bootPath for AetherSX2 (and other maybe)

[GabiAle97]

So, I was searching for a way to launch games automatically from a frontend (launchbox in this case) on Android 11 and has no luck...

But found that the problem itself comes in the path given on ROM path key (value "bootPath"), that doesn't coincide with the path expected on the emulator.

An example: 

bootPath from LaunchBox: "/storage/emulated/0/Games/PS2/EFMI.chd"

bootPath expected on AetherSX2: "content://com.android.externalstorage.documents/tree/primary%3AGames%2FPS2/document/primary%3AGames%2FPS2%2FEFMI.chd"

running from a PC this command, launch the game automatically: adb shell am start -n xyz.aethersx2.android/xyz.aethersx2.android.EmulationActivity --es "bootPath" "content://com.android.externalstorage.documents/tree/primary%3AGames%2FPS2/document/primary%3AGames%2FPS2%2FEFMI.chd"

So it maybe can be fixed with not so much effort.

There's a chance to solve this problem on future updates? Or there's a way for users to define how is this bootPath composing?

Edited December 17, 2021 by GabiAle97

[Jason Carr]

@GabiAle97 Thanks for doing this research. Not sure why emulator developers sometimes decide to reinvent the wheel, but it's probably because Android does such a terrible job at making the standards obvious. Yes, when we add AetherSX2 (hopefully soon), we can use this info to get it added correctly.

[GabiAle97]

@Jason CarrI think that it has someting to do with scoped storage in (the terrible) Android 11. 

Maybe it's a good solution (don't know if possible) leaving in user side the chance to modify the value that "key path" send, just like shortcut maker does. Or leaving an option to send extra values, where we can define some variables like "bootPath" and it's value for each game. Just saying 😅 

Please remember that this problem reachs to more emulators, like Mupen if i'm not wrong, Dolphin, and Citra if i'm not wrong again.

Thank you for listening! Wish you a happy ending of year and a very good beggining of the next 😁😁 

Edited December 29, 2021 by GabiAle97

[GabiAle97]

@Jason Carr think that it has someting to do with scoped storage in (the terrible) Android 11. 

Maybe it's a good solution (don't know if possible) leaving in user side the chance to modify the value that "key path" send, just like shortcut maker does. Or leaving an option to send extra values, where we can define some variables like "bootPath" and it's value for each game. Just saying 😅 

 

Please remember that this problem reachs to more emulators, like Mupen if i'm not wrong, Dolphin, and Citra if i'm not wrong again.

 

Thank you for listening! Wish you a happy ending of year and a very good beggining of the next 😁😁 

[Goodmango]

Don't worry . It is a fixable problem and there are three front end apps that fixed it. You need to wait for update of launch box to make it use the scoped storage.

[bundangdon]

3 hours ago, Goodmango said:

Don't worry . It is a fixable problem and there are three front end apps that fixed it. You need to wait for update of launch box to make it use the scoped storage.

@Goodmango I've noticed that you mentioned "three frontend apps" here and in another post that can handle AetherSX2. Which particular apps are you referring to?

[Goodmango]

Two of the front ends are paid only you can find on play store. One is free and you can get from their website. If the moderator approved it I can post their names.

[bundangdon]

3 hours ago, Goodmango said:

Two of the front ends are paid only you can find on play store. One is free and you can get from their website. If the moderator approved it I can post their names.

Let me guess. One of them starts with "Re..."?

[Goodmango]

You can say so .

[Jason Carr]

@Goodmango @bundangdon @GabiAle97 LaunchBox for Android 1.0-beta- 2 is out now, and AetherSX2 now works properly in my testing. Details are here:

That said, unfortunately none of the other related emulators that I tested are working properly with the new solution (Dolphin, PPSSPP, Mupen, etc.). It appears that AetherSX2 has implemented the content URIs properly, but the other emulators haven't yet. We can dive in with more details in the beta testing thread. I'm hoping to reach out to emulator developers to get those figured out here soon.

[Goodmango]

4 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

@Goodmango @bundangdon @GabiAle97 LaunchBox for Android 1.0-beta- 2 is out now, and AetherSX2 now works properly in my testing. Details are here:

That said, unfortunately none of the other related emulators that I tested are working properly with the new solution (Dolphin, PPSSPP, Mupen, etc.). It appears that AetherSX2 has implemented the content URIs properly, but the other emulators haven't yet. We can dive in with more details in the beta testing thread. I'm hoping to reach out to emulator developers to get those figured out here soon.

All you need is to contact mupen64 developer. The same solution for his emulator will work with PPSSPP, dolphin and all other emulators. By the way implementing aethersx2 to your front end is all you need for other emulators including mupen64 to work the way is the same and I am pretty sure aethersx2 implementing is the hardest of them all . 

