Import list empty upon selecting folder (No-Intro or regular , plain text naming)

[Gryzor1363]

Hi, 

 

It's been a day that I've been fiddling with Launchbox after several weeks contemplating it as a universal frontend over my existing Mame installation and arcade/console/computer collection. And gosh did I not make the good decision : it simply rocks, more than anything I've tried before. Hats down on the software. Scraping is done and fully functional for my main platforms(NES, SNES, Amstrad CPC).

As per recommendation on the Discord, I'm migrating issue here.
So here's the situation, as an update from my Discord message since I have refined some observations since : 

E-very time I try to import ROMs via the wizard, with the folders or file addition, little to no titles are ever recognized. Sometimes a bunch, say 4 or 5 out of dozens or hundreds are, but most of the time, it is plain zero.

And this is true no matter what I pick in the final phase of the wizard ("move", "copy" or "don't touch" files), or whatever the tickboxes related to clones and types at the very last screen before the end of the wizard.

The latest folder in question is one containing a No-Intro Sega Genesis Rompack, all in .zip format, that I will use as an example for this topic, since the very same anomaly occurs.

Now the workaround : Upon exiting to exit the wizard, a dialog box will then display that "0 games were imported", as described above, which is logical as the list was empty before. I will note that the Genesis platform in question is not added in the left panel list, again a logical expectation as a platform with 0 games is probably not validated by LB's code as a "real one". 

BUT : from this point on, performing a Scan "on all platforms" will finally detect all related games for the selected Genesis folder that so far was hopelessly missed.

After I validate the Scan wizard alleluya , LB starts scraping metadata like a champ and the new platform, here the Genesis, is also created on the left pane. So basically problem solved and I have been working this way ever since for any addition.

And to emphasize : that issue has been true to every single of the platforms I added so far : Amstrad CPC folder containing .dsk disk images with no naming convention other than simple names (of which 99% were still properly recognized by the scraper's parser after applying the same workaround, which is just great btw), also Nintendo NES and SNES , both having separate folders containing both .nes, .sfc and ZIPs containing one or the other dump type. Pretty much all of the files are detected and parsed, again with a massive success rate with or without No-Intro or GoodRom compliance (I have both).

 

To illustrate my use case : 

 

Manual selecting of ROMs taken from the No-Intro pack,for you to see the actual names, but please note that my regular, unconventional "favorites folders" behaves exactly the same by performing the same steps.

Setting the parser to Genesis mode

 

Setting MAME, my fully configured and ready, regular emulator that works just fine with LB with a custom command line for every platform :

 

Setting LB to work on my files where they are

UPDATE : I noticed that my workaround does not work if I use any other option than "Copy the files", so please disregard the illustrated choice, and consider I picked the first one : Copy the files. Behavior remains exactly the same afterwards.

Leaving the default metadata search option : 

Leaving out the Arcade artwork : 

 

I'll spare you the screenshots of Emumovies and Bezels being ignored (unchecked).

Final options : 

MAME-specific options left untouched (note that anyway the behavior is the same if I uncheck all the tickboxes and whatever value I set the clone import option to, or the region to prioritize)

Scan results : empty list. You remember I used a No-Intro folder with proper naming for that example, but the same empty list appears applied to my "favorites" folders.

Final dialog box : 

Now, upon going to the Manage ==> Platform page. You can see the Genesis entry created with 0 games. 
Note that at this point, the Genesis is not present on the left pane among my other active platforms.

Then on to the platform editing page, I will point the default LB path to the actual favorites folder that I wanted to import : 

Upon validating the path change, LB asks whether I want to migrate existing metadata to the new path, I guess this is irrelevant considering there are none so far, but anyway I clicked yes to be sure there are no leftovers on the previous default paths for further processing.

Now, let's run Tools ==> Scan.

Boom, my games, listed. Regardless of whether these are No-Intro or not, it works similarly upon completing these steps.

Besides, had I changed the folder to the No-Intro on my hard-drive and not my favorites, all the sets would be appearing here. I tested both, but again I'll spare you even more screenshots as you get the point.

The scraper then works normally and I can enjoy the greatness of your software they way it should.

 

Edited January 5, 2023 by Gryzor1363

[C-Beats]

Sounds a lot like you have one of the "Hide Games Missing..." options on and have already imported the games the first time. Go to the View > Show/Hide menu in LaunchBox and make sure none of the "Hide Games Missing..." options are checked. Another good way to check if the import is saying "0 files found" or no games are listed in the last page of the wizard is to go back to the import options page and select "Force Import duplicate games" and then continue. If they then show up, you already have the games imported into your collection.

[Gryzor1363]

I tried both options, and nothing appears. changing the Show/Hide just briefly refreshed my existing platform list and did not show even an empty instance of the Sega Genesis on the left pane.
Going through the import again and setting it to Genesis by ticking "Force Import" produced an empty list again as well.

