Launchbox ignore lots of roms inside folders

[FrancoGP]

Hello!

I have a lot of game that are ignored. I already tried forcing duplicated, unchecking database metadata, include all clones... without success.

I'm using this configurations:
     
for example, I have the next folders, and their rom and clones inside:

Woodpecker
     |-> woodpeca.zip
     |-> woodpeck.zip
Zarzon:
     |-> zarzon.zip
Zero Time
     |-> zerotime.zip
     |-> zerotimed.zip
     |-> zerotimemc.zip
     |-> zerotimeeu.zip
Zig Zag
     |-> zigzagb.zip
     |-> zigzagb2.zip

But launchbox only imports:
Woodpecker
     |-> woodpeck.zip
Zarzon:
     |-> zarzon.zip
Zero Time
     |-> zerotime.zip
Zig Zag
     |-> zigzagb.zip

Why the clones are ignored? I want to "fuse" all the clones under the same title automatically like this:

 

NOTE: If I uncheck "combine rom with matching titles into a single game" I get the SAME results

 

Edited April 17, 2021 by FrancoGP

[FrancoGP]

Also, if I try to use the default Arcade platform name, instead of TeST as a name, the imported clones work, but they are all name the same.. why?

clones should use their name instead of the FOLDER name

Edited April 17, 2021 by FrancoGP

[JoeViking245]

3 hours ago, FrancoGP said:

clones should use their name instead of the FOLDER name

See if un-checking "Use folder names instead of ROM file names for game titles" helps any.

Then also, if you check "Search for game information in the local metadata database", LaunchBox will then know how to properly name the games based off the roms [zip] file name.  For example "woodpeca" would become "Woodpecker (set 2)" and "woodpeck" would become "Woodpecker (set 1)".

[FrancoGP]

2 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

See if un-checking "Use folder names instead of ROM file names for game titles" helps any.

If I do that, almost 50% of the clones are not fused into one game, and I have to manually merge them.
for example, I get this

but using the folders, I get:

 

2 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

Then also, if you check "Search for game information in the local metadata database", LaunchBox will then know how to properly name the games based off the roms [zip] file name.  For example "woodpeca" would become "Woodpecker (set 2)" and "woodpeck" would become "Woodpecker (set 1)".

already tried, without success

or this:

that's not useful information about the clone. I cannot distinguish them

Edited April 18, 2021 by FrancoGP

[Terminator23]

I just posted about this on Reddit when I came across a post with the same issue I am having until I found this one here too.

Also in my case my roms are all together in one directory for arcade roms that use Mame and not in seperate folders for each game, so that is not a factor either. Only the chd files are in sub folders using the rom names within that directory as that is how Mame works.

I am having the same issue with Mame imports recently. it was working fine before. I found the workaround is to first let it import the parent rom normally (do not select combine matching titles option either). Then go through the process again. This time, select the clone rom that got skipped, then select force importing duplicate (again do not select combine matching titles). Then the clone will be imported as a separate entry in Launchbox now. Then you can combine the games and select your default.

I have only so far done this with one parent / clone rom pair and not multiple clones, so I do not know if these needs to be repeated for each clone one at a time.

This is really tedious doing it this way. I hope they fix it as doing multiple games this way would be really troublesome. So far I have been just adding a game or two every so often so its not too bad. I am not sure if this is affecting console based games with multiple discs or regions as most of my imports have been single rom games recently for those.

I also noticed that this affects scan for added roms option also, as it will skip the clones by default now which it did not do before on top of it not naming the games properly anyway. Forcing it to use the Mame database does name them properly but forces creating playlists which I don't use and then I have to delete them after. I noticed if you do not use stand alone Mame as the default emulator you have no choice but to use that option to name the games properly. So people using the Retroarch core have to use the force using Mame database which will automatically create playlists during the process.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Terminator23

[neil9000]

4 hours ago, Terminator23 said:

I hope they fix it as doing multiple games this way would be really troublesome. So far I have been just adding a game or two every so often so its not too bad. I am not sure if this is affecting console based games with multiple discs or regions as most of my imports have been single rom games recently for those.

The importer is working just fine and as intended. What romset version do you have? are you using the correct matching version of the official MAME emulator? What options are you specifying on the dedicated MAME only page of the import wizard, region/skipping any clones ect?

4 hours ago, Terminator23 said:

I also noticed that this affects scan for added roms option also,

You cant use that option for MAME, MAME is a completely different beast to other systems, thats why it has its own dedicated fullset importer with a differen process and a whole page of options exclusive to to the MAME importer.

 

4 hours ago, Terminator23 said:

Forcing it to use the Mame database does name them properly but forces creating playlists which I don't use and then I have to delete them after.

That is a option in the wizard, you need to uncheck it if you dont want those.

 

4 hours ago, Terminator23 said:

I noticed if you do not use stand alone Mame as the default emulator you have no choice but to use that option to name the games properly. So people using the Retroarch core have to use the force using Mame database which will automatically create playlists during the process.

You HAVE to import against the standalone build of MAME, you can use Retroarch later to actually run the games (not that there is any reason at all to actually do so, but i digress) but the actual import REQUIRES you use the official standalone version of MAME, this is because we pull the working games list from the emulator itself. This is why the emulator HAS to match your romset version otherwise that gamelist will not be correct.  It is clearly stated in the MAME fullset importer that MAME itself is required for the import.

[Terminator23]

On 5/2/2021 at 7:15 AM, neil9000 said:

The importer is working just fine and as intended. What romset version do you have? are you using the correct matching version of the official MAME emulator? What options are you specifying on the dedicated MAME only page of the import wizard, region/skipping any clones ect?

I am using the latest available Mame rom set which is .231 recently. This was not happening before 11.11 I believe. Like I said I came across another person on Reddit with the same issue where the clones are being skipped regardless of the option to not skip clones being selected. It seems that that option is being ignored now and is stuck on skipping clones when more than one rom is being imported unless the clone is the only one being imported at that time. I pick a parent / clone pair when importing an individual game (I usually just want the North America version to be my default) and the clone disappears from the list on the last page of the import and leaves only the parent. Before it was working fine with the combine games with same name and it would properly create a merged entry with the parent and clone together and would usually default to the preferred North America region rom as the default.

I understand the scan for added roms is not intended for Mame by this point given how it has functioned. This issue with clones is happening with the import roms menu using stand alone Mame as the emulator.

On 5/2/2021 at 7:15 AM, neil9000 said:

That is a option in the wizard, you need to uncheck it if you dont want those.

The create playlist option does not come up when not using stand alone Mame as the emulator for the import. If using the Retroarch for Mame, it defaults to creating playlist when the force to use Mame database is selected. This is because that option is on the page specific to Mame imports that is triggered with stand alone Mame only.  I was just making an observation of what I saw when using the Retroarch core of Mame which I was using on another machine because of the ease of use when having 4 players and dealing with controller ordering.