One game not loading

[Gildahl]

Hi Tom.  Was wondering if you could help me troubleshoot a small issue I'm having.  It's been there for a while, so I don't know in what version it started.  I'm on 16.54 at the moment.

In my main Favorites list, which contains over 200 games, there is one game (Omega Race - omegrace.zip) that won't start from this menu.  It won't start from the main MAME list either.  What happens is that when I click on "Play This Game" in the information screen, the screen briefly shows the "Launching" dialog at the bottom of the screen, then just returns to the information screen again.  I've attached the log, but it doesn't seem to show anything.  The log was taken right after attempting to launch the game.  The sequence of launch is that it is supposed to launch the CPWizard control panel first then launch the game.  If I select "Control Panel" it does show the CPWizard normally.  It just never gets there, nor launches the game when selecting "Play This Game"

The game runs fine externally, and if I put the game in a separate list in GameEx (i.e. a separate .map file), it runs also runs fine from within GameEx.  So it is only when I launch it from the Information screen and it is the only game I have that does this.  I also know that it used to work in the past.  Any clues where I might look to solve this?

log.txt

[Tom Speirs]

To troubleshoot you should also investigate data\runitgame.bat. Also the log you provided does not show you launching anything (I see you said that sorry).

I really don't know I guess some issue with the game database. Obviously try removing, adding it again etc.

[Draco1962]

Mind if I ask what MAME version you are running?

[Gildahl]

Tom:  it runs fine using runitgame.bat.  Correct, the log has nothing despite having selected "Play This Game".  Removing from the Favorites list doesn't help since it doesn't run from the main MAME list either.  Contents of db files I know about look ok (gamelist.accdb, data.db3, gamelist.txt)...and like I said, it does run from another map file list.  But you're right that it sounds like a db issue maybe.

Draco1962:  I'm using MAME .222 (though it was happening in my last rev. .202 as well...and maybe earlier.  Don't think its a MAME issue though since it can be launched both externally, and from another custom .map file list in GameEx...and it never even gets far enough to display the CPWizard screen (and disabling CPWizard doesn't help).

[Gildahl]

Looks like one more game has showed up in this category.  Wizard of Wor (wow.zip).  Does the same thing.  Pretty sure those are the only two out of 230 games I've checked from my favorites list.

[Draco1962]

I have tested Omega Race and Wizard of Wor via MAMEUI64 v0.222 in the latest versions of both GameEx and AE. Both launch, play, and return to menu without issue. I do not have CPWizard enabled for this test.

I then enabled CPWizard and it would not display until I disabled HideOS - only a black screen would appear until I CTRL-TABBED to close HideOS, then the CPWizard would load. CPWizard then would load as expected then the games would launch. Attached is my AE log.txt file for comparison

@Gildahl - can you try again without HideOS enabled and provide an updated copy of your log.txt file and the same without loading CPWizard to see if the games will launch?

log.txt

[Gildahl]

Thanks for taking a look at this.

First off, I'm assuming that when you say to try without HideOS enabled, you mean to set Hide Desktop in the Display Settings screen to No, right?

In my case the behavior is the same either way.  I think I can safely take CPWizard out of the picture since if I completely disable it (set Use CPWizard and Load CPWizard to No and make sure it is closed before running GE), the games still don't load...though in a slightly different way.  In this case (with CPWizard disabled), when I try to launch the game from the information screen I see GameEx's built-in control panel diagram, which remains on screen till I press Enter, at which point I just get returned back to the information screen again and the game never launches.  Again, this is only for omegrace and wow.  All other games get launched properly after display of the CP diagram.  This behavior is the same regardless of the Hide Desktop setting, and the log shows nothing different than the one I posted previously.

One curious thing I found while playing around, however, is that if I delete the path to controls.ini under MAME settings (or just remove the file), the behavior becomes different in another way.  In this case, when I attempt to launch non-affected games, the built-in CP diagram is skipped and the game loads (which seems normal and what I would expect, since the control map is missing).  However, for the affected games (omegrace and wow), when I attempt to launch the game it  now goes to a blank/black screen (presumably the HideOS screen) where it just sits and from where I can continue to hear sounds from the video snap.  If I hit enter, it appears to refresh the black screen, but stays on it.  If I hit backspace, then it returns to the Favorites menu (not the information screen).  On the other hand, if while I'm on the black screen and I press alt-tab, I will see a box for HideOS displayed briefly then disappear, at which point I can Alt-Tab back to GameEx whereupon it returns me to the information screen. Note that this disappearing HideOS process shows up with the Hide Desktop setting turned on or off, no difference.  If I grab a log file at this point (attached), it shows the screen re-initializing, but nothing much different--and still no sign of it ever having made any attempt to actually launch the game.

