopAndResumeBackground Start
2020-04-16 09:07:44 PM Music.StopAndResumeBackground Start
2020-04-16 09:07:44 PM Processing hi2txt output for centiped:

2020-04-16 09:07:44 PM MameHighScores.Parse: No new scores found to upload!

[Underoath13]

@Jason Carr

Alright, so I'm awful at centipede and didn't even get a low level high score within the game, and this happened...

Debug 2020-04-16 07-50-31 PM.log

[Underoath13]

36 minutes ago, Xpendable said:

 

I deleted my centiped.hi and it then it started upload again.  If I played a bunch of times then exited, the fill appears to get corrupted and nothing uploads.  See below:

 

Yep, looks like starting fresh after each match is the solution to the myriad problems some games have.

A batch script could be created that backs up files to an external location and then deletes the contents of the hi and nvram folders. Assign the batch file to a keyboard shortcut with autohotkey, or maybe even use launchbox's additional apps feature to run it upon exit of the game, and things become a lot less cumbersome.

Edited April 17, 2020 by Underoath13

[Underoath13]

Also noticed Centipede saves to both the hi and nvram folders, just like Dig Dug.

[Jason Carr]

@Underoath13 @Xpendable Thank you guys. I guess we'll need to let Greatstone know that there's something weird going on with Centipede. I was thrown back because I've broken records with Centipede many times and for some reason I've never run into any issues. I just take issues with broad assumptions that things are globally broken. Anyways, if you guys could report it to Greatstone, that'd be great. I posted new steps at the bottom of the first post in this topic for reporting broken games to Greatstone. Since it's working for me, it might require a specific version of MAME or something of that nature in order to reproduce the issue. Also, one thing I did learn from Greatstone is that if you replace the hiscores.dat file, things can break if you don't remove your existing .hi and nvram files.

[xevious1974]

For the future, how about mame version compatibility?

Atm I have 201 version. And I am not so good to upgrade. With this version seems work. But later...something will change?

 

[GoGoGuy]

I'm so excited for this feature. I have a question as my high scores don't appear to be uploading.

 

I'm using the latest mame64 220 and my high scores are saving and loading perfectly but don't upload. Because I have multiple mame systems I store my HI files on a NAS (Init.lua in the plugins\hiscore folder states "local hiscore_path = "Q:\\ROMS\\MAMEHI";")

The Launchbox debug attached states no high score or nvram files found despite it saving to the above location. Does launchbox only look at the Hi folder within the MAME installation?

 

Thanks guys

Debug 2020-04-17 09-33-18 AM.log

[Jason Carr]

6 hours ago, xevious1974 said:

For the future, how about mame version compatibility?

Atm I have 201 version. And I am not so good to upgrade. With this version seems work. But later...something will change?

 

I don't *think* you need to worry about that. The only way we'd likely change things is if the MAME development team for some reason came out with a new way to track high scores.

6 hours ago, GoGoGuy said:

I'm so excited for this feature. I have a question as my high scores don't appear to be uploading.

 

I'm using the latest mame64 220 and my high scores are saving and loading perfectly but don't upload. Because I have multiple mame systems I store my HI files on a NAS (Init.lua in the plugins\hiscore folder states "local hiscore_path = "Q:\\ROMS\\MAMEHI";")

The Launchbox debug attached states no high score or nvram files found despite it saving to the above location. Does launchbox only look at the Hi folder within the MAME installation?

 

Thanks guys

Debug 2020-04-17 09-33-18 AM.log 7.04 kB · 1 download

Yes, if you change the hi file path, it currently doesn't know where to look for them. So the hi and nvram files will need to be stored in their default locations inside the MAME emulator folder.

[LaunchRoo]

(Version 10.13) I've been having similar problems with Gorf..i have beaten my old score a few times and launchbox high scores isn't recognizing i have done so. (no new scores found to upload)..i did try deleting the .hi and nvram before the next attempt but unfortunately it still didn't upload  (no new scores found to upload). (using mame .217, mame.217 romset, applicable hiscore.dat). I've even tried different versions of the same game and on my other PC. Log attached.

Worked perfectly well the first time (version 10.12) i played and submitted the high score but seems to have trouble on any further subsequent high score attempts. I really want to get it working as i think it's the best update launchbox has had. 

I really appreciate the hard work done so far on this feature!

Debug 2020-04-16 09-36-27 PM.log

[Jason Carr]

11 minutes ago, LaunchRoo said:

(Version 10.13) I've been having similar problems with Gorf..i have beaten my old score a few times and launchbox high scores isn't recognizing i have done so. (no new scores found to upload)..i did try deleting the .hi and nvram before the next attempt but unfortunately it still didn't upload  (no new scores found to upload). (using mame .217, mame.217 romset, applicable hiscore.dat). I've even tried different versions of the same game and on my other PC. Log attached.

Worked perfectly well the first time (version 10.12) i played and submitted the high score but seems to have trouble on any further subsequent high score attempts. I really want to get it working as i think it's the best update launchbox has had. 

I really appreciate the hard work done so far on this feature!

Debug 2020-04-16 09-36-27 PM.log 13.79 kB · 0 downloads

Hi @LaunchRoo, it sounds like you're running into similar problems as we ran into with Dig Dug. If you would, please report Gorf to Greatstone so he can look into it. Instructions are at the bottom of the first post of this topic.

[Shad8]

On 4/16/2020 at 11:36 AM, xevious1974 said:

I hope it is correct to post here.
High score is working, but for the rom pspikes.zip (power spikes) is not updating. I have seen another game that does not update, but I dont remember the name, it is a cave game.

 

 

Anyway I love this function!!

@Jason Carr

Power Spikes works only if you write "AAA" in the score name.

I tried to write my name MAS and this is the result:

2020-04-17 09:12:05 PM Processing hi2txt output for pspikes:
RANK|SCORE|NAME|CHARACTER
1|56230|ï¼ïŒ‚Ô|Cuba
2|10000|ABC|U.R.S.S
3|3000|DEF|Cuba
4|1500|GHI|U.S.A
5|1000|JKL|Japan
2020-04-17 09:12:05 PM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 56230 for rom file pspikes and name ï¼ïŒ‚Ô...
2020-04-17 09:12:05 PM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 10000 for rom file pspikes and name ABC...
2020-04-17 09:12:05 PM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 3000 for rom file pspikes and name DEF...
2020-04-17 09:12:05 PM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 1500 for rom file pspikes and name GHI...
2020-04-17 09:12:05 PM MameHighScores.Parse: Uploading score 1000 for rom file pspikes and name JKL...

And didn't upload the score

 

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Shad8

[LaunchRoo]

okay thanks Jason..i'll report it now.☺️