Extract not always running

[MesonW]

Hi,

I've been dabbling with the CPCEC emulator for Amstrad CPC, and while it supports .zip files, not all of my ROMs are in .zip format (some are in .7z), and as a consequence I have the Extram ROM option ticked for the emulator and largely this works fine.  Some .zip files however simply do not extract (no progress bar and nothing in the 7z temp folder) and result in an error with the emulator.

Weirdly, renaming the zip file can result in Launchbox then performing an extract and it works fine. What I can't determine is what it is about the original zip file or its name that determines success or not. Could it just be a bad zip? The emulator itself can load the original zip directly (selecting it from within CPCEC), and Windows can open it fine... but Launchbox seems not to recognise it as an archive file, unless like I say, I rename it.

I thought maybe a file length issue or particular characters, but I've tried longer named files of other games and the same characters are fine in others too.

Additionally if I rename a file to make it work, then rename it back again, it goes back to not working.

Example filename failing: "Yes, Prime Minister (1987)(Mosaic Publishing)(Disk 1 of 2).zip"
Renamed (removing a couple of spaces in the disk reference), works: "Yes, Prime Minister (1987)(Mosaic Publishing)(Disk 1of2).zip"

Windows 10 Home 64bit
Launchbox Version 11.10

[EDIT] - zip files not working are from the same source as ones that work.

Edited April 11, 2021 by MesonW

[StarshipUK]

What set are you using? It looks like it might be TOSEC. The best set I have found for the CPC (and most other 8 bit computers) is the Gamebase Amstrad CPC set (There are actually a few gamebase sets made for the CPC by different people), where the games have also been nicely named and tagged UK for the UK releases, S for Spanish releases, F for French releases and G for German releases, meaning I dont have to wade through loads of games that are in foreign languages which is nice.

A few things I have found:

There seems to be a maximum folder and file length, so with your folder name and file name it might be too long. Its also possible the emulator has filename length restrictions, as when I encountered with this with Launchbox it would not import the file.

Sometimes unzipping files and then rezipping them as ZIP files will work. I use WinRAR.

Same for .7z files - Just extract them and then rezip them as Zip files. Again I use WinRAR.

The CPC collection is not very large. The gamebase set of 5,563 files I am using is just 670MB extracted (compared to 190MB zipped), so unless you are really tight on HDD space, the set can be extracted from ZIP and imported.

 

[MesonW]

Yes it is TOSEC, well spotted.

It doesn't seem to be a limitation of folder/file length as if I extract and set Launchbox to run the .dsk it works fine, and other files with longer names work.

I'd happily rezip them if I knew which in advance would have this problem, but I couldn't without testing them all or just fixing on an as-used basis; which would be one of those niggling issues where you never feel you've a fully working set yet.

Good point about size though. I can't imagine I'm going to be overly concerned when the whole set takes up less space than 1 game for disk based consoles. I think I'll go down this route, but I thought it was interesting to understand why Launchbox itself wasn't extracting certain files. I guess I have a resolution for my case.   ... I could also write a script to rezip all the games to fix it too I guess, but while that's an entertaining little task, it's not the path of least resistance

Thanks StarshipUK, I'll check out the set yuou mentioned if I can find it too, as I'll be re-importing everything as .dsk files anyway.