So my conclusion right now strongly suggest it's not a CPWizard issue and it's not an issue with the game itself (since both omegrace and wow can be launched successfully from another custom list in GameEx).  Since the launching dialog is shown with the correct rom name displayed, it's clear that GameEx must have pulled the right information from the db necessary to launch the game, but for some reason it never gets to the point of actually launching it (since we never see the launch assertion written to the log file).  That's the mystery I'd love to solve.

Hopefully, these clues can narrow down exactly where in the code things could be going awry.  Continued thanks for looking into this. 

P.S. One final question for you Draco1962.  You seem to be seeing something a bit different from me, but was the issue you saw when you had CPWizard turned on limited to just omegrace and wow?  If it was, then I suppose we could at least be able to say that there is something peculiar about how GameEx is processing these two games. 

log.txt

[Draco1962]

I only tested omegarace and wow to attempt to launch both. I noted what I encountered with CPWizard disabled and enabled and for these two games only to see if they would not launch via GameEx as you initially described.

My guess is that I would encounter the same CPWizard anomaly regardless of the games selected since I am able to launch both of the v0.222 roms you reported inside and outside of GameEx and AE. Out if curiosity I will attempt to test others as time permits for me, but, regarding the your reported issue, it may just be anecdotal and of little to no relevance to what you are encountering.

[Gildahl]

Yes, basically out of 230 games in my favorites list, only these two exhibit this behavior, and I have no issues at all with CPWizard for any of the working games.   Of perhaps slight interest as well, if I go into gamelist.txt and change omegrace to omegrace2, it will now work.  Of course, that's technically a different rom, but it at least verifies that the gamelist.txt record for the game isn't corrupted I suppose.

[Draco1962]

Have you tried replacing your omegarace and wow ROMS with new 0.222 versions to rule-out possible corruption of the ones in your collection?

[Gildahl]

Yes.  These are 222 roms.  But I don't think this is a mame or rom runtime issue, I think the problem is that mame is not being launched.  For example, if I replace my mame.exe with a compiled script that beeps when it is called, I can tell that the script never gets called because it never beeps.  And that also seems to be what the log is indicating--that mame never gets called when one of these two games is the target rom.  Keep in mind that the roms run fine both externally (using runitgame.bat) and even work fine from within GameEx--when using a custom list.  They just won't launch from the main MAME list or from the favorites list in GameEx.

I've attached a video file of how it looks when trying to run Omega Race from the Favorites list.  Note how it says at 0:21 "Launching: Omega Race" at the bottom of the screen, and yet the log shows nothing.  I would show you how it does run from my custom "Golden Age Arcade" list, but can't get the video to record the transition to the game...so you'll just have to take my word that it does work from there 

[Draco1962]

I am at a loss then. Perhaps Tom may have a better idea on how to troubleshoot yh8s for those two roms. 

[Gildahl]

Tom, any further ideas?  I'm really at a loss too.  Today I did a rebuild of the game database, and still the same behavior persists.   Any chance of knowing what happens in the code between the time the launching dialog gets displayed and  when the  launch line gets written to the log?   

 

[Gildahl]

Well I'm starting to lean toward thinking this is a bug of some kind.  As an experiment I tried replacing all the files in the GameEx root folder with those from an earlier version (15.69) that I found in an older archive. After doing so, omegrace and wow work normal.  I left all other folders in place (Data, Config, Themes, etc.), so that should, in theory, eliminate database issues as being the culprit.  Restoring the 16.54 binaries causes the problem to return.

[Gildahl]

Ok, finally figured this out.  It is a problem with high scores.  I can easily duplicate it on a brand new fresh install of GameEx 16.58.  If I install GameEx, then turn off the high score feature before creating the initial MAME game list, it works fine.  However, once I turn on the high score feature the problem happens.

