Is re-scraping a straight-forward process?

fretman · 20 Sept 2021, 13:04

Hi, I have a question in regards to re-scraping. I have my unit set up right now with all the roms in place. I plan on doing a scrape soon. Let's say I scrape with videos. I know that once a scrape is done, a gameslist.xml file is created with all the scraped attributes.

My question is this. If I don't like how the scraped version looks, can I just re-scrape over on top of what is already existing? Does everything get overwritten correctly?

Or do I need to delete the gameslist.xml file first and anything else that's required and re-scrape after that.

Thanks for your help.

ExarKunIv · 20 Sept 2021, 13:27

@fretman cant say for all the scrapers out there but most will overwrite what you have. or might have the option to delete what is there and start clean.

if you change from one type of image to a different one. there is a chance that it will not overwrite the old one as it will be called something different.

fretman · 20 Sept 2021, 14:06

@exarkuniv , thanks for the help. Can you clarify what you mean by "changing one image to another"? Do you mean if scraping using a different database uses a different image for that ROM?

ExarKunIv · 20 Sept 2021, 14:55

@fretman not really. i mean the type of image. you have screenshot, title shot, box art, ect.
each one will be named different .

fretman · 20 Sept 2021, 16:26

@exarkuniv , thanks for clarifying.

Lister of Smeg · 20 Sept 2021, 19:14

@fretman
you shouldn't have any real problems with scraping bar having some extra images that wont be used taking up space
however
you could take an image of your sd card now (always a good idea) to revert to after experimenting and finding out what you like

fretman · 20 Sept 2021, 19:59

@lister-of-smeg , thank you for the recommendation. After doing some experimenting, I think I will scrape using the built-in scraper from Emulation Station. It seems to be consistent and I'm good with just getting the Box-art covers. I tried scraping with Scraper and Skyscraper but could not get the videos to scrape. Kept getting parsing errors with invalid character "F" message. Tried to get a screen print of the error but was not able to and I'm not very knowledgeable with the run time commands either. But doing a search on this error it appears that many users get this...something to do with sites not allowing scraping without login credentials. I am still going to try to get one video to scrape just to see how it looks. I have a separate SD card that I'm using for experimentation but will use my main card once I get everything settled.

Lister of Smeg · 20 Sept 2021, 20:12

@fretman
if you have a windows pc and your pi is networked I can recommend Skraper
Sign up for a free account at https://www.screenscraper.fr and you should be good to go

fretman · 20 Sept 2021, 20:25

@lister-of-smeg , good to know. That will be part of my experiments. Thanks.

ExarKunIv · 20 Sept 2021, 20:39

@fretman if and when you get comfortable i would reommend

ARRM

there is a lot more you can do with this one, but it can be very over whelming if you dont know what you are looking for.

i use it for all my Ports and Dos games that i have installed that i had issues getting other scrapers to work with.

But i do agree with @Lister-of-Smeg Skraper is a great program if you just have your normal games to get.

fretman · 20 Sept 2021, 20:55

@exarkuniv , sounds good…thanks.