No playlists on android

RetroArch Android devices
#1

Hi.

I’m trying the latest retroarch from the store and the scanning process seems that doesn’t create any playlists, even if the content is fully playable.

#2

That usually means that it doesn’t match any of our databases, which are mostly based on No-Intro and Redump hashes.

#3

The “test roms” were well known mame games, such as black tiger. Maybe the database download failed.

#4

That’s possible. Are your ROMs torrentzipped? If not, you’ll need to do that for it to match.

#5

I don’t remember now where they came from. I seem to remember that they were all recognized by Retroarch on Windows before I copied them on the phone.

I’ll update Retroarch on the PC and check the same ROMs as soon as possible.

Is there a lot I can check to see why they were not recognized?

I don’t really know the difference between a “torrentzipped” ROM and a regular zip ROM. What I know is that they should be in full non-merged format. How can I check if they are torrentzipped and if necessary correct them?

#6

I believe ClrMamePro can do it and there are torrentzip DATs available, IIRC.

#7

Usually my sets come from [edited to remove ROM distribution group] or are built by me with clrmame pro.

Is there a log or utility that can tell me why they are not recognized.

#8

Not really. Either they are recognized or they’re not.

However, if you know how to use clrmame pro, you can check against our DATs:

#9

I tried to create a profile in clrmame pro using the mame2003-plus DAT you provided, but strangely it does not seem to work.

I tried then just to pass the “test” roms in torrentzip, just to be sure, and they all carry the torrentzip comment now.

Still, when copied on the phone they can be played but a folder scan creates no playlist.

EDIT:

My first error was right clicking and download the DAt files in Git. This downloaded the whole page they were in.

Then I just downloaded the raw content of the page and clrmame pro was indeed able to import the file.

The format of the file is quite different from what I’m used to. Instead of having all the rom “files” listed for ecach rom “set”, it lists only one “file” for each “set”, with the same name of the zipped files I have.

EXAMPLE from Retroarch DAT

game (
	name "1943 - The Battle of Midway (US)"
	year "1987"
	developer "Capcom"
	rom ( name 1943.zip size 305018 crc 5b44b4dc md5 df589d5ac1510995e8f3c3e76507d3cf sha1 d8f02421488ae35bc0d59ba259ebade8e02b6cdd )
)

EXAMPLE fro other site. dat (xml)

	<game name="1943">
		<description>1943 - The Battle of Midway (US)</description>
		<year>1987</year>
		<manufacturer>Capcom</manufacturer>
		<rom name="1943.01" size="32768" crc="c686cc5c" sha1="5efb2d9df737564d599f71b71a6438f7624b27c3" region="cpu1" offset="0"/>
		<rom name="1943.02" size="65536" crc="d8880a41" sha1="2f9b6a3922efa05eed66c63284bace5f337304ac" region="cpu1" offset="10000"/>
		<rom name="1943.03" size="65536" crc="3f0ee26c" sha1="8da74fe91a6be3f23fc625f2a433f1f79c424994" region="cpu1" offset="20000"/>
		<rom name="1943.05" size="32768" crc="ee2bd2d7" sha1="4d2d019a9f8452fbbb247e893280568a2e86073e" region="cpu2" offset="0"/>

...

I don’t know how to use clrmame pro to handle this format.

#10

Update.

On Windows after a full online update of everything, directory scanning seemds to be fine (maybe I forgot a core info update with the last release or something like this).

On Android (Xiaomi Mi A1) I discovered that if I scan a single file then it gets added to a playlist (I only have 1 core downloaded, which is MAME 2003-plus). If I scan the directory on the SD where the roms are, then they are not added.

In any case the menu widgets during the scan process differ a lot in the 2 platform. On Windows the scan process is much longer and shows me the progress tallying every rom in every romset. On android the scan process is shorter and i can only see the “start scan” widget popping up.

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#11

I can confirm that the problem is limited to the android platform.

I torrentzipped all my roms on PC just to be sure. When I scan folders on the PC all roms are recognized.

The same roms copied on the phone SD are not recognized by Retroarch if I scan the directory, but are added to the playlist if I scan them one by one.

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#12

Ok, you may want to open an issue on the github tracker, then: https://github.com/libretro/retroarch

You can link to this thread in the issue for context. Thanks for troubleshooting!

#13

Done.

Happy to contribute a little.

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