Gamelist.xml problem?

felifel

Hey guys!
I dont know why, but theres no preview of my games for Ps1, Snes and nes.
When i turn my system off i have this message:
Error parsing XML file ''/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/nes/gamelist.xml''
Start-end tags mismatch

Samething for snes and psx

Any idea?

mitu

@felifel said in Gamelist.xml problem?:

Any idea?

Looks like an error regarding the gamelist.xml structure - did you modify it manually or used a scraper to add the scraped media info ?

dt42o

@mitu i just started having this problem after a reboot except mine is in the arcade roms. i did jus recently use the scrapers from command line and think i opted to overwrite file instead of append but not 100% sure.

mitu

@dt42o post the gamelist.xml on pastebin.com and maybe we can spot the error. Usually the scrapers don't produce a malformed gamelist.xml, so the same question for you - did you modify the file manually ?

dt42o

@mitu no i didnt edit manually and now the gameslist.xml file is not in the roms/arcade folder isnt that where its suppose to be?

mitu

@dt42o Well, unless we see the actual gamelist.xml, there's not much to be done. Which scraper(s) did you use ?

dt42o

@mitu i used skyscraper and selphscraper i think they are called. they are the 2 available for download in the retropie config menus

Clyde

@dt42o said in Gamelist.xml problem?:

@mitu no i didnt edit manually and now the gameslist.xml file is not in the roms/arcade folder isnt that where its suppose to be?

That depends on the scraper used and its settings. The gamelist.xml should be either in the roms/[SYSTEM_NAME] directory or in ~/.emulationstation/gamelists/[SYSTEM_NAME]/gamelist.xml (replace [SYSTEM_NAME] with arcade in this case). See https://retropie.org.uk/docs/EmulationStation/#gamelistxml-edits

Apart from that, you can search for the file in RetroPie's command console with the following commands (everything behind # is only a comment). Press F4 in Emulation Station to get to the console and then enter:

sudo updatedb        # update the search database
locate gamelist.xml  # locate the file gamelist.xml

The first command is only necessary for new files created since the last run of updatedb. You can return to ES by entering exit in the console or by pressing Ctrl+d.

dt42o

@clyde ok thank you. now can u tell me the best option for the gamelist.xml file, should i overwrite or append when asked in the scraper menu, or does it matter? i jus started over from scratch and reinstalled retropie and would like for this not to happen again.

Clyde

@dt42o Well, overwrite will write the whole file anew, killing any previous data and changes with it, whereas append preserves the existing data and just adds any new information. Only you can know what's better for your setup.

Of two very popular scrapers, Skyscraper has a local cache in the hidden directory ~/.skyscraper where it keeps any scraped data, images, videos etc. So, you won't lose any scraped data if you re-create the gamelist.xml using it, but "only" any manual edits you may have made to the gamelist yourself.

The other one, Selph's Scraper stores the images and videos in a subdirectory images and doesn't delete or re-scrape them on subsequent scrapings. It doesn't keep any data from the gamelist.xml somewhere else, though, but (because of that?) it has the "append" option which Skyscraper doesn't have.

Likewise with what I said about the append option in my first paragraph, I don't think of one scraper being "better" than the other. They only use different methods and concepts that may be more or less preferable depending on your setup. I used Selph's Scraper for a couple of years until I eventually changed to Skyscraper, because its centralised cache resonated somewhat more with my growing multi-system setup on three different devices (PC, Laptop, Pi).

All that said, it's highly advisable to make backups, not only of your gamelists, but preferably of your whole RetroPie system, especially after you've put some time and effort into its final setup. See https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Updating-RetroPie/#making-a-backup for some viable backup methods.

dt42o

@clyde thank you very much. can you elaborate more on your 3 system setup? i was hoping something like this was possible. i have 2 pis, 2 pcs and a laptop and was thinking maybe it was possible to have them co-exsist with the same settings, files and roms.

Clyde

@dt42o First and foremost, all of my machines run on Linux, so if yours don't, I don't know how helpful my setup may be for you.

In short, my Pi 4 runs on the official RetroPie image, while the other two use the Ubuntu variants Kubuntu and KDE Neon with RetroPie installed like it's described here. I keep their rom directories synced with the tool Unison which is also available for Windows, but may have to be compiled from source. Many Linux variants have its binary in their software repositories, but I don't know if or where you can get a pre-built binary for Windows.

Conceptually, my PC keeps the main RetroPie setup where I do all scraping, testing and rom management. The other two only receive the end results and transfer any changes, saved games, hiscores etc. back to the PC, which in turn propagates them to the other "child".

I didn't automate this process fully, but use the GUI version of Unison manually, so my approach needs a sufficient amount of consequence in transferring any changes in a timely manner. Since Unison ultimately is a command line tool, automation should be relatively easy, but I like to have the full control and the "last say" in any synchronisation. 🧐