I really need to go through manual edition of the platforms via Manage -> Platforms that then shows the machine with 0 titles and I can set the path to where I want, then I can finally see the contents being listed.

And as stated earlier, that workaround only works if I set the "Copy Files into my LB games folders" in the Wizard process, otherwise even that move doesn't work and the new platform won't even show up empty on the management list for me to set the default LB path to mine and make it work.

It seems that the inital , regular Wizard for some reason doesn't trigger detection and parsing of my custom folders, and the workaround I described somehow resets it properly.

PS : I suddenly realize one thing : I performed an earlier install of LB on the default system path a few weeks ago. By then I didn't have much spare time to delve deeper into it and needed to maximize space on my drive, so I uninstalled it (clean, via the uninstaller).
Then yesterday I re-installed it but on my custom, D:\Emulation\Launch Box path.

Could it be that some of the registry values for LB are overlapping and making it look in the wrong places in the first scan during the wizard phase ?

Edited January 5, 2023 by Gryzor1363

[C-Beats]

To be honest a lot of what you're saying doesn't make a ton of sense to me. We don't pay ANY attention to the folder path the game is in unless you tell us to via import. LaunchBox is entirely portable as well and we don't save anything to a shared space or registry entry.

Could you show me what the contents of your genesis rom folder looks like so I can see? Also a pic of the options you are using in the import would help a lot.

[C-Beats]

I'd also make sure you aren't pointing to a MAME emulator when doing the imports as the import wizard acts differently when doing so and could cause issues as well.

[C-Beats]

Just saw you added pictures to your initial post. Yeah the fact that you're pointing to MAME as the emulator is the issue. When using MAME as the emulator we ask MAME for info on the game you're passing, and since non arcade titles are SWL entries it doesn't return any info and so LB see's it as an invalid rom. If you change that entry to something else you should be good to go.

[Gryzor1363]

1 hour ago, C-Beats said:

To be honest a lot of what you're saying doesn't make a ton of sense to me. We don't pay ANY attention to the folder path the game is in unless you tell us to via import. LaunchBox is entirely portable as well and we don't save anything to a shared space or registry entry.

Could you show me what the contents of your genesis rom folder looks like so I can see? Also a pic of the options you are using in the import would help a lot.

Damn, you mean I'm still poorly comprehensible here ? if so really sorry for that. I really wanted to take due time to illustrate my every step for you guys to be able to at least see in detail the scenarios I went through, and not even primarily for myself, as I already have an effective workaround. I actually raised this just in case it helps for future users facing the same issue or a similar one.

Now I followed your advice on not selecting MAME outright in the Wizard, skipped it and did the other steps, and the parser detected the content and populated the ROM list, as intended. This is just perfect, thank you so much C-Beats !After that I just need to go to Manage -> Emulators and add a platform association to the newly created one. Just for my technical curiosity, can we deduce that my workaround somehow "bypassed" LB's MAME queries and so make it work in an indirect way ? 

If I may it would be great to have a disclaimer at this very stage of the wizard relating the "malfunctions" incurred for non-arcade games (just like there is one already when trying to add a platform manually and even another one elsewhere related to MAME but for some other use case, IIRC). Indeed instinctively, if MAME is our emulator of choice, then we'll just instantly set it as such and move forward without second thoughts. Again, it's just a humble user-lever suggestion and nothing more, considering I might not be the only one facing the unintended issue of empty lists. The tool is super-powerful and really impressive as it is, and I'm talking mere cosmetics based on my personal opinion considering what I went through.

Btw here is my "favorites" folder with the unconventional naming, provided it still relevant, which I doubt, but for information purposes, know that this list was perfectly parsed by LB. It really is not that demanding in terms of convention, we're really far from Software list requirements, it is greatly appreciated too and one of the core reason I've jumped in the bandwagon for good.
Big Box could well be the next step provided I solve the settings.xml corruption that you might remember from the Discord yesterday (I won't veer off-topic here, but if you could just tell me whether it too deserved a dedicated topic here or I should bump it on the chat ? thx)

 

 

 

Edited January 5, 2023 by Gryzor1363

[C-Beats]

No need to apologize, I just didn't realize you added images to the OP instead of replying with them. MAME really shouldn't be used for non-arcade games unless it the only thing that can play them. RetroArch or stand alone emulators are better for pretty much every system they cover. I admit the assumption is on our end that people would only use MAME for MAME games and can see how that can cause some confusion. Staff is aware of the issue and we'll discuss internally if we want to make any changes to the process.

[Gryzor1363]

I'm glad I we were able to sort this out , your help was key on that little subtlety. From now on I will know about it, and will certainly be on the lookout to help any user seemingly affected with the same problem on the Discord.