Unfortunately, just turning off high scores again does not  return me back to a working state; rather, I must turn off high scores and delete MAMEHiScores.ini.  If I do that or if I delete the omegrace and wow sections in the file, it will now work--but ONLY if I keep keep the high score feature turned off in the setup wizard.  If I turn the high score feature back on, the two games will work once, and then stop working again as the high score data once again gets regenerated in MAMEHiScores.ini.  Note that this happens even if I delete omegrace.hi and wow.hi from the mame\hi folder and force them to get regenerated (which apparently happens immediately on game load, as I did not have to get a high score for it to get created--this is in MAME .222).   

So I suspect that there is some issue with GameEx not being able to get past something in the high score registration information for these two roms specifically (and perhaps others I don't know about since I've only really spot-checked).  So right now as long as I keep the high score feature turned off and MAMEHiScores.ini is deleted (or the offending sections removed), the problem I have reported in this thread is at least circumvented. 

Here is a copy of the offending section for omegrace.

[omegrace]
fields=RANK|SCORE 1C|NAME 1C
fullstring=# DAILY 1CÿÿRANK|SCORE 1C|NAME 1Cÿÿ1|31350|DLMÿÿ2|30500|MICÿÿ3|23350|LRSÿÿ4|22400|JACÿÿ5|19550|RDHÿÿ# ALLTIME 1CÿÿRANK|ALLTIME SCORE 1C|ALLTIME NAME 1Cÿÿ1|38250|AE ÿÿ# DAILY 2CÿÿRANK|SCORE 2C|NAME 2Cÿÿ1|31350|DLMÿÿ2|30500|MICÿÿ3|23350|LRSÿÿ4|22400|JACÿÿ5|19550|RDHÿÿ# ALLTIME 2CÿÿRANK|ALLTIME SCORE 2C|ALLTIME NAME 2Cÿÿ1|38250|AE
hi_1=1|31350|DLM
hi_2=2|30500|MIC
hi_3=3|23350|LRS

 

[Draco1962]

Not sure if it will be helpful to Tom or not, but can you attach a copy of your MAMEHiScores,ini file?

[Gildahl]

Here you go.

MAMEHiScores.ini

[Tom Speirs]

What is classic.exe?

GameEx runs hi2txt.exe on exit of a game so not sure what is going  on here.

The .hi files are created by MAME itself.

I wonder if its a conflict between the old hitotxt which maybe cpwizard uses and the new hi2txt.

Does it work from the normal MAME list. ie not as a favorite?

That is too old a version to test with to really help me with anything.

Try renaming/removing hitotxt.exe (not hi2txt.exe).

 

[Tom Speirs]

Need GameEx.ini please.

If it actually creates runitgame.bat please post that too.

 

[Tom Speirs]

I found it.

[Tom Speirs]

Fixed.

New version out in a minute.

[Gildahl]

16.60 seems to have done the trick and no longer blocks omegrace or wow from launching when the high score feature is turned on.   Thanks!  

Insofar as the high scores actually working for these particular games, that's another story, but I don't think that's a GameEx issue--so I won't even go there, hehe.

Regarding classic.exe, that's an command line AHK script called classicLauncher that I've been hacking on for a long time, but made sure to exclude when I was doing my later testing so as to eliminate it as a culprit.  It provides "lots of stuff" like a common command line for all emulators, load sequencing/debugging, rom proxies and vectoring (say, to best mame version), command-line overriding, bookend screens, plug-ins, etc.  Actually works quite nicely with GameEx at this point.  If you're interested, I've posted it here:  classicLauncher

[Tom Speirs]

Interesting.

Yeah its not working 100% iin some games you would expect it to but not sure there is anything I can do about it, other than to tell you to ensure you enabled the MAME plugin.

If you can nail it down to a particular issue please do feel free to go there.

[Gildahl]

I would definitely need to test more before reporting a real problem--especially since I don't fully understand how high scores even work (for example do high scores come exclusively from *.hi files, or in some cases from nvram, or some mix of the two?).  My superficial observation is that some games (like Berzerk, which I just tried this morning) updates and displays high scores in GameEx perfectly, suggesting that I got the configuration in mame right (plug-in turned on, etc.), but others like Omega Race produce a *.hi file in mame and display a high score screen in GameEx, but with no high scores listed (even after I've entered one).  So its kind of hit or miss.  Again, I wouldn't put it past me having messed-up something and I'm not raising this as a GameEx issue (and certainly not critical), just making some observations.