RetroBat.exe writes its folder to HKCU\SOFTWARE\RetroBat
LatestKnownInstallPath on every start (retrobat-executable 702da66a,
Program.cs:57 and 99, RegistryTools.cs:15-50). Only C:\RetroBat and the
profile folder were looked at, so an install on D: was missed and a forced
--platform retrobat wrote into C:\RetroBat\bios. The value is read
through winreg, or reg.exe under WSL, before the fixed folders.
A run whose downloads were all cut ended on "Location that was being
written to" and "once that is resolved", pointing at the disk. A
failure caused by the connection (lookup, reset, timeout, TLS, a cut
transfer, HTTP 5xx or 429) is now marked as such, and the summary says to
check the connection and HTTPS_PROXY.
An unknown --emulator name pointed at --list-cores and counted 441 names
while --list-cores prints 189: the buildbot names --emulator accepts
(mednafen_psx for beetle_psx) were listed nowhere. --list-emulators prints
each accepted name beside the emulator it stands for, and the hint names
it.
A [Parameter()] attribute made install.ps1 an advanced script: its common
parameters took -v (-Verbose), -vb, -d and -ea before install.py saw them,
and the scriptblock form printed PowerShell's own VERBOSE lines. The
wrapper now forwards $args as typed.
A link already at the destination was skipped without a word and counted
as "dir not found" while the folder existed, so the emulator kept the file
the link pointed at. The link now gives way to the file, written beside it
and renamed over the name, and a name leading out of the folder is a named
failure.
On Windows a verified partial copy is closed before its rename. A second
run that claimed it in that moment truncated it and the first rename failed
with a sharing violation, reported as an unwritable folder. A complete
partial is now left whole there, the rename waits for a sharing violation
to clear, and a sharing violation no longer reads as a refused folder.
install.region_drops now skips one-file groups (:file:) and lets no
omitted match displace an installable file, as region.resolve_region_drops
does on the builder side. The property test draws both cases and
compares against the builder.
Names are matched on letters and digits, so the site's display names
work, and a typo gets the closest names instead of a full list. Hints
and advice give back the command the user ran (curl or PowerShell form,
every flag kept), --dest alone follows detection and says whose list it
installs, Ctrl+C at a question exits 130, and --cores-dir names a core
folder. install.ps1 runs in its own scope so irm | iex leaves the
session alone, and an override that causes a fingerprint mismatch is
named. --check lists hash mismatches first, missing required files are
grouped by system, and --help ends with examples.
--emulator accepts a buildbot core name from a profile's cores:, and a
mistyped target gets the closest names instead of every target. diff_truth
shows destinations and reports unpaired entries as evidence, not removals.
The verify summary counts discrepancies, a shared destination names both
systems, a truth hash conflict names both cores, and pipeline steps carry
their place in the real run instead of N/8. Every GitHub API caller takes
the token from github_token(), which falls back to gh auth token.
Troubleshooting, the FAQ and the download page sent people who only ran
the installer to verify.py, which reads the repository, not their BIOS
folder. Download links now name the exact asset of the recorded release,
the --dest example names the BIOS folder on the card, the slice layout
left with the last release that used it, and the shown verify output is
what the tool prints.
A fork's GITHUB_TOKEN is read-only, so the comment never arrived and a
valid file turned red. The report now goes to the job summary for every
pull request, and the comment and labels run only where the token can
write. validate_pr points an oversized file to an issue instead of a
platform setting a contributor cannot use.
Principles, collection rules and the inverted model in architecture.md, research and citation rules in profiling.md, platform and scraper rules in their pages, tool conventions in tools.md, test and commit expectations in testing-guide.md, installer constraints in installer.md. Each rule sits where a reader looks for it, with its reason. Also fixes the stale release-job line, the suite command without -t ., and the unsourceable definition.
On Windows the partial copy of a file of 16 MB or more is locked with msvcrt.locking, a LockFile region: the locking process cannot access that region through a second handle (Microsoft LockFile remarks). Hashing reopened the path, the read failed with a sharing violation, and every large file was reported as 'folder not writable' (issue 82). Both digests are now read in one pass through the handle that holds the lock. A read-only file already at the destination had the same misleading report: on Windows its attribute is now cleared before the verified copy replaces it, and a refusal that remains is named for what it is.
