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    Please do not post a support request without first reading and following the advice in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

    Strange behavior with the <players> tag and EmulationStation

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    emulationstatiometadatagamelist
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    • R
      RC_Cola
      last edited by

      Hello all:

      Simple task I was trying this morning, trying to manually go through and clean up my gamelist.xml for various systems to make sure the <players> count is correct for sorting purposes.

      I quickly added via copy/paste the <players>1</players> designation for single-player titles (as well as 2, 4, 6+ where appropriate) but noticed strange behavior: when the metadata is saved/updated in ES for single player titles, the <players> tag disappears completely. Erased from the gamelist.xml file.

      Games with more than 1 player seem unaffected. Does ES treat the lack of a <players> value less than 2 to be 1, and therefore defaults to that and erases 1 if it is present? If so, that's fine, just want my games to be correct and sortable properly.

      Thanks!

      mituM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • mituM
        mitu Global Moderator @RC_Cola
        last edited by

        @rc_cola Do you have a sample gamelist.xml file which exhibits this problem ? Are you sure you replaced the exiting players node with your edit and not just appended a 2nd players node to the game entry ?

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        • R
          RC_Cola
          last edited by RC_Cola

          I'm not at the pi at the moment (left the house after making this post) but I can definitely confirm that it erases what I added without appending another.

          The game/console I have been using as an example is Game Boy. With the entry for Super Mario Land, the scraped (using default ES scraper) data does not generate a <players> tag in the metadata entry within the gamelist.xml. When I launched the game and played it after adding one, the data saved added a last played date and times played entry, and erased/overwrote the <players>1</players> tag that I added (and saved) prior to launching and playing.

          I confirmed by comparing to other titles that my line of xml was formatted exactly as others were that scraped with a <players> tag, but notably those that obtained that data from thegamesdb.net via the built in scraper and remained undisturbed are always greater than 1, which makes me suspect that ES reads a not present/defined value of players as 1? Not sure why it would erase or overwrite it though.

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