- The installer speaks without "you": the first screen asks "Where
to install?", rows read "Copy the BIOS files from an old card or a
folder", a close match reads "Close matches: ...". The handheld
launchers and their port text follow, and the pronoun guard no
longer lists any installer message.
- A setup that runs as an app opens on its one-line command, the
folder table after it; a setup that runs on its own device keeps
the network folder first, which its ZIP route needs.
- The home steps say what to do: "Its page gives one line to copy",
"Paste it, press Enter".
The game-boy and game-boy-color aliases made the Game Boy Color folder
answer nintendo-gbc by name, its list grew heavier than the Game Boy
one and took the Game Boy boot ROMs to a page of its own: the search
for game boy bios no longer found them. No profile spells those ids
since the ares rename, so the aliases are dropped.
muOS names its GBA folder gameboyadvance first, which resolved to ares's
game-boy-advance. mgba lists nintendo-gba, so the fallback set was empty
and an unrecognised GBA game got no file. ares, dgen, picodrive, fbneo,
fbalpha2019 and emux_sms now use the ids the other profiles use, with
their old spellings kept as SYSTEM_ALIASES (bios.sms and fbneo's
Spectrum sets had fallen to the other bucket of the RetroArch list).
A folder whose name spells a machine its core does not run now also
holds the core's machines: a PC Engine CD folder run by mednafen_pce_fast
got no System Card. Install lists and install/games regenerated.
The name step reused one variable for paths and for (path, md5, size)
tuples, the standalone copies reused targets inside its own loop, and
the WSL state read as object. Ten baseline entries no longer occur.
Six places read an md5 shorter than 32 digits, each with its own bound.
digest_verdict accepted any prefix down to one digit, while Batocera
compares the whole string (batocera-systems:1088). A cut value now names
a dump only when one held md5 starts with it (cut_md5_owner, read by the
scraper, the resolver and --from-md5), and every verdict compares whole
digests.
Only verify.py and generate_pack.py moved to the repository root. From
any other folder slots, region_audit, provenance_report and bundled_only
said database.json was missing and to rebuild it, identity and
list_platforms named a missing folder, and game_rules ended on a
FileNotFoundError traceback. work_from_repo_root moves to common.py and
the eight tools call it: defaults are read from the root, a path the
user typed from where it was typed.
verify.py --emulator fbneo --strict > log 2>&1 put the ERROR verdict on
the first line of the log: redirected, stdout is block-buffered and
stderr is not, and run_cli flushed stdout only after main returned.
run_cli now sets stdout to line buffering, so every tool it runs keeps
the two streams in the order they were written.
Every profile is loaded whatever the command, so one misindented key in
an unrelated profile stopped verify.py --emulator handy and generate_pack
on a 37-line yaml traceback. The sources common.py reads (profiles,
platform files, registry, shared groups, targets) now raise
SourceUnreadable, which run_cli prints on one line with the file, the
line and the validate_schemas command. It is not a FileNotFoundError:
ten callers skip a platform whose file is absent, and a damaged one must
not be skipped the same way.
MiSTer and BizHawk declare cores: []. --region, --one-per-slot and
--no-game-data read the profiles of the cores a platform runs, so their
packs and manifests withdrew nothing under a name and README that said
they had. generate_pack and verify now refuse the flags for a named
platform and leave it out under --all.
dsi_bios7.bin and dsi_bios9.bin hold the DSi Panda devkit boot ROMs, eMMC
key-Y zeroed. Every md5 and crc32 declared under those names designates
a retail dump in the same directory, yet hashless entries (RetroBat,
dsperate) got the devkit ROMs by name. by_proven_name maps such a name to
the proven primaries beside it. kick13.rom, dsi_firmware.bin and
spectrum.zip follow the same rule.
--db databse.json, with database.json in the same folder, was told to run
generate_db --force --output databse.json: a rescan of the whole
collection into a second file under the typo. load_database now names the
closest .json in that folder first, and gives the rebuild command only
when none is close.
Only generate_pack.py and pipeline.py checked the interpreter. verify.py,
slots.py, validate_pr.py, cross_reference.py and the probe tools started
under 3.8 and stopped halfway on a str.removeprefix AttributeError. The
check now lives in common.py, which every build script imports, and in
core_probe.py and region_check.py, which do not. generate_site.py imports
common before siterender, which raised a TypeError at load under 3.8.
