First time importing games, got a problem and a question...

[FamShoppa]

First time using LaunchBox premium. Hoping to import games properly so that I don't have to re-do the process later on. Got an initial problem and a question...

...

PROBLEM: When I use the import wizard, it detects "HTML" files as games. This means I have to manually remove them from the list, which is very tedious and annoying.

For example, the folder structure looks like this: "Arcade > Games > Nintendo Entertainment System > PaperBoy 1"

Within that "PaperBoy 1" folder, I'll have the actual game (example "PaperBoy 1.nes") and an HTML file which is just a record of where I downloaded the game.

But when I use the "Import ROMs" wizard, it detects those HTML files as games:
IMAGE: https://i.ibb.co/Hd61544/Clipboard-Image-8.png

I even tried putting those HTML files in sub-folders, but that doesn't prevent it from being detected either.

I can't find any options in the settings to prevent this annoying behavior.

....

QUESTION: Can I set LaunchBox to keep scraped metadata/resources/pictures/trailers etc. within the individual game's folder?

Again, let me give you an example of my folder structure: "Arcade > Games > Nintendo Entertainment System > PaperBoy 1"

When the import wizard scans for those media/metadata resources, I'd like them to be placed in a sub-folder in that game's folder.
For example: "Arcade > Games > Nintendo Entertainment System > PaperBoy 1 > Resources"

 

Edited October 30, 2022 by FamShoppa

[Retro808]

LB is file agnostic. It does not care or know what is a game file or not. It just imports files. If you are using the “Scan Folder” method you need to ensure only the game file is there. If you have multiple files in a folder you need to either drag and drop the game file to start the import or use the rom file import option and manually select it. 

 

For your image question the answer is no. You can set a folder path for images, but they cannot be set for each game only for the platform as a whole. You can do this by right clicking the platform name in LB and editing. You will see a folders page where you can set the media folder. 

[FamShoppa]

22 minutes ago, Retro808 said:

LB is file agnostic. It does not care or know what is a game file or not. It just imports files. If you are using the “Scan Folder” method you need to ensure only the game file is there. If you have multiple files in a folder you need to either drag and drop the game file to start the import or use the rom file import option and manually select it. 

 

For your image question the answer is no. You can set a folder path for images, but they cannot be set for each game only for the platform as a whole. You can do this by right clicking the platform name in LB and editing. You will see a folders page where you can set the media folder. 

Thanks for the answers. But I think I have another major problem. The ROM import wizard (Tools > Import > ROM Files) is not importing my games.

I go through the wizard and put in all the console and metadata preferences...but when it closes the wizard window and scans, nothing gets added to LaunchBox.

There's no error message or anything. Part of that maybe that the scan goes so fast, I can't read what it's saying - then it just disappears without having added anything.

Any way I can send a log or something to the staff?

[FamShoppa]

14 minutes ago, FamShoppa said:

Thanks for the answers. But I think I have another major problem. The ROM import wizard (Tools > Import > ROM Files) is not importing my games.

I go through the wizard and put in all the console and metadata preferences...but when it closes the wizard window and scans, nothing gets added to LaunchBox.

There's no error message or anything. Part of that maybe that the scan goes so fast, I can't read what it's saying - then it just disappears without having added anything.

Any way I can send a log or something to the staff?

Okay, I think I know what happened here.

At the end of the import routine, I did not enter any titles for the games. I thought the wizard would do that automatically for me.

Because the title fields were blank, it was not adding the games to LaunchBox.

Once I manually entered titles, then it added the games.

In the future, I hope the developers can add error messages to the program...so we know why the import failed. This took me a needlessly long time to figure out on my own.

[neil9000]

21 minutes ago, FamShoppa said:

, I did not enter any titles for the games. I thought the wizard would do that automatically for me.

what do you mean by this? The import wizard is a automated process, you drag and drop your roms, or point Launchbox at a folder or specific file, and it reads the contents and shows you a list of what it is going to import, you dont enter game names manually anywhere.

23 minutes ago, FamShoppa said:

Because the title fields were blank, it was not adding the games to LaunchBox

If the import wizard comes up with a blank box to import than that is 99% of the time because you already have those games imported.

Sounds like you may be well served by taking a look at a import tutorial, we have tons of them in our tutorial playlist on our YouTube channel.

