Versatile C++ game scraper: Skyscraper

Clyde

Thank you so much for your ongoing effort! 👍

muldjord

Is anyone else having trouble scraping through the screenscraper module right now? I just keep getting a maximum threads allowed already used : 5/5 and I keep getting libpng errors... Something is going on. Please let me know if you are also seeing these issues.

quicksilver

@muldjord I scraped some PSP ROMs about 6 hours ago and didn't have any issues. So if there is a problem it just started recently.

muldjord

Thanks, yeah, I just tried it again and now it seems to be working... Oh well. :)

EDIT: Asked on their Discord and turned out it was a bug in the API that they've now fixed.

muldjord

Skyscraper 3.4.1 released: https://github.com/muldjord/skyscraper

Further optimized artwork space requirements. Now checks if original takes up less space than resized artwork, then forces use of original for those cases
The 'thegamesdb' module now also supports wheel and marquee for the games that have them (Thank you to 'tv21' for pointing this out)
Updated developer and publisher json list for 'thegamesdb'

thegamesdb now supports retrieving wheel and marquee artwork resource types. And I optimized the artwork resource export pipeline a bit further. If you scraped with 3.4.0 there's no need to redo it, it's only a small difference.

A Former User

Any chance you can updated the Windows version to 3.4.1? Unless you have an update in the pipeline.

muldjord

@LiveFastCyYoung Sure, I've updated it to the latest 3.4.2 now. Get it here: http://www.muldjord.com/downloads/Skyscraper_3.4.2_unsupported_win_version.zip

A Former User

@muldjord Much appreciated!

muldjord

Skyscraper 3.4.3 released: https://github.com/muldjord/skyscraper

Implemented workaround to incorrectly formatted JSON returned from 'screenscraper' when checking user credentials
All arcade platforms now use 'flyer' from 'screenscraper' for cover artwork instead of 'box-2D'

There have been issues logging in to screenscraper lately. This stems from a bug in their code which formats the returned JSON incorrectly after checking the credentials. This leads to a parse error in the Skyscraper JSON parser which then lead to a failed login. I've implemented a workaround that fixes the JSON before parsing it. I have reported the bug to them, I hope they fix it soon so I can remove this workaround again.

User @aidy80-s suggested I use the flyer artwork from screenscraperfor the arcade platforms. This was a brilliant idea, so this has now been implemented as well.

A Former User

Have you ever looked into adding the LaunchBox DB as a scraping source?

https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/

muldjord

@LiveFastCyYoung said in Versatile C++ game scraper: Skyscraper:

Have you ever looked into adding the LaunchBox DB as a scraping source?

https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/

Yes, several times actually. I can't remember exactly why, but as I recall it is not an open API like other sources use.

quicksilver

Certain files get scraped as ZZZnotagame instead of just ignored (especially +StartDOSbox.sh) Its really annoying to have to manually rename these after scraping. Is there anyway to avoid this?

muldjord

@quicksilver Hmm, I already have a filter to avoid these, but maybe some of them goes under the radar. Can you provide a specific filename for an entry that returns this?

quicksilver

@muldjord Ok cool, if that is the case let me try doing a cache refresh and then rescrape first to see if its fixed now and I'll report back.

quicksilver

Refreshing the cache and rescraping took care of the issue. Thanks for the quick response.

Edit: Just as a side note to anyone else having the same issue. You'll need to purge your cache for that specific system otherwise when you rescrape it will grab the ZZZnotagame info from your cache and cause the problem all over again.

AlCzervik

@muldjord I cannot figure it out. I don't have the credentials commented out, they are properly written, yet I continue to get a "Received invalid ScreenScraper server response, maybe their server is having issues, forcing 1 thread..." and then nothing but empty Json scrapes. Please help! This is with version 3.4.3 BTW.

muldjord

@AlCzervik It works fine, just tested it. Maybe their servers were having issues (they are having a lot of issues in general because of so many people scraping at the moment), please try again.

AlCzervik

@muldjord I'll take another look but are there other things I can check that could cause that issue? Is there a way I can test the API?

muldjord

@AlCzervik Hmm, actually that response is also shown if your credentials are wrong. It needs to look exactly like this in the config.ini:

[screenscraper]
userCreds="user:pass"

But with your own user and pass of course. If you've entered that correctly and don't have any stray configs messing with that, it will work.

AlCzervik

@muldjord That's helpful! Quotes required? I know use case is important on the variable, is it important with the username/password? Perhaps I should inquire with screenscraper directly to ensure there's nothing wrong with my account? I only recently got to the point where I can download data, perhaps that's the issue.