Problems with the AtariST and the gamelist.xml file in Recalbox 6.0

[RustyMG]

Hi,
Using a Pi3B, microSD to boot, and 128gb Samsung usb stick for ROMS.

I finally scraped all my Atari ST games in ARRM, and got all 800 ish sorted.

I then put the USB stick in my Pi, booted it up, and all the images appeared fine, as expected.
I shut down the Pi, booted it back up the following day, and half the images were missing, and with those same games, the "scraped" file names were now showing the file extention in the file name, eg "Game X.ste" etc.

So, I rescraped them again, put in Pi, and again it was fine - until the Pi was reset or rebooted.

On examining the gamelist.xml file, each time the Pi resets / shuts down, the file's datestamp is also changed to 01/01/1980 just after midnight.

Anyone else came across this?

Im hoping to get an old spare microSD card out and install Recalbox 4.1 and put the Atari stuff on that to see if the same files are ok with repeated resets on that, to confirm (or not) that there IS an issue with 6.0 and the Atari ST emu.

And, in French in case that helps. Well, not very good french....

Salut,
Toutes mes excuses pour mon français terible.

J'ai finalement gratté tous mes jeux Atari ST dans ARRM et les 800 triés.

J'ai ensuite mis la clé USB dans mon Pi, je l'ai démarrée et toutes les images semblaient bien, comme prévu.

J'ai arrêté le Pi, je l'ai redémarré le lendemain et il manquait la moitié des images. Avec ces mêmes jeux, les noms de fichiers "grattés" montraient maintenant l'extension de fichier dans le nom du fichier, par exemple "Game X.ste " etc.

Donc, je les ai refaites à nouveau, mis en Pi, et encore c'était bon - jusqu'à ce que le Pi soit réinitialisé ou redémarré.

En examinant le fichier gamelist.xml, chaque fois que le Pi réinitialise / arrête, l'horodatage du fichier est également modifié et devient 01/01/1980 juste après minuit.
Quelqu'un d'autre est tombé sur ça?

J'espère récupérer une vieille carte microSD de rechange, installer Recalbox 4.1 et y placer les éléments Atari pour vérifier si les mêmes fichiers sont corrects, avec des réinitialisations répétées, pour confirmer (ou non) qu'il existe un problème avec 6.0 et le Atari ST emu.

[Zing]

@rustymg Apparently Recalbox is not recognizing your gamelist for some reason, or the file is corrupted, or your usb stick is damaged. One of the possibilities is you connect the usb stick on windows and do an error checking, sometimes this solves it.
How are you inserting this gamelist in Recalbox?
Do you use ARRM (I read this in another post), ARRM is able to connect with Recalbox, stop emulationstation, and do the direct scrap in Recalbox, have you tried doing this?

[RustyMG]

Hi,
Ive scraped 30 systems with ARRM, updated the list for each system many times (spelling corrections in games, correcting covers, adding more games that need scraped etc), re saved the xml file for them, and every single system apart from the ST is fine.
All other 50+ systems are fine. I tried them the other day.
Ive also completely deleted the xml file and started afresh with the Atari ST - twice, and the problem persists, and only with the Atari ST.
I have the usb stick in the laptop when scraping (for speed) and once saved, its then put back in the Pi (and as with all the other system scrapes that are fine).
Tonight I have been updating my ZX Spectrum xml file - it too saved perfectly and was fine even after several reboots in the Pi, so everything is pointing at an issue with Recalbox 6 at the moment.
As mentioned, I really need to try the same usb stick in a Recalbox 4.1 setup, and if the Atari ST is fine there with the backed up xml file, we know something has happened in Recalbox 6.

[Zing]

@rustymg Everything indicates that the problem is in your gamelist, I also use the ARRM, and I had a similar problem once, but it did not affect the whole gamelist: there was a ROM that had an accent / graphic signal (or whatever the translation in English), and the gamelist could not read beyond that ROM.
Take a test: choose 5 ROMs, scrap only those 5, save the gamelist with only those 5 ROMs, and see if it works. If it works, the problem really is in some ROM name (I've seen instances of a "dot" in the name give problem). If so, you either give the name of your ROMs, or go to the ARRM topic and explain the situation to the creator of the tool, he is very attentive and helpful, I am sure he will help if it is possible.

