[RESOLVED] GameEx is stopping in the middle giving mame games a category from catver.ini

[MoggFanatic]

Hello,

i updated my Mameui64 to 0.169 after that i updated all the files gameex is looking for in its mame settings in the data folder (F:\GameEx/DATA/).

There i updated Category.ini, catver.ini, Control.ini, history.dat, nplayers.ini, mameinfo.dat to 0.169

then i update my gameslist in gameex

the games from the first to the 1242 game has now a category displayed so "mermaid" as the 1242 game in the list is labeled as " Sports / Misc. " but the next one "metafox" (nr. 1243), has not a category ( must be " Shooter / Flying Vertical ") and from there on until my 2526 game ,as the last rom, are not giving categories. so half of the games from "metafox" on don't have a category

how is that possible? what have i done wrong? why is game ex stopping in the middle with labeling the games with categories?

the catver.ini looks like this at the point of break (without the red and bold and italic of course):

mermaid=Sports / Misc.

merryjn=Casino / Reels

mes=Laptop / Notebook / Portable

messimg_disk_image=System / Device

metafox=Shooter / Flying Vertical

metalb=Shooter / Flying Horizontal

metalbj=Shooter / Flying Horizontal

metalman=Electromechanical / Pinball

metalmx=Driving / Race (chase view)

metamaq2=3D Printer

metamrph=Fighter / 2.5D

metamrphj=Fighter / 2.5D

metamrphu=Fighter / 2.5D

meteor=Shooter / Field

meteorho=Shooter / Field

meteorp=Electromechanical / Pinball

meteors=Shooter / Field

Please help me, without categories its very bad to have a huge mame rom collection and no possibility to sort it :-(

Thanks

GameEx.ini

log.txt

catver.ini

[B2K24]

Here's what I use. It's my Category.ini, Catver.ini, and nplayers.ini

backup your previous files and put these where MAME/GameEX can find them. In setup wizard you can point to the files then preform an update list with GameEX and all should be good

Hopefully it helps your problem

test.zip

[MoggFanatic]

Here's what I use. It's my Category.ini, Catver.ini, and nplayers.ini

backup your previous files and put these where MAME/GameEX can find them. In setup wizard you can point to the files then preform an update list with GameEX and all should be good

Hopefully it helps your problem

Thank you, it kinda helps. The break is now exactly between the letter P and letter Q so that from Qbert until letter Z the games are not having a category :-( . But now i have M like Mortal Kombat and N thanks to you!

I did read about custom Catver.ini 's where for example racing is only one category, does somebody use this and might attache it?

I wonder that nobody ever had this issue? I'm making a cab and maybe i start from scratch because if 1000 mame games don't have a category its hard to navigate and those might be unplayed because of this.

[B2K24]

Sorry man that it didn't 100% resolve the problem. The issue here is that all these external files have become a complex complicated mess.

I pray one day GameEX or Evolution can have it's own dedicated database with all this information rather than depending on external bunches of files.

[tthurman]

I pray one day GameEX or Evolution can have it's own dedicated database with all this information rather than depending on external bunches of files.

i'm not 100% on this, but I believe that's a goal greatflash has in his sights!

[tthurman]

One thing that you don't mention is what version your romset is based on. If you just compiled a new version of Mame64UI, and updated the support files but are are utilizing a previous release, this could be your problem. As I'm sure you're aware, often times the files within individual titles are manipulated between releases, and so it could be your new data files for 0.169 are hanging on the first title they hit during the update this has been changed.

You could try your previous catver.ini just to see if it helpss

[MoggFanatic]

One thing that you don't mention is what version your romset is based on. If you just compiled a new version of Mame64UI, and updated the support files but are are utilizing a previous release, this could be your problem. As I'm sure you're aware, often times the files within individual titles are manipulated between releases, and so it could be your new data files for 0.169 are hanging on the first title they hit during the update this has been changed.

You could try your previous catver.ini just to see if it helpss

Thanks for your advice, i'm in fact using a complete romset based on 0.161 but thought when i use romcenter and choose there the new Mame64UI.exe file, that romcenter renames the files when i use the repair option. in the log there where some roms renamed and many where repaired. i thought it would be like having a new romset with the build of the Mame64UI.exe. and of course some files in the roms missing because of new dumps etc.

1. Do i always need a complete romset complementary to the Mame build (0.169)?

In the beginning of using gameex i had only a little collection with aprox 1000 different mame roms from different builds and it did work.

I did try my old catver.ini but that was also from an other build, not from 0.161 and it did stop between other games but also in the same letter region.

2. Maybe i do not understand how the catver.ini works, if i am missing one rom on my hdd the catver.ini stops there? if one rom is renamed in the new catver.ini and is not matching my roms on my hdd it will stop there?

