"Export for Android" and file management tools bugs

[PHOSPHENE]

Launchbox 13.5
windows 11
romset - MAME .256 split, plus a handful of CHD folders thrown in

I'm trying to put some games, plus their associated media, onto my phone. But not all of my games. Yaknow, I don't need a billion gigabytes of unusable ROMs taking up space on my phone.

problem 1 - "Export to android" copies the entire MAME romset, even when the "export these select games only" option is selected.
problem 2 - "export/copy ROM files from selected games to new folder" only works properly when the new folder is placed in the same directory as the ROMS. Otherwise, it copies the entire romset into a new folder
problem 3 - neither of these options copy the associated CHD folders. And none of the associated movie files are copied, although the images seem to be.

When setting up Launchbox on my windows pc, I imported the entire MAME .256 romset(~40,000 files/~71GB). But I used the default filter settings. So I ended up with ~2900 mame games appearing in launchbox. The import filter is great, and worked as expected.

Then I proceeded to import and configure various other platforms. That also worked as expected.

After getting everything up and running, I wanted to put my games+media onto my phone.

So I used the "export to android" wizard, and selected the "export my whole collection" option. I expected "whole collection" to mean the ~2900 mame games appearing within Launchbox. But it copied the entire MAME .256 romset....all 71GB worth,
So, next, i tried the "export selected games only" option....same problem, the entire 71GB romset was copied.
Next, i tried isolating the ~2900 MAME ROMs with the "export/copy ROM files from selected games to new folder" feature. Again, all 71GB of ROMs were copied, instead of just the selected ones.
Finally, I tried the "export/copy ROM files from selected games to new folder" feature, but this time, i pointed the destination of the new folder to inside my MAME rom directory. This finally isolated the ~2900 ROMs into their own folder. But, of course, with this option, none of the associated images or videos are copied along with them.

 

[faeran]

What you are running into here is due to MAME and how their romsets function. LaunchBox has no way of knowing which type of romset you have imported, and there's a 66% chance (actually probably more) that the game you are exporting will be missing dependency files that allow the game to run. MAME is not essentially always 1 game = 1 file. Depending on the game, and romset type, it could range from 1 file = many games, to 1 game = many files. To get around this, your entire set is exported to make sure all games function. An exception here is your CHD files. Depending on where you have your CHD files located, it's possible that LaunchBox will not pull those over, and you'll need to manually place them in the correct location on your Android device.

Something to note is that current romset versions of MAME on Android devices is hit and miss as there's no official MAME app on that platform.

Export/copy ROM files will run into similar issues, however I'm pretty sure it will allow you to move files from it, but judging by your romset size, it will break a lot of the games by doing so due to missing dependency files, so I would watch out there.

 

 

[furbs]

Just giving this a bump.

I've having the same issue where the Export to Android is exporting the entire ROMSet (0.262) whether I use a Merged or Non-Merged set.

Launchbox version 13.11

[faeran]

24 minutes ago, furbs said:

Just giving this a bump.

I've having the same issue where the Export to Android is exporting the entire ROMSet (0.262) whether I use a Merged or Non-Merged set.

Launchbox version 13.11

This is still working as-intended, where exporting a MAME set will always copy the entire folder of ROMs to make sure games work while on the other side. My previous post lists some of the challenges with it.

I'm not sure when this will get reviewed to see if there's a possibility to add in something specific for users that are using non-merged sets.

[furbs]

1 hour ago, faeran said:

This is still working as-intended, where exporting a MAME set will always copy the entire folder of ROMs to make sure games work while on the other side. My previous post lists some of the challenges with it.

I'm not sure when this will get reviewed to see if there's a possibility to add in something specific for users that are using non-merged sets.

Ah I re-read your post and see what you mean about LB not knowing if you're merged or not. Yeah probably needs a check box/drop down during the export process to select non-merged or not then a notification/summary if you're on a merged set and then hopefully LB can work from there.

Thanks for the explainer.