RetroPie was the only platform with status: archived, which kept it out
of verify --all, slots, the pipeline and list_platforms unless
--include-archived was typed. release_pack already decides which packs a
release publishes and the installer serves every platform, so the status
set nothing apart. The field, its schema entry and the flag are gone, and
RetroPie is covered by every full run like any other platform.
SelectionIndex.build and system_group called _norm_system_id 1.7 million times per manifest run for about a thousand ids, each through the manufacturer prefix loop. The function reads only its argument and two constant tables, so its answer is cached. Measured on the call volume of one manifest run (630 ids, 1,686,618 calls): 1.53 s uncached, 0.07 s cached. The end-to-end manifest run moves inside its own noise on this host (45.9 to 50.6 s across four runs).
artifact_lock created its directory even for a shared reader, so a
mistyped path given to --verify-packs or release_record was left as a
directory holding a .lock, and split_pack created the parent before
printing a bare errno. A reader now raises ArtifactDirectoryMissing,
which run_cli prints on one line, and split_pack checks its target
before taking the lock.
A platform entry names no profile, so bios/Other/<emulator>/ was never foreign to it. EmuELEC's ports/VVVVVV/data.zip resolved to xrick's data.zip, then to xrick's data directory copy. A system that lists its cores now takes no name match only another emulator's tree answers.
Demul 0.7 reads 44 NAOMI BIOS rows from naomi.zip, the HOTD2, F355 and Airline Pilots BIOS among them. No copy held them all. The set is built with build_torrentzip from members already in the collection, each checked against the crc32 and sha1 of demul.exe's table, and kept in bios/Other/demul/. Batocera, KNULLI and RetroBat place it at bios/naomi.zip, the file MAME cores there also open, so it carries the nine MAME members the Demul table does not list.
The resolver left another emulator's own copy out of the member and superset ranking, so Flycast and the MAME cores keep the copies they were served.
segadimm.zip holds fpr23905.ic36 and fpr23905c.ic36 under the same crc32, and segasp.zip four fpr-*.ic72 images. Ranked by crc32 alone, a copy missing some of them tied with the full set and the index order chose it. A crc32 that two declared members share now also requires the member name.
AmberELEC's nec-pc-88 declares DISK.ROM with an empty md5. QUASI88 reads
that name as n88sub.rom, the 2 KB PC-88 disk ROM (libretro.c:1085), but
the name step served the 16 KB MSX disk ROM, the only primary of that
name. The quasi88 alias never reached by_name, which refuses an alias a
primary already carries.
load_platform_config now writes each entry's system as platform_system.
A platform entry with no hash and no owning emulator, whose system id
names a maker, takes no name candidate filed under another maker, in
the name step and in the hash_mismatch step after it. When nothing is
left, by_shadowed_alias, the profile aliases by_name refuses, answers
within the system's maker folder. names_manufacturer and BUCKET_FOLDERS
move to common.py, and generate_site imports them.
Across every registered platform the only resolution that moves is
AmberELEC nec-pc-88 DISK.ROM, from bios/Microsoft/MSX/DISK.ROM to
bios/NEC/PC-88/N88SUB.ROM. Manifests, truth and exports are otherwise
byte-identical.
Without --platform, cross_reference and the site's gap report merged every
platform's standalone set, MinUI, NextUI and MyMinUI coredir: markers
included. A marker says which cores one platform hands a folder, so in the
union every core those three do not list got no layout: px68k showed 0 of
6 files and the global report lost 238 profiles and 1201 files.
merged_standalone_set drops the markers, and both readers use it.
--emulator mednafen_psx refused with 'use --emulator beetle_psx' although the profile names its target. The alias now selects that profile and says so on stderr, in verify, generate_pack and cross_reference alike. Launchers are still refused, and pipeline step 5 skips aliases since they compare under the profile they name.
AmberELEC and EmuELEC declare blueMSX's Machines/<model>/config.ini and
Shared Roms/RS232.ROM with no hash. The name step served msx-emu's
ColecoVision config.ini in 192 machine folders and the 16 KB RS232.ROM,
while data/bluemsx held blueMSX's own file at that very path. A platform
declaration with no hash now reads its destination's tail in the data
directories before the name step. Profile entries keep the foreign-tree
redirect, so Dolphin's dsp_coef.bin dump still outranks the free copy.