3. Should i try to use an unaltered Mame 0.161 rom set with all the support files for the 0.161 build (catver.ini category.ini nplayers.ini mame.dat) and if, where do i get the old 0.161 files?

thanks for your support this drives me nuts

[tthurman]

Whereas with many emulators you can utilize the same romsets without issue, MAME is very different in that regard, as the executable release and the romset are a match, and as such should always be used together. Each MAME executable release results in changes within the romset, be it a merged set or split.

I don't use romcenter, but the method your describing sounds very much like creating a profile using clrmampro before rebuilding an existing set to create a new one. This method requires a update set (much smaller set of files to update your existing romset) which the utility will use to merge the necessary new files with the older existing ones.

Keeping in mind that I'm not a romcenter user, it sounds to me that you didn't have this update set, and therefore your rebuild/upgrade was only as successful as it could be from within the current set, which would be pretty limited IMO. It could also be all you performed was a successful repair of the set you had, a process which borrows files from other titles to correct titles not entirely correct that already exist within your current set.

My non-romcenter experienced opinion:

You repaired a 161 set with a 169 exe, which messed things up.

Grab MAMEUI64 0.161 and repair your current set back to 161

OR

Right click on your roms folder in Windows 7 and check for a previous version, which would need be an earlier date than when you originally tried to upgrade it to 169. Due to the folder size this is a long shot, but if you've got a tremendous amount of storage space available, you may have a previous version available.

In keeping with the forum rules, discussion about where to obtain such files is something I cannot discuss. Google can help you here in short order however.

Lastly, if there isn't something specific in 169 that you need, 161 is perfectly fine for the classics. Obviously if you're in it for MESS, that could be different.

[MoggFanatic]

Whereas with many emulators you can utilize the same romsets without issue, MAME is very different in that regard, as the executable release and the romset are a match, and as such should always be used together. Each MAME executable release results in changes within the romset, be it a merged set or split.

I don't use romcenter, but the method your describing sounds very much like creating a profile using clrmampro before rebuilding an existing set to create a new one. This method requires a update set (much smaller set of files to update your existing romset) which the utility will use to merge the necessary new files with the older existing ones.

Keeping in mind that I'm not a romcenter user, it sounds to me that you didn't have this update set, and therefore your rebuild/upgrade was only as successful as it could be from within the current set, which would be pretty limited IMO. It could also be all you performed was a successful repair of the set you had, a process which borrows files from other titles to correct titles not entirely correct that already exist within your current set.

My non-romcenter experienced opinion:

You repaired a 161 set with a 169 exe, which messed things up.

Grab MAMEUI64 0.161 and repair your current set back to 161

OR

Right click on your roms folder in Windows 7 and check for a previous version, which would need be an earlier date than when you originally tried to upgrade it to 169. Due to the folder size this is a long shot, but if you've got a tremendous amount of storage space available, you may have a previous version available.

In keeping with the forum rules, discussion about where to obtain such files is something I cannot discuss. Google can help you here in short order however.

Lastly, if there isn't something specific in 169 that you need, 161 is perfectly fine for the classics. Obviously if you're in it for MESS, that could be different.

Thank you for your quick respond and that you took the time to clarify!

I have an unaltered backup of the 0.161 romset so i will first try to use that and to get all the files for the 0.161 build. Then update GameEx and hope it works.

Best regards

Mogg

[MoggFanatic]

Hello, sadly it still does not work and nothing changed.

I have updated my unaltered 0.161 complete romset to 0.169 with the help of update romsets with Clear MAME Pro. My set is now up to date with the 0.169 "MameUI64.exe" and this is my log:

Version: 0.169 (Dec 30 2015)

Missing

·Sets 14/35814

·ROMs 20/245403

·CHDs 47/866

·Samples -/15566

·Bytes 640kb/181gb

What really stands out is that still with a COMPLETE new Romset ( is missing 640kb bad?), after the letter P the roms are not giving categories. it did not change, not one rom, qbert is still without a category.

By using different catver.ini, as described above, the letter changes a little bit.

I really assume that there is a GameEx error here. i will finish my cab today and do a complete fresh install of GameEx in the future without using any files of my current GameEx installation because i did try a fresh install and copied my old files over. Seems the only option left

but thank you tthurman to point me to Clear Mame Pro, its a great tool and i will use it in the future, its good to know now to have a romset that is matching exactly my MAME version

if anybody still has an idea i will try anything to avoid a clean and fresh install

[Draco1962]

Since this issue was initially reported 8 days ago, I wouldn't throw out the baby with the bath water and reinstall everything. You may be right and it may be a GameEX issue.

