Launchbox "Scrape as" not really working??

[Hazuki]

Hi,

Lunchbox is acting a little odd, and I can't really figure out what's wrong.

Just for a little background info.

I have been using lunchbox for years. I have just gotten a new NAS and I'm in the process of sorting roms and adding platforms.
This NAS is massive compared to what I was using, so I really want to get my games in a nice good organised structure.

So before starting I did some testing and everything was working fine. I sort my platforms like so

.
└── Console/
    ├── Nintendo GameCube/
    │   ├── Nintendo GameCube
    │   ├── Nintendo GameCube (Demos)
    │   └── Nintendo GameCube (Japan)
    ├── Sega Dreamcast/
    │   ├── Sega Dreamcast
    │   ├── Sega Dreamcast (Japan)
    │   └── Sega Dreamcast (Translations)
    └── Sony PlayStation/
        ├── Sony PlayStation
        ├── Sony PlayStation (Hacks)
        └── Sony PlayStation (Japan)

So when I import the roms, I start with the "main" platform, for example "Nintendo GameCube" then, once its done I'll do the "secondary" platforms, "Nintendo GameCube (Japan)"

So I'll name it "Nintendo GameCube (Japan)" and scrape it as "Nintendo GameCube"

So I did this for about 15 platforms. Once its scanning I left it and came back and just added the next one.

So far so go

So I looked in the platform "Nintendo GameCube (Japan)" I saw that about 1/3 of the games had no metadata. First I thought that maybe the games aren't in the database, but after looking a bit more, I could see games that I knew where in the database.

So I selected "Edit metadata" on a game and it was found at once. But the platform gets changed from "Nintendo GameCube (Japan)" to "Nintendo GameCube", so I had to manually change this on ever game I updated.

This was a couple of days ago. So yesterday I added "Sony PlayStation". Everything went fine, and after that I added "Sony PlayStation (Japan)", and for some reason it just doesn't work as expected.

There's over 2500 files in the folder and only a handful of games got metadata. I pressed Ctrl+A and tried updating the metadata, but nothing gets updated.

So I delete the platform from lunchbox and import it again. Same name "Sony PlayStation (Japan)" and again scraped as "Sony PlayStation", this time lunchbox starts downloading all the metadata for the games. 

So for some reason its working?

I see that "GameCube (Japan)" doesn't have an icon. Under edit platform the "Scrape As" is blank. Changing it back to GameCube and the icon is there.

Looking in "Parents" and its parent is "Root"

All info like CPU is blank.

Looking at "Sony PlayStation (Japan)" and the scrape as is this time "Sony PlayStation" but the parent is "Root" and again no info.

Then checking "Sega Dreamcast (Japan)" and the "Scrape As" is "Sega Dreamcast" and the parent is "Consoles". Here all the info is filled in.

So what I want to know is how to get Lunchbox to import platforms the same ever time.
How to get Lunchbox to use the "Scrape as" and not just remove it after/during import process 

[Hazuki]

Importing Nintendo 64 and Sega Saturn, using the standard names. The same setting all the way. Nintendo 64 is all good, but Saturn has imported all the games, but the game folder isn't the one I selected during the import process. Its the default Launchbox folder instead. So adding a game or two later will not be imported automatically, without changing this. 

At seams random what launchbox actually saves from the import process.

Anyone had any of this problems? Anyone know what I should try next?

Edited Wednesday at 06:17 AM by Hazuki

[faeran]

How did you go about importing your Japanese games?

I ran a little test to see if I could duplicate this. I had a folder of N64 Japanese ROMs (no-intro) and I dragged and dropped them into LaunchBox, went through the wizard. Gave the platform the name Nintendo 64 (Japan), with a scrape as value of Nintendo 64 and every single game got matched to a database ID and got a Box - Front image. So, then I deleted the platform, and used Tools > Import > ROM files > Single Platform, and again saw 100% match.

It's always possible you could be having some kind of read/write issues which might explain some of what you are seeing since you are seeing a lot of randomness with xml file saves it seems, although I haven't really heard much of that.

Where is your LaunchBox build located, on your NAS or on your computer? Maybe you can explain a bit more of your file paths that you are using for all the things.

On a side note: I've never imported the Japanese ROM set for this platform before and was pleasantly surprised by the box front coverage.

[Hazuki]

Thank you for your reply.

I have imported them using the Tools > Import > ROM files > single platform.

I have all the rooms on a NAS. All emulators, lunchbox and art/videos and on the computer itself. All located on a SATA SSD.

The NAS has a shared folder, and it in turn contains sub folders. A Roms folder. In it is a folder for consoles, handhelds and so on. Then in the console folder is a Nintendo 64 and in it a folder for Japanese games, one for English games, one for hacks and so on

What is making this so hard for me to troubleshoot is that I don't get the same result every time. If I import say N64 and it's doesn't really work. If I delete it and try again it sometimes works, but not always.

The computer as I Intel i7 8800k, running at 5GHZ, with 16gb ram and windows 11.

I was using launchbox on it before, but never really had this problem. I've had it up and running from before the start/pause themes where a things.

It's just been formatted and a fresh install of windows. The only things that have changed is that I moved launchbox from my C drive (m.2) to my D drive (SATA SSD) and that i am using a new nas.

Any tips, ideas or help is much appreciated 

Thank you for your time

Edited Friday at 12:24 PM by Hazuki

[faeran]

Just to rule out a few things. Are you mapping your network for a drive letter, or are you just using the shared drive path to the ROM folder?

If it's easy enough, could you run a dir/b on your japanese n64 ROM folder and post it here, I can use that in my tests to rule out naming of the files.

One thing that stands out is that you moved the LaunchBox folder from one drive to another, and sometimes when you do this, Windows has a hard time with file permissions, which is never an easy thing to solve. I'd make sure the entire LaunchBox folder has the correct owner. It might be worthwhile to force the owner to all folders and files, and to force it to take on full read/write permissions on all the files. You will obviously want to do this while LaunchBox and all LaunchBox processes are not running. You'll also want to make sure you aren't running any syncing software on the folder, whether it be Dropbox, Onedrive, etc...

When your import doesn't work, edit the platform and see if it actually received a scrape as value or not.

 

[Hazuki]

Thank you for the the tips. I hade to travel to a family member, so I won't be back home for a couple of days.

The launchbox on a new drive is installed from the launchbox setup. So I haven't just moved it so to say.

The file names on the files are all run through clrmame with the no-intro, redumo dats. All using 7zip, so the game always get moved to the computer when playing it.

I don't use any OneDrive dopebox. But I'll have a look at the file permissions once I'm back home.

i have been moving a big number of files from the nas to the computer, just to see that the network speed doesn't drop. And as far as I can tell, the network is working just fine.

The folder is mapped to z: and its always available when Windows starts. the hdd vill spin down. Disabled this so the HDDs never spin down, doesn't make any differences 

Edited 20 hours ago by Hazuki