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[donnyj]

what is the advantage to having folders laid out that way?

[Roman]

Uh oh.  I'm almost afraid to ask what this means.  You mean it isn't a good idea to use the whole "Systems" feature and split out the roms accordingly?

It means rompaths shouldn't have other rompaths as subfolders.

[Roman]

BTW, I have no idea if this'll help in any way, but here's my "System & assigned System-Default Paths"

System Paths

(Click on "System Paths" to bring up the graphic.)

looks perfectly fine...I only wondered if you got another rompath above that....as somehow mentioned in the "MOVE" issue...

[Roman]

what is the advantage to having folders laid out that way?

You got your romsets split by systems....some people prefer that....including myself.

[Roman]

Ok, I had a look at the "MOVE SETS" operation in the systems window.
As the prompt (which appears when you click it) says: It scans all system default paths and moves not correctly placed sets to the correct one.

Works fine here...

For you and your setup (iirc, you had unsorted ones in G:\M.A.M.E.\MameUI64\roms and want them moved to G:\M.A.M.E.\MameUI64\roms\standard), you need G:\M.A.M.E.\MameUI64\roms setup as one sysdefpaths, otherwise the MOVE operation won't work for you....

[fleggett]

For you and your setup (iirc, you had unsorted ones in G:\M.A.M.E.\MameUI64\roms and want them moved to G:\M.A.M.E.\MameUI64\roms\standard), you need G:\M.A.M.E.\MameUI64\roms setup as one sysdefpaths, otherwise the MOVE operation won't work for you....

But how do you "add" a definition/directory to SysDefPaths?  It looks like all the slots are hardcoded.  I did add "G:\M.A.M.E.\MameUI64\roms\" to the ROM-Paths section of cmpro, but that didn't seem to do anything, so I'm presuming it's all tied into the SysDefPaths screen.

[Roman]

You can't add additional ones but you can assign a folder to a bios by double-clicking the "assigned sysdefpath" column.

So..."Move Sets" runs through all sysdefpaths and 'moves' incorrectly placed sets in there to their assigned folder (based on the bios assignment).

In your case the problem is that G:\M.A.M.E.\MameUI64\roms is not a sysdefpath.

You could e.g. move all your sets to your G:\M.A.M.E.\MameUI64\roms\standard folder and then click on move to get them sorted to the others...(well, of course only the ones are moved which don't belong to 'Standard').

[fleggett]

You can't add additional ones but you can assign a folder to a bios by double-clicking the "assigned sysdefpath" column.

Oh, believe me, I know.  That's what I was doing before using that Auto button (boy, was that a mistake....).

You could e.g. move all your sets to your G:\M.A.M.E.\MameUI64\roms\standard folder and then click on move to get them sorted to the others...(well, of course only the ones are moved which don't belong to 'Standard').

Well, I think I may've utterly FUBAR'd my a great chunk of my whole setup tonite.  I don't know what happened, but here's what I did:

1.  From G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms I CD'd to G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\standard.

2.  I then did a "move /o ..\* ." (I'm using JP Soft's TCC) because I didn't want to overwrite anything.

3.  I noticed a LOT of files left over in the "roms\" directory.  This got me to thinking that, perhaps, I had a TON of dupes between "roms\" and "roms\standard\".  I would've thought this would've been caught by the scanner, but maybe not.

4.  I made some visual comparisons between G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms and G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\standard and they all looked the same.  I then went ahead and deleted all the files (not the subdirectories) in G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms, as they appeared to simply be dupes.

5.  I then ran a new scan.  This took me completely by surprise, as it warned me of MANY instances of what you referenced earlier about capsuled rompaths (I forget the exact wording the cmpro log used).  The Scan function was also complaining that a LOT of roms were in the wrong SysDefPath, but cmpro made no attempt to move them to the right path.

6.  I knew something had gone south at that point, so I panicked (I guess) and ran over to Systems from the Scanner dialog.  I then hit that "SetAutoDefPaths" button and, while it kept some paths correct, the vast majority reset to G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\standard.  Remember, before I hit that button, ALL the systems and paths were perfect.  I have NO idea why the majority of paths were (re)set to the G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\standard directory.

7.  New scans revealed nothing new.  The multiple capsuled path warning was gone, which was a good sign (I'm guessing), but there was still a lot of roms being reported as being in the wrong place.  No amount of scans resolved this.

8.  Not knowing anything else to do, I manually reset the SysDefPaths (a lot of mouse clicking).  I then tried to automatically move the roms using that auto-move function and it didn't work.  So, I was effectively back at square one.

9.  Not knowing anything else to do part 2, I started rebuilding the sets.  This time, I unclicked the "recompress" option, so it's running at LOT faster (up to 40% by the time of this part of this message).  I expect it'll be done in an hour or so.

I really, REALLY hope I haven't totally corrupted things to the point of no return.  I've obviously got a lot of work to do tonite with cmpro, so I'll do what I can and report back.  If you've got any suggestions in the meantime, though, I'm ALL ears.

[Roman]

Calm down.

Cmpro moves replaced and "unneeded" files into its backup folder.
So if you're missing something simply rebuild from that folder to your collection.

[fleggett]

Cmpro moves replaced and "unneeded" files into its backup folder.
So if you're missing something simply rebuild from that folder to your collection.

Well, there's almost nothing in the backup folder (14 files), so I can't imagine it helping much.