I have indeed been watching Retroarch for quite some time, its compatibility level, interface + features being attractive enough for everything non-arcade. But as a relatively active tester for the MAME team, I can see first hand that they have been able to make key strides of their own in recent times on handling of missing functions and instructions on most 8/16 bit era hardware, namely Nes, Snes and MSX cores. Even the more complex Sega CD, despite being marked as "non-working" by the database, can actually run a wide variety of games now. Not a single game of my multi-system collection is broken via Mame, and we're talking about a couple hundred titles. For anything 32-bit and beyond though, Retroarch is clearly king, and I recommend it as well.
There's also the issue of adapting and acquiring the needed expertise on handling Retroarch, its configuration structure, fine-tuning of shaders, etc which would take me months at least to get on par with my knowledge on Mame that dates back 15 years.

If I may ask one final question in connection to this topic.
As you well know, Mame's console command varies in parameters and arguments from one core to the other.
For instance, we have :

Mame nes -cart <full_path_to_rom> for a Nintendo Nes

Mame snes -cart <full_path_to_rom> for a Nintendo Snes

Mame cpc6128 -floppydisk1 <full_path_to_floppy_dump> for an Amstrad CPC

Mame segacd -cdrom <full_path_to_disc_iso> for the Sega CD

Etc...

So when I set the command line format in LB, it works for a given platform. Then I have to change it again when I want to switch to another.
Is there any way to set different emulator profiles per platform for one and the same emulator, by any chance ?


Thanks again,

 

Cheers

Edited January 5, 2023 by Gryzor1363

[JoeViking245]

2 hours ago, Gryzor1363 said:

Is there any way to set different emulator profiles per platform for one and the same emulator, by any chance ?

Yes.  Looking at soft-lists for stand-alone MAME (as an example), edit your MAME emulator and add them accordingly in the Associated Platforms section.

To make these work (as shown), you'll need to add your software lists folder to your mame.ini "rompath = " line.  Or, in each of the Default Command-line Parameters for each Platform, add "-rompath %romlocation%" (without quotes).

i.e.

-rompath %romlocation% nes -cart
-rompath %romlocation% snes -cart
-rompath %romlocation% cpc6128 -floppydisk1

I've never done it this way (via the command-line for soft-lists), but I assume the parameters are OK in this order.

[Gryzor1363]

Holy cow, thank you @JoeViking245 !

 

indeed how on earth could I miss the default command line parameter column is a mystery to me. I went to that association menu so many times... probably something to do with being up at 4AM and tinkering with LB as a noob for 5 hours straight , that is 😛

Didn't even need to adjust the mame.ini or the machine-specific INIs of my existing configuration tree (I take it from one of the Mame developers, the -rompath entry is a deprecated legacy that is better left alone if alternatives exist) all I needed to do was to apply your solution #1, as your screengrab aptly showed.
I simply added the cpc6128f/nes/snes/genesis_tmss along with their respective arguments and voilà, all of them now work when I go from one platform to another.

Gosh the power of LB combined with Mame's versatility, the pair make wonders. When I'm done with the settings.xml issue, I'll prepare for the Big Box step, not much doubt about it left 😛

2 days ago seems like a lifetime away from my current experience, interacting with you guys on the Discord and here was such an enriching experience, thank you both. I'll be sure to help other and regularly monitor the Discord if people ever face issues similar to mine.

PS : you , sir, seem to have a lot of machines up your sleeve lol ^^

Edited January 6, 2023 by Gryzor1363

[JoeViking245]

You're welcome.  Glad it's all working as intended.  

 

8 minutes ago, Gryzor1363 said:

you , sir, seem to have a lot of machines up your sleeve

lol  Those are only there because of testing for my Software List Importer plugin.  I've only ever played any one of those just long enough to say "Yup. It works.".  

[Gryzor1363]

1 hour ago, JoeViking245 said:

lol  Those are only there because of testing for my Software List Importer plugin.  I've only ever played any one of those just long enough to say "Yup. It works.".  

Ahah did that too but just a couple of times for the Amiga for a bunch of titles, and the MSX for the two Metal Gear cartridges lol

Btw when you say you tested the plugin, you mean you actually have a softlist-compliant MESS Romsets to begin with ? and this plugin car sort through "real names" based on the contracted version recognized by Mame ? if that's it, then it's awesome.

I actually tried to do the opposite through rom management tools, going from No-Intro to soft-list names for use with MAME. My repeated failures in those attempts that culminated in partly breaking my collection by trying apps like "Jromcenter" are the mainreasons why I opted for the scraping philosophy instead, hence my presence here as a happy newcomer to the LB community. Soft-list management is too niche and obscure for me to keep on trying again and again in figuring out how to sort them outside of Mame...

Edited January 6, 2023 by Gryzor1363