Where does my mame gamelist.xml go?

d8thstar

hi all,

i used this tool on my pc to generate a game list.xml for advmame.

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/5291/soft-universal-xml-scraper-v2-easy-scrape-with-high-quality-picture

it generated fine, i moved it to my PI but it doesn't seem to be reading it.

below is a snippet from the xml file that was generated. that game is an example of a game where the rom and screenshot are present and they are in the correct folder per the below.

so, that tells me that i must have put the xml file in the wrong place. can anyone guide me as to where it should go? fyi, i am running advmame 1.4.

here is the snippet from the xml:

<game id="39953" source="ScreenScraper">
<path>/mnt/MAME106/roms/airattck.zip</path>
<name>Air Attack</name>
<desc>The player ships fly through a total of seven stages fighting many enemies and multiple end-level bosses. Each player ship had a semi-automatic Normal shot and Bomb Stock, appearing as a large Phoenix. Players has a total of four different weapon pick-up items to choose from. Weapon 1 is the standard Vulcan weapon, Weapon 2 is a Rapid-Fire shot, Weapon 3 is an area-effect weapon that fires in five directions, two behind the ship and Weapon 4 is a Rocket weapon. Collecting four of the same weapon pick-up allows the selected weapon to flare-out. The player ship only had one hit though and there were no Extend Bonuses.</desc>
<image>/mnt/MAME106/roms/images/airattck-image.jpg</image>
<thumbnail/>
<rating>0</rating>
<releasedate>00000000T000000</releasedate>
<developer>Comad</developer>
<publisher>Comad</publisher>
<genre>Shoot'em Up</genre>
<players>1-2</players>
</game>

herb_fargus

@d8thstar use code blocks to format code. (if you dont know how read the read this first page)

this is my gamelist xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<gameList>
  <game>
    <path>./005.zip</path>
    <name>005</name>
    <image>./images/005.png</image>
    <releasedate>1981</releasedate>
    <publisher>Sega</publisher>
</game>
</gameList>

Its slimmed down and doesnt have all the same tags but you can see the paths. I keep my images in an images folder in the rom folder and the gamelist.xml in the roms folder. your paths in the xml have to match your rom paths on the pi.

d8thstar

Sorry herb, I'll read up on code blocks.

In my example, the paths to that Rom and image are exactly where they are.

I have my mame roms on an external hd so my paths are correct and I do have the game list in my roms folder.

I'm stumped!

herb_fargus

@d8thstar I don't know if external hard drives are supported for the gamelists. (I haven't tried it) or if they are it may be reading it differently. Your ROMs folder should be mounted, see the running ROMs from USB wiki page, should function the same way

d8thstar

thanks for the responses herb, i really appreciate it!

the roms run fine. and the images show fine per the last scrape i did. i ran the new scraper as i had over 400 roms without images.

the scraper i used downloaded a bunch of new images, effectively doubling what i had previously in that folder.

within emulationstation, if i go to the rom metadata and enter the image path directly, as such:

/mnt/MAME106/roms/images/airattck-image.jpg (same as in my xml file)

the thumbnail then appears. this tells me that the xml file isn't in the right location. i have it in the roms folder though, just as you mentioned.

so, i'm stumped...

synack

this tells me that the xml file isn't in the right location. i have it in the roms folder though, just as you mentioned.

ensure your gamelist.xml is in the following directory

/opt/retropie/configs/all/emulationstation/gamelists/mame-advmame/

d8thstar

wish i could say it worked but it didn't.

caver01

@d8thstar Just a thought. . .What about the possibility that you are modifying the gamelists while Emulation Station is running? Have you tried putting the file into your ROMs directory while ES is not running? Then starting up and seeing if it picks up the list?

Also, where exactly are you putting the XML file? Notes above have suggested "the ROMs folder" but for you, since you are mounting an external volume, that probably means /mnt/MAME106/roms/ right?