I don't think I'm "missing" anything.  I just think cmpro isn't placing what I do have in the correct locations.

I guess my frustration stems from exactly what I thought cmpro is suppose to accomplish versus what it actually does accomplish.  For example, these are the first three lines from my scan log (I sent you the complete log over email):

Set exists in various rompaths: G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\neogeo\zupapa.zip; G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\standard\zupapa.zip
Set exists in various rompaths: G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\standard\zortonbr.zip; G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\alg_bios\zortonbr.zip
Set exists in various rompaths: G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\naomi\zombrvn.zip; G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\standard\zombrvn.zip

It says this every time I run a scan.

Why doesn't cmpro look into these files, determine which systems they belong to, and automatically move them to the appropriate locations?  I've got each and every system directory defined, so that shouldn't be the problem.  There must be 200+ entries in my log that say the same thing, so fixing things manually would take a distressingly long time (and leave me with very little hair), as it would also require me to determine which system each rom belongs to.  And the Move Sets button again does nothing.

I've either stumbled across a pretty serious bug with this iteration of cmpro (which is doubtful, else everyone would be complaining), or there's something incredibly wrong with my particular installation, order of actions, or collection of settings (or all three).  Unless someone has a brainstorm, I really don't know what else to do other than starting over (and even then, I have some doubts).

[Roman]

Well, basically your setup should not include rompaths in rompaths...that's all you have to care about.
Now that you got multiple instances of files in your rompaths, your cleanup steps will be a bit more ...hmm..manual.
Take one of the multiple instances and move (copy+delete) it to a new folder (not a rompath folder). Then use the rebuilder to readd it to the correct place in your collection.

[fleggett]

Well, basically your setup should not include rompaths in rompaths...that's all you have to care about.

I keep hearing this, but don't understand what it means.  So, what should my directory structure look like?  Surely I've got to at least have a root roms\ directory with every system path beneath it...?  Anything else would seem like complete chaos.

Take one of the multiple instances and move (copy+delete) it to a new folder (not a rompath folder). Then use the rebuilder to readd it to the correct place in your collection.

Well, I'll do you one better.  I'll MOVE everything out of the standard\ directory (even the subdirectories) into my usenet download directory.  Then let rebuilder take it from there.  HOPEFULLY, that will resolve this mess I've gotten myself into.  I just don't have the patience to do this one-at-a-time.

[Roman]

I keep hearing this, but don't understand what it means.  So, what should my directory structure look like?  Surely I've got to at least have a root roms\ directory with every system path beneath it...?  Anything else would seem like complete chaos.

It means one of your rompaths should not be a subfolder of another one.

G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\atpsx\
G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\awbios\

that's ok

G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\atpsx\
G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\awbios\
G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\

That's bad since the 1st & 2nd rompaths are a subfolder of the 3rd one.


Regarding some automatic clean up of dupes...I will think about it for the next version....

[fleggett]

Here's an update...and it's not a particularly good one.

I "removed" the single G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\ directory.  As such, my directory structure looked like so:

G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\.
G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\..
G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\acpsx
G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\airbios
G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\aleck64

...

G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\triforce
G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\vspsx
G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\dir.txt

I'm ASSuming that that lone "dir.txt" file shouldn't cause a problem, as it's something created by MAME during its default installation.  If it is, let me know and I'll get rid of it.

Moved everything out of "G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\standard" into my temporary usenet download directory, but left the standard\ directory itself (as empty).

Then let the Rebuilder do its thing.  It should be noted that these are the two temp directories I used (and have them defined as Add-Paths):

E:\download\alt.binaries.emulators.mame
E:\download\alt.binaries.emulators.mame.chd

(If anyone wants to know which newsgroups to use to grab ROMs and CHDs - well, the secret is out.  BTW, does it matter if these are checked or not?)

In Rebuilder, I made sure the following were checked:

Use Add-Paths
Scan Subfolders (this was for the CHDs)
Use System Default Paths
Split-Sets
Compress Files -> zip (this was probably unnecessary)
Show Statistics
Remove Matched Sourcefiles

I then hit Rebuild.

Took it about an hour, complained about five or six files being corrupt (I just deleted those)...and dumped everything back into "G:\M.A.M.E\MameUI64\roms\standard".  The Rebuilder didn't even touch the CHDs.  If I recall, it recognized that they were there, but other that that, nada.  I had to copy those back over manually (which, of course, I had to make the assumption they belonged in standard\ and not somewhere else).

I just can't believe that out of a total of 8981 ROM files that I have (give or take), 7645 of those belong in standard\ and shouldn't go in other system directories.  And the Move Sets button still doesn't do anything.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe only 15% of the MAME ROMs in the wild belong in other system directories, but if that's the case, then there's little reason not to dump everything into just one big roms\ directory (IMO).

Dunno what else to do at this point.  Feel like I've exhausted just about every option.  Should I just wait for the next version and start over?

[Roman]

Rebuilder works on ROMs only. CHDs may be included in a future version.
No idea how many sets belong to standard at the moment...have to check that, but compared to the other ones it's the one with several thousand sets.

There is no need to wait...simply scan the collection, if something is wrongly placed in systemdefault paths, the scanner will inform you.

[Roman]

~7752 is correct for standard 139u1. Believe it or not
This number can vary on the used settings (like merge mode, fake clones etc). But it's that high....