[nexusone13]

@rustymg hi could you send me the faulty atarist gamelist.xml?

[RustyMG]

At work just now - gimmie 6 hours !
I will get the original file and the one that Recalbox has changed.

[RustyMG]

@nexusone13 said in Problems with the AtariST and the gamelist.xml file in Recalbox 6.0:

@rustymg hi could you send me the faulty atarist gamelist.xml?

Hi,
Without breaking any forum rules, how do I get the file to you ?

[nexusone13]

@rustymg I sent you a private message

[RustyMG]

Okay, I have been looking further into this and THINK I may be on to something that might be confusing Recalbox, ARRM, or both.
I had 808 game files, all scraped fine.
Then, after what I described in my original post, 444 games now show as being unscraped (I clicked on "without picture" to show them).

And, in EVERY game that "lost" its scrape data, ie cover and description and name, well, the actual filename had [STE] before the file extension (confirmed this in ARRM).
The collection I obtained had [STE] in the filename to indicate it was, well, the enhanced STE version of the game, and Im thinking THAT might be whats causing the issue.
Using one of them as an example:
Filename is : Xiphos (Electronic Zoo) (Disk 1 of 2) [STE].stx.zip
Original ARRM scrape name: Xiphos (Disk 1 of 2)
Now showing: Xiphos .stx (Disk 1 of 2)

Notice the 3 spaces after the actual game name and before ".stx".
In all 444 cases, they have all lost their scraped picture, and have 3 spaces at end of the actual game name before the ".stx"
That cant be co-incidence.

I might use Ken rename to bulk rename all those files, then do a global search and replace in the .xml file to see if that fixes the situation........

[nexusone13]

@rustymg
Effectively. This is a strange behavior. The gamelist from ARRM is correct (images, files and tags are in agreement). You get to play on your Pi but after a reboot the gamelist is changed. Example with Action Fighter.
In the original gamelist the file 'Action Fighter [STE] .stx.zip' has 2 spaces between Fighter and [STE], the image tag and the image file respect this format. After a reboot, the <image> tag loses 1 space between fighter and [STE]. Does Recalbox remix the gamelist when extinguishing? Is there an option to prevent Recalbox from modifying this gamelist?

[RustyMG]

Im thinking Recalbox is having issues with filenames that have spaces directly before the file extention.
Admittedly this is an unusual occurance, but, surely it should make no difference......
Its as if its trying to "trim" the image filename........

[Zing]

@nexusone13 As I mentioned earlier, I have seen cases of gamelist giving problem because of a "dot" when you mention that it has a ROM named "Xiphos (Electronic Zoo) (Disk 1 of 2) [STE] .stx.zip", the which I visualize is: there are 2 file extensions where there should be only one: ".stx.zip", I believe (I may be wrong, but judging from what I've seen) that as the system is programmed to interpret the extension file as the last part of the name, a read bug occurs when there are 2 extensions, so the dot in the middle of the rom name is a problem sometimes.

@RustyMG Have you ever tried to rename the files by excluding the repeated extension, leaving only: "Xiphos (Electronic Zoo) (Disk 1 of 2) [STE] .zip" and "Action Fighter [STE] .zip"? (there are some programs that serve to rename batch files, it is easy to rename multiple files in moments, you do not have to rename 808 ROMs manually ...)

[RustyMG]

Hi all,
As touched upon in one of my earlier posts, I was intending to use "ken rename" to bulk rename the game files and the associated image files, then do a "search & replace" in the xml file to refer to the new file names.

Thankfully, nexusone13 tested my files and had the exact same problems as myself, and renamed the files for me, removing the 3 spaces in each file name.

This seems to have done the trick - it looks as if it was the spaces causing the issue and not the "STE" in the filenames.

To be honest, I wasnt sure it would be the STE causing the issue, as there are games out there that have those letters in the file with no problems (eg any game with the word "step" in the title).

Anyway, with the 3 spaces removed, I have booted up the ST emulator, played games, reset the Pi, shut it down, did a quick shut down as well, put the usb stick in my PC and booted up ARRM, and........everything now seems fine !

Thanks for all the help (especially nexusone13), and suggestions everyone.