 

[Retro808]

46 minutes ago, FamShoppa said:

Okay, I think I know what happened here.

At the end of the import routine, I did not enter any titles for the games. I thought the wizard would do that automatically for me.

Because the title fields were blank, it was not adding the games to LaunchBox.

Once I manually entered titles, then it added the games.

In the future, I hope the developers can add error messages to the program...so we know why the import failed. This took me a needlessly long time to figure out on my own.

As @neil9000 already mentioned if you get to the end of the import and nothing is there LB already has the file. To confirm this next time, if you use the back button in the import wizard and click back until you see the option to "Force Import Duplicate" and click that when you then proceed through the importer again you will see the item show up. No error message for the devs to add as the import did not fail. There was just nothing to import. 

 

[FamShoppa]

20 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

what do you mean by this? The import wizard is a automated process, you drag and drop your roms, or point Launchbox at a folder or specific file, and it reads the contents and shows you a list of what it is going to import, you dont enter game names manually anywhere.

If the import wizard comes up with a blank box to import than that is 99% of the time because you already have those games imported.

Sounds like you may be well served by taking a look at a import tutorial, we have tons of them in our tutorial playlist on our YouTube channel.

 

Okay, let me go over what I was doing.

As I said before, I initiate the ROM import wizard:
Tools > Import > ROM Files

I point it to my games folder, and specifically the console folder for "Nintendo Entertainment System":
A:\DataBase\Programs\-- Arcade --\[Games]\Nintendo Entertainment System

Then I go through the wizard and check all my desired metadata options. No real problem here.

I think the final "Ready to import" screen is what was causing my import problems.
If you look at this image, the title fields are all empty:


It was only after I started manually adding titles that the games started importing properly.

So previously, I had problems with my "NES" content.
To make sure it wasn't some one-off problem...I just repeated the process with my N64 content...and same thing again.
As that screenshot above shows, the title fields are blank. Then when I press 'Finish', it does a quick scanning animation - but nothing imports.

As with the past attempt with NES content...if I go back into the wizard and manually enter titles for this N64 games, then LaunchBox will properly import my games.

[Retro808]

@FamShoppa Ah, so something is in the last screen, but the titles were missing. Different than I think what Neil and myself were understanding. Seems like I saw something like this in another post quite a bit back. What version LB are you on? 

[FamShoppa]

1 minute ago, Retro808 said:

@FamShoppa Ah, so something is in the last screen, but the titles were missing. Different than I think what Neil and myself were understanding. Seems like I saw something like this in another post quite a bit back. What version LB are you on? 

I have the LaunchBox current version: 12.16

One of my theories is that maybe my folder/file naming convention might be causing problems with LaunchBox.

Here's the format for all my games, regardless of console:
A:\DataBase\Programs\-- Arcade --\[Games]\Nintendo Entertainment System\[ExciteBike] [NES-EB-USA] [USA]\[ExciteBike] [NES-EB-USA] [USA].nes

Maybe the brackets or length of paths are causing problems?

[neil9000]

Man those roms are poorly named. Anything in brackets is ignored for the game name, so yes its your rom names that are a issue here, i see in your mario gold rom it actually has the game name twice, both times brackated, so ignored by the scraper.

 

[FamShoppa]

11 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Man those roms are poorly named. Anything in brackets is ignored for the game name, so yes its your rom names that are a issue here, i see in your mario gold rom it actually has the game name twice, both times brackated, so ignored by the scraper.

 

The "Mario Golf" game file itself wasn't named twice. What you're seeing is the folder name - and then the file name. They are the same.

Earlier, I had a different naming convention...
Folder: [ExciteBike] [NES-EB-USA] [USA]
File: ExciteBike (USA).nes

Even that had a problem importing.

But let me test your theory by removing all the brackets on the game file names.

I'll report back in 10 minutes (thanks for the help, by the way)...

[FamShoppa]

1 hour ago, neil9000 said:

Man those roms are poorly named. Anything in brackets is ignored for the game name, so yes its your rom names that are a issue here, i see in your mario gold rom it actually has the game name twice, both times brackated, so ignored by the scraper.

 

Yes! It works now. 