[Jason Carr]

4 minutes ago, Goodmango said:

All you need is to contact mupen64 developer. The same solution for his emulator will work with PPSSPP, dolphin and all other emulators. By the way implementing aethersx2 to your front end is all you need for other emulators including mupen64 to work the way is the same and I am pretty sure aethersx2 implementing is the hardest of them all . 

Unfortunately I've already proven that they do not all require exactly the same solution. They may in the future, but the other emulators don't yet work as they should.

[Goodmango]

1 minute ago, Jason Carr said:

Unfortunately I've already proven that they do not all require exactly the same solution. They may in the future, but the other emulators don't yet work as they should.

What do you want to know. The the address that each emulator needs to launch the games.  Like this (org.mupen64plusae.v3.fzurita/paulscode.android.mupen64plusae.SplashActivity).

[Jason Carr]

37 minutes ago, Goodmango said:

What do you want to know. The the address that each emulator needs to launch the games.  Like this (org.mupen64plusae.v3.fzurita/paulscode.android.mupen64plusae.SplashActivity).

I have all that information. The problem is, I've tested using proper content URIs with Mupen64 Plus AE and it doesn't work to launch any games. Is there a frontend that it is working for?

[Goodmango]

27 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

I have all that information. The problem is, I've tested using proper content URIs with Mupen64 Plus AE and it doesn't work to launch any games. Is there a frontend that it is working for?

Yes there is . Do you want a name.

[GabiAle97]

@Jason Carr Thanks for the info! Will give it a try. Recently, tried another frontend that allows to edit launch properties with a "metadata.txt" file, and managed to get working PPSSPP, dolphin and AetherSX2. We can talk about that? PPSSPP needs an extra value named "org.ppsspp.ppsspp.Shortcuts" with the path in URI format like "content://com.android.externalstorage.documents", and that's the magic. With Dolphin was the same, but the extra value name was AutoStartFile. Give me a minute and will confirm if Mupen need the same 

Edited January 7, 2022 by GabiAle97

[Jason Carr]

On 1/7/2022 at 12:17 PM, GabiAle97 said:

@Jason Carr Thanks for the info! Will give it a try. Recently, tried another frontend that allows to edit launch properties with a "metadata.txt" file, and managed to get working PPSSPP, dolphin and AetherSX2. We can talk about that? PPSSPP needs an extra value named "org.ppsspp.ppsspp.Shortcuts" with the path in URI format like "content://com.android.externalstorage.documents", and that's the magic. With Dolphin was the same, but the extra value name was AutoStartFile. Give me a minute and will confirm if Mupen need the same 

I don't mind discussing other frontends by their real names, so don't worry about that. Pegasus actually doesn't use that URL format, assuming you're referring to Pegasus. It uses a format that is similar (the content:// type URL), but it does not use com.android.externalstorage.documents as far as I can tell. It uses a version of those URLs that is special to Pegasus. Ultimately, I'm doing the same thing as Pegasus in beta 2, at least as far as I can tell, but it does not appear to be working. So either I'm confused and missing something, or there's some misinformation going around here.

[Jason Carr]

The URLs that Pegasus uses are like this: content://org.pegasus_frontend.android.files/root/storage/6531-6431-Sony%20PSP/Adventures%20to%20Go!%20(USA).iso

For PPSSPP, this results in an error when launching the game (at least in my testing). The error is something like this:

Quote

Could not load game. Unknown file type: content://org.pegasus_frontend.android.files/root/storage/6531-6431-Sony%20PSP/Adventures%20to%20Go!%20(USA).iso

We're seeing the same issue, of course, when we try to launch pretty much all of the problematic emulators.

I'm just trying to figure out where the discrepancy is here.

[Goodmango]

Then why not do as Arc browser did. Use this link it may help you figure something out https://arcbrowser.com/safproxy

[Jason Carr]

Just to update this thread for anyone who hasn't been in the loop in the beta testing thread here:

We've successfully solved the issues with launching games on Android 11+ with Dolphin and Mupen64Plus FZ, because they've apparently been built correctly for the latest versions of Android. Unfortunately, though, several others have issues with their implementations, including AetherSX2, Citra, PPSSPP, and Redream. These emulators apparently don't yet support the proper content URIs for Android 11+. We're hoping to reach out to all of the development teams here soon. If anyone has a direct contact, please let me know.

To clarify, it may be possible to launch games with some of those emulators by popping up file browser dialogs that should really not be necessary, but we're trying to avoid that if possible for the best user experience. Arc Browser uses a hack to make them work that we would like to avoid, though we may end up doing something similar if absolutely necessary. Regardless, we're working hard to get these issues resolved, despite the unfortunate climate that Google has dumped on the emulation community with Android 11+.