Emulationstation - GAMELIST.XML questions

[Mik's Arcade]

Hi -

 

I made several edits to games while on the Emulationstation menu itself.   I always use the "save on exit" option when I am editing my lists (and uncheck it when I am not so it wont always update the times played and reload every boot). Typically, I will edit a few games and then restart Emulationstation so as to make sure the changes get saved to file.

 

However, I edited several games and called up another game to test it but it froze on the screen.  It just froze. I could not get it to exit back to the emulationstation.

 

After waiting a few minutes, I finally had to just power down Raspberri Pi.   Unfortunately this will not trigger the 'save on exit' option so I lose my edits.  This happens on occasion and it's is annoying to lose progress.

 

So, two questions:

 

(1)  When this happens, it there any other way to kill the process when CTRL-C and all the other keyboard and control button presses don't work?  Is there any way I can connect to the machine from the laptop and issue a command to kill the process? I was going to try to delete the ZIP file that crashed or try to at least end the mame2010 process trying to run it. I was trying to connect to my Pi (using the IP address) from my laptop and on some nights for some reason it won't connect...it's really annoying.  I connect directly to my Pi when I want to make bulk edits to any GAMELIST.XML or edit any configuration files (EMULATORS.CFG) or copy new images over, so I can get around using my laptop when it wants to work.

 

(2) By any chance, is this updated text dumped into a file anywhere on the system before they get saved to the GAMELIST.XML, or are these changes just kept in memory and lost when you power down ?

 

thanks

 

 

 

Edited July 20, 2021 by Mik's Arcade

[Mik's Arcade]

Anyone?

Bueller?

Bueller?

Bueller?

 

I'll poke around the folder in a bit later and see if I can find a text dump of the changes I made......otherwise, I'll just have to make them again....oh well.

 

Small problem to have when I have such a robust library of arcade coin-ops.  I really love the golden age of the arcades.  So many awesome, simple games.

 

 

[John Stamos Mullet]

On 7/20/2021 at 5:18 PM, Mik's Arcade said:

Anyone?

Bueller?

Bueller?

Bueller?

 

I'll poke around the folder in a bit later and see if I can find a text dump of the changes I made......otherwise, I'll just have to make them again....oh well.

 

Small problem to have when I have such a robust library of arcade coin-ops.  I really love the golden age of the arcades.  So many awesome, simple games.

 

 

There's no way to recover those lost changes, and this will happen if you try to make a lot of changes (10 or more at a time). 
 

honestly the best thing you can do is use an offline editor like EsGme. https://www.jeffersoftware.com/esgme/index.php
 

Also keep your gamelist relatively short. If you have thousands of ROMs, editing it in Emulation Station will always be a problem.

 

I keep mine limited to only games I actually play and like, so it's only about 120-150 classic era golden age arcade games only.

[Mik's Arcade]

10 hours ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

There's no way to recover those lost changes, and this will happen if you try to make a lot of changes (10 or more at a time). 
 

honestly the best thing you can do is use an offline editor like EsGme. https://www.jeffersoftware.com/esgme/index.php
 

Also keep your gamelist relatively short. If you have thousands of ROMs, editing it in Emulation Station will always be a problem.

 

I keep mine limited to only games I actually play and like, so it's only about 120-150 classic era golden age arcade games only.

yeah, it's a bummer, but I have moved on and re-entered the changes.

 

I've got about 1600 arcade games in my XML file. I keep the list in sort order and I only experience slowdown if I literally try to just keep scrolling through the entire list.  I keep the descriptions down to just a few lines per game and don't add videos to bog it down.

 

I had a bigger scare the other day when the Pi didn't boot at all. We had a massive storm and I was terrified a power surge fried the board.  But, after some testing it was only the power cord itself.  I had a spare and it worked fine....whew 

Edited August 23, 2021 by Mik's Arcade