New naming convention (where brackets are only used for the serial):
Folder: ExciteBike [NES-EB-USA]
File: ExciteBike [NES-EB-USA].nes

Only noticed one glitch. And that was when I had named the game "PaperBoy" as "PaperBoy 1". The inclusion of "1" caused LaunchBox not to recognize the game properly. So after renaming that to remove the number, it was recognized and imported fully.

I think you guys should mention this bracket issue/requirement in the import wizard text. Or maybe just allow the program to read text within brackets.

[neil9000]

1 minute ago, FamShoppa said:

Or maybe just allow the program to read text within brackets.

It does read this information and is used for data points, but is ignored in the actual game name. At the end of the day we cannot account for everything, and ill be honest in saying that your roms are the worse named roms i have seen, I would suggest looking elsewhere for your roms, and specifically look for "No Intro" romsets, they are the standard for good roms, as well as having what is the standard for naming, which is game name, then any extra info like regions, versions ect bracketed, like below.

 

[FamShoppa]

2 hours ago, neil9000 said:

It does read this information and is used for data points, but is ignored in the actual game name. At the end of the day we cannot account for everything, and ill be honest in saying that your roms are the worse named roms i have seen, I would suggest looking elsewhere for your roms, and specifically look for "No Intro" romsets, they are the standard for good roms, as well as having what is the standard for naming, which is game name, then any extra info like regions, versions ect bracketed, like below.

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Hi sorry to keep bothering you guys, but I just noticed another weird buggy behavior.

For some reason, one particular game disappears from LaunchBox every time I restart it - or launch Big Box.

I scanned and added the following game ("PaperBoy"):
A:\DataBase\Programs\-- Arcade --\[Games]\Nintendo Entertainment System\PaperBoy [NES-PY-USA]\PaperBoy [NES-PY-USA].nes

It seems to be added normally. It's got all the images and metadata.

But again, as soon as I exit LaunchBox and restart it - or launch Big Box...this particular game disappears from LaunchBox.

Any possible reason this could be happening?

 

[FamShoppa]

3 hours ago, FamShoppa said:

Hi sorry to keep bothering you guys, but I just noticed another weird buggy behavior.

For some reason, one particular game disappears from LaunchBox every time I restart it - or launch Big Box.

I scanned and added the following game ("PaperBoy"):
A:\DataBase\Programs\-- Arcade --\[Games]\Nintendo Entertainment System\PaperBoy [NES-PY-USA]\PaperBoy [NES-PY-USA].nes

It seems to be added normally. It's got all the images and metadata.

But again, as soon as I exit LaunchBox and restart it - or launch Big Box...this particular game disappears from LaunchBox.

Any possible reason this could be happening?

 

So I had to keep adding this game multiple times...and it would keep disappearing after restarts.

But I've finally gotten it to stay...and I'm not why this worked.
After adding the game, I right clicked it and pressed "Edit Metadata".
I didn't really do anything on the pop-up, but after I pressed "OK" to close the window...it essentially solved the problem.

Now the game does not disappear when closing LaunchBox or initiating Big Box.

Just thought I'd mention for any fellow noob who has this problem.

[Retro808]

1 hour ago, FamShoppa said:

So I had to keep adding this game multiple times...and it would keep disappearing after restarts.

But I've finally gotten it to stay...and I'm not why this worked.
After adding the game, I right clicked it and pressed "Edit Metadata".
I didn't really do anything on the pop-up, but after I pressed "OK" to close the window...it essentially solved the problem.

Now the game does not disappear when closing LaunchBox or initiating Big Box.

Just thought I'd mention for any fellow noob who has this problem.

Usually something like this happens when there is conflicting xaml files in the \Data\Platform folder. Look in your \Data\Platforms folder are there any platform xaml files in there that may be named Nintendo Entertainment System_Backup.xaml or Nintendo Entertainment System_Copy.xaml?

[FamShoppa]

9 hours ago, Retro808 said:

Usually something like this happens when there is conflicting xaml files in the \Data\Platform folder. Look in your \Data\Platforms folder are there any platform xaml files in there that may be named Nintendo Entertainment System_Backup.xaml or Nintendo Entertainment System_Copy.xaml?

Currently there is not. Could be because my non-sensical triggering of the metadata screen for that game solved any underlying problem.

But I will keep this tip in mind if I see the problem again.

Thanks fo the tip!