Manifests: amberelec and emuelec omit 192 config.ini entries (held in
data/bluemsx only, so the installer has no URL) and serve colecodb.xml,
MSX2+/config.ini, MSXturboR/config.ini and RS232.ROM from blueMSX's bytes.
verify --all --target swich ended on 'no platform has it' after seventeen INFO lines, two of which held the suggestion. The refusal now names the closest targets across every platform with the platforms that have them, and the per-platform lines print only when some platform keeps the target.
Messages in check_freshness, generate_pack, common, profile_sync and fileless_audit named commands as export_native.py --platform x, which fails from the repository root. They now read python scripts/<name>.py like the rest of the report.
install.py took --list-platforms, generate_pack.py --list and verify.py
nothing. Both tools now take --list-platforms and print the same list
from common.py. generate_pack.py keeps --list (finding 80).
A system the target leaves no core for was verified 0/0 with exit 0,
and generate_pack blamed the platform for lacking it. Both read
platform_scope_systems and system_scope_error now (findings 13, 14).
A one-member archive whose member carries the zipped_file md5 under
another name has that md5 as its composite. The name step returned it as
md5_composite_exact, which slots and the site take as content proof, while
Batocera looks the member up by name and finds nothing.
reminiscence's Flashback module reunion resolved to skyline's
zoneinfo/Indian/Reunion through the case-insensitive name step, and the
emulator pack shipped the time-zone file. Another casing found only in
another emulator's tree says nothing about the entry.
The rom folder survey joined 463 folders to their default core's whole
profile, no system of it matching. SYSTEM_ALIASES, the one table
_norm_system_id reads, now folds ten more spellings of one machine:
apple2gs, astrocade, astrocde, creativision, gamepocketcomputer,
nintendo-super-game-boy, cps1, cps2, cps3 and pgm. The profiles that
used them take the canonical id (mame, groovymame, mamemess, mame0258,
mame0278, bsnes, mesen-s, mesence, jollycv, fbalpha2012 and its three
CPS cores, fbneo_cps12), as test_system_ids requires.
With bsnes and bsnes-hd now filing SGB1.sfc under one system, their
claims fold onto one report entry. _names_content read only the first
claim, hashless, and nSide's SGB1.sfc/ tree took the path before the
file. A hash on any folded claim now counts: every pack keeps the
destinations it had.
The site drops the eight display names the canonical ids replace and
names tvgames. README counts 533 systems instead of 541.
install/<platform>.json wrote the constant "1.0" as the version of the
list it was built from. The manifest now carries the version the platform
YAML records, and generate_pack refuses a YAML without one.
inherits: no longer passes a parent's version to a child: Lakka was
published as RetroArch v1.22.2 in its manifest, pack name and site page.
lakka.yml records v6.1, the Lakka-LibreELEC tag its target list is read
at. The MiSTer scraper refuses a BiosDB without a timestamp instead of
writing an empty version.
A pack's manifest.json records list_version, so an install from the pack
alone knows it too. Manifests regenerated twice and compared: only
version and generated changed.
release_pack: true in the registry is the list a release builds: RetroArch,
EmuDeck, RetroBat, Batocera, RomM and MiSTer, 83% of the downloads of
v2026.10.10. generate_pack --all, --verify-packs, the pipeline consistency
step, release_record and check_release read it. Manifests are still written
for every platform.
The name step tried the destination's basename alongside the entry's
own names. With dsi_nand.bin absent from a checkout, nand.bin from
dsi/nand.bin let the Wii NAND outrank the entry's own DSi variant, and
the site named melonDS Nightly a reader of it. The basename is now tried
only when no own name answers.
FileConsumers also resolved profile entries without the archive members
the emulator pack passes, so gngeopi and neo-emu were credited with the
MAME neogeo.zip instead of the archive their pack carries.
bios/Bungie holds the Marathon scenarios Aleph One reads, entries its profile files as category game_data. Listed with the other publishers' trees, they leave the system files count and sit under Game engines and PC games on the site.
Abdessamad Derraz