Copying clones along with roms and finding out missing roms.

[Opus132]

So i'm toying with the idea of having a rom set that contains only what i have in launchbox, but the copy/rom tool told me only main roms are copied, while clones are ignored. Is there a way to also include clones, may a plug in or something? 

Also, while changing the path to my rom folder, launchbox told me i have 12 games with no corrispondent rom. I guess i may have accidentally erased those roms while making experiments in weeding out the shaft. Is there a tool to localize those specific games with missing roms? Since launchbox reported to me that they are missing i assume it has an internal way to detect this stuff, right? 

BTW this is while using a non-merged set. 

Edited Wednesday at 10:48 AM by Opus132

[JoeViking245]

39 minutes ago, Opus132 said:

the copy/rom tool told me only main roms are copied, while clones are ignored. Is there a way to also include clones, may a plug in or something? 

It's the Additional Apps that get ignored.  If you combined your ROMs during import, then the clones (depending on your region priorities) are what's in the Additional Apps.

 

43 minutes ago, Opus132 said:

Also, while changing the path to my rom folder, launchbox told me i have 12 games with no corrispondent rom

I can see this happening with a merged. But you indicated you have a non-merged set.  Have to ask, are you positive it's a non-merged set [and not a merged set]?  Did you check any of those 12 to see if they actually don't (or do still) launch?

MAME ROMs in LaunchBox are handled a little differently than conventional ROMs.  Especially with the possibility of users having non-merged, merged, or even split sets.  With merged sets, the clone ROM files don't physically exist.  This is why you can't (or rather, shouldn't) use Scan for Removed ROMs.

 

56 minutes ago, Opus132 said:

Since launchbox reported to me that they are missing i assume it has an internal way to detect this stuff, right? 

Well, it looks at the path_to_the_ROM. Then it checks if that file physically exists.

 

I'd verify that those 12 indicated games do indeed not launch.  When (if) moving your MAME ROMs and using the File Management feature to reassign their location, they should still work.  And the missing ROMs (in the case of MAME) may be misleading.

[Opus132]

I think what i'm going to do is split all the additional apps (i think i saw the option to do it not sure, i'll have to check tonight), copy all the roms somewhere else with the thing in file management, then restore my backup so the split clones revert to bieng additional apps.

As for the 12 games, the problem is that i don't know what they are. Launchbox tells me that they exist, but it doesn't tell me which games are they. However, since it can detect them, i assume there is a way to identify them. I guess what i could do is just download the entire merged set again, copy the roms with the option in tools, move the rom folder somewhere else and see if launchbox tells me there's missing roms when i point to the new folder.

[JoeViking245]

19 minutes ago, Opus132 said:

As for the 12 games, the problem is that i don't know what they are. Launchbox tells me that they exist, but it doesn't tell me which games are they. However, since it can detect them, i assume there is a way to identify them.

Again, it scans the imported games you have and "verifies" each games' path_to_the_file.  Chances are, you have a ton of games in your Arcade platform and you may never come across [to play] the missing ones.  

 

24 minutes ago, Opus132 said:

I guess what i could do is just download the entire merged set again

Going back to your original post... do you mean non-merged set?  Because as stated, a merged set will create the issue you're seeing with "missing ROMs".  Which really, isn't an "issue" with a merged set.  Think of it as a false-positive.

At this point, with your ROMs in their new location/drive, you could remove your existing platform then do a 'fresh' import on the ROMs [from the new location].  Combining the clones in with the parent ROMs as additional apps if you wish.

 

[Opus132]

On 4/30/2025 at 6:25 PM, JoeViking245 said:

 Chances are, you have a ton of games in your Arcade platform and you may never come across [to play] the missing ones.  

 

My OCD is not gonna let this go i fear. 

The thing is that launchbox does have a way to identify them. It told me about them, told me how many there are, so it clearly has a way to detect games with missing roms. All i would need is for launchbox to give me an actual list of those games. 

I think this is likely not a problem many people have ever had to deal with (you need the roms to import games so how can they go missing?), but for the record i've been playing around with pre-made xml platforms (like the Pre Configuration Project) and there's missing roms there too, around seven (i think MAME may be changing rom names with some of their updates), so it would be useful to have a way to know which games have missing roms. 

[JoeViking245]

If you indeed have a non-merged set (and not a merged set), you could use Tools - Scan - Scan for Removed ROMs.  That'll bring up a message box with "the list". You can then highlight and copy the contents of that message box to a text file. Or wherever.

But it's limited to showing only a certain amount.  So if you have a ton of ROMs missing, you may need to do it in stages.

 

6 hours ago, Opus132 said:

i've been playing around with pre-made xml platforms (like the Pre Configuration Project) and there's missing roms there too, around seven (i think MAME may be changing rom names with some of their updates)

And there it is.   

Also, MAME rarely changes ROM names.  And usually when they do, it's actually a re-naming of a ROM.

i.e. the game 1942 (1942.zip)  When they had the Revision A ROM, it was named 1942.zip.  Then when they came across Revision B, 1942.zip became 1942a.zip, and Rev. B became 1942.zip.

 

6 hours ago, Opus132 said:

My OCD is not gonna let this go i fear. 

With certain disorders comes great personal responsibility.

 

If the Scan mentioned above doesn't fill the void enough, you may want to Request a Feature. (Top if this page under Help & Support)

[Opus132]

3 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

If you indeed have a non-merged set (and not a merged set), you could use Tools - Scan - Scan for Removed ROMs.  That'll bring up a message box with "the list".

 

There we go exactly what i was looking for, haha. 

 

3 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

Also, MAME rarely changes ROM names.  And usually when they do, it's actually a re-naming of a ROM.

i.e. the game 1942 (1942.zip)  When they had the Revision A ROM, it was named 1942.zip.  Then when they came across Revision B, 1942.zip became 1942a.zip, and Rev. B became 1942.zip

 

That... sort of makes it worse. Now i can't be sure if a game that DOES have a rom is actually attached to the right one. Say i imported the full set with all the clones as additional apps. Now a version of MAME comes out that changes the name so the apps are now linked to a different ROM than before. If you imported the roms yourself i guess you can be on top of it by checking out the changes whenever MAME releases a new version but if you are using an older xml like the one from the Pre Configuration set it's gonna be a bit harder. Guess the easiest would be to just check the changes of each MAME release since the file was created and make a note of any rom name change. 

So for reference this are the roms that are missing with the Pre Configuration xml file on a non-merged 0.277 set: 

Now Akai Katana and DoDonPachi have actually been pulled out of MAME for legal reasons and i'm guessing JoJo too, and i think the rest are TIL games. 

Should probably take this to the Pre Config thread in case some other n00b like me runs into this issue. 

Edited Friday at 04:14 PM by Opus132