As you know some of the changes MAME has undergone with being combined with MESS has caused problems before.

Your choice but if you throw in the towel now it won't get fixed.

[tthurman]

To say clrmamepro isn't exactly user friendly, would be quite the understatement. If this is your first go there are several things that could have occurred along the way. First off, typically I do them in order, and note that I am not sure that's necessary, but it seemed the sure bet to me. So in your case it would be 161 to 162, 162 to 163, and so on. One thing I decided to do a long time ago was to keep current at all times, regardless of the release that's on my cab, as such I'm not faced with this issue. To be clear I'm not saying you can't do in one fail swoop between multiple releases, only that I've never done it.

I can't help but wonder what would have happened if you just fell back to .161, and one of the reason I suggested it was because if it worked, you would have known what the issue was. Now I'm not sure you can achieve that.

Before you clean install GameEx, at least try to install it over itself. For many this has corrected abnormal issues, and perhaps it will for you too. Just run the executable and install it exactly as you did before.

[B2K24]

@Mogg whether your romset is 100% complete or not and whether it's from 161 or 170 makes no difference to GameEX and doesn't have anything to do with the issue you're having.

Now unfortunately these boards don't allow me to view all my past posts and searching old posts only has some limited window, so I'm unable to find how I've helped others with similar issues.

There was an issue with history.dat where you had to open it and remove/replace all instances of | because it made GameEX hang at carnevil. There's also other things to make GameEX quit assembling information. I had to clean a nplayers.ini because it's filled with crap for games that GameEX filters out anyway.

Anyway, point being is I highly doubt it's anything with your romset or GameEX install. These messy unofficial external files is what is pissing off GameEX and the key is to clean them up some how.

With nplayers I cleaned thousands of lines of garbage of games it doesn't show anyway and it completely fixed the problem instead of hanging at some random letter.

Now what does the MAME part of your setup wizard looks like?

You want to have verify ROMs disabled and perhaps think about using custom paths for these external files and we'll go from there.

http://i.imgur.com/DXKN0Ze.png

[Draco1962]

HI B2K24 - I posted instructions and an example here on how to user Google's Site operator to perform searches of GameEx content. I find that it works much better than the IPForums search engine in finding things I need.

[MoggFanatic]

@Mogg whether your romset is 100% complete or not and whether it's from 161 or 170 makes no difference to GameEX and doesn't have anything to do with the issue you're having.

Now unfortunately these boards don't allow me to view all my past posts and searching old posts only has some limited window, so I'm unable to find how I've helped others with similar issues.

There was an issue with history.dat where you had to open it and remove/replace all instances of | because it made GameEX hang at carnevil. There's also other things to make GameEX quit assembling information. I had to clean a nplayers.ini because it's filled with crap for games that GameEX filters out anyway.

Anyway, point being is I highly doubt it's anything with your romset or GameEX install. These messy unofficial external files is what is pissing off GameEX and the key is to clean them up some how.

With nplayers I cleaned thousands of lines of garbage of games it doesn't show anyway and it completely fixed the problem instead of hanging at some random letter.

Now what does the MAME part of your setup wizard looks like?

You want to have verify ROMs disabled and perhaps think about using custom paths for these external files and we'll go from there.

http://i.imgur.com/DXKN0Ze.png

@ all: Thanks for your suggestions

@ B2K24: thanks for your screenshot! I did follow your setup wizard screenshot and also tried to make a update without any filter at all (majong casino) but even with 10000+ roms in the list it does cut betweeen P and Q no matter what.

[DazzleHP]

I'm with B2K24 here (it usually is the history.dat, but it can be any of the 3rd party support files). My advice would be firstly to exclude all external files - just configure MAME, rompath and commandline. Boot GameEx, Update List and see what happens. If you still have problems, at least then we know where to start

[MoggFanatic]

I'm with B2K24 here (it usually is the history.dat, but it can be any of the 3rd party support files). My advice would be firstly to exclude all external files - just configure MAME, rompath and commandline. Boot GameEx, Update List and see what happens. If you still have problems, at least then we know where to start

Thanks for your post! I did what you suggested and did include the files one by one, and update one by one. The only files i am using now are catver.ini (mame 0.170) my mameinfo.dat (mameui 0.169) and a up to date history.dat

Every other support file (Category.ini, control.ini, nplayers.ini) where removed by me and some then where redownloaded by GameEx. Now every Game has a Category again! Can't believe it that it is now working.

Thanks again for everybody's advice!

[B2K24]

If you didn't happen to notice, Tom posted that the latest version of GameEX supports the latest Catver.ini which is probably responsible for resolving your issue