RetroPie's YAML listed no standalone_cores, so every package was laid
out as a libretro core and the standalone files of amiberry, dolphin,
hatari, mame and ppsspp never reached the pack. Packages without the
lr- prefix (bar the retroarch frontend) are now standalone, and names
shipped both ways are dual-mode.
quasi88 writes its list "N88KNJ2.ROM, and N88SUB.ROM". Extended with
N88EXT0.ROM, which QUASI88kai reads, it came back as "N88SUB.ROM and
N88EXT0.ROM": every list was rewritten in one idiom. A list that puts a
comma before its final and keeps it.
EmuDeck passes Complex_4627v1.03.bin as xemu's flash ROM
(emuDeckXemu.sh:60-61), and xemu's entry Complex_4627.bin states no hash,
only the sizes it maps. The layer matched entries by name or content
only, so without the alias the default name was still asked for. A
hashless entry that checks a size now takes a launcher file of a size
it accepts, when no other entry of that core accepts that size too.
The removal candidates looked for a reading in the profiles only, so a
name the platform's own launch code opens, links or copies was listed
as read by no core: Batocera's DuckStation generator walks 22 names
(duckstationGenerator.py:501-515). Every name a launcher record names
is now a reading on that platform. Recalbox's unexplained entries drop
from 20 to 13, RetroBat's from 24 to 20, EmuDeck's from 25 to 22.
The 43 tos.img aliases in hatari.yml and 10 in hatarib.yml were names Batocera, Recalbox and RetroBat launchers pass to Hatari (hatariGenerator.py, Hatari.Generator.cs, libretroCores.py), now recorded in each platform's launchers: records. With standalone Hatari profiled, those records attach. Measured on Batocera, RetroBat, Recalbox, ROCKNIX and RetroPie: verify statuses, manifest files, omissions and Hatari entries are identical before and after.
Batocera (v2.6.1, hatari.mk), RetroBat (v2.4.1 release), Recalbox and ROCKNIX run standalone Hatari, which the profile did not describe, so their launcher records had no build to attach to. Standalone Hatari reads tos.img from its data directory by default (src/configuration.c:810-812, src/paths.c:316-330), retries a missing name with .img, .rom and .tos (src/file.c:275-308, 481-520), and exits when no TOS loads (src/main.c:191-201). The profile is now standalone + libretro, with the keymap file and the window icon as standalone entries and BOOT.ST scoped to libretro.
apple2gs1.rom and apple2gs3.rom come only from Recalbox's gsplusGenerator.py:107-110, 140, a platform launcher now recorded in platforms/recalbox.yml. No platform resolves gsplus.yml (Recalbox, Batocera and RetroBat run gsplus-legacy), and verify and the manifests of Recalbox, RetroDECK, ROCKNIX and EmuDeck are identical before and after.
RetroPie builds minivmac/minivmac, winterheart/quasi88 and TurtleBazooka/px68k under the package names minivmac, quasi88 and px68k (scriptmodules/emulators/minivmac.sh:12, quasi88.sh:12, px68k.sh:12). With built_by retropie and those names in cores, RetroPie resolves them to minivmac37, quasi88kai and px68k-sdl, while its libretro builds stay reached through retroarch. Measured: RetroPie keeps 532 of 532 platform files OK and gains the 14 files the standalone builds read; no other platform's resolution changes.
bios/Sharp/X68000/cgrom.tmp had cgrom.dat's sha1 (8d72c5b4). px68k reads cgrom.tmp only when cgrom.dat is absent (libretro.c:915-919, SDL/SDL2/winx68k.cpp:317-331), and a real cgrom.tmp is a font mkcgrom generates on the user's machine. No platform declares it.
The launcher layer packed a file under the launcher's name whatever the
platform installs: ROCKNIX's xemu config reads hdd/xbox_hdd.qcow2, and
the profile marks that image installed_on rocknix, yet the pack brought
one. A place whose entry the emulator installs on that platform is now
filled by the install, as validation.deliverable has it for the pack.
RetroBat's ares launcher tries v1.05, v1.02 then v1.01 (Ares.Generator.cs:371-437), now recorded under launchers: in platforms/retrobat.yml. ares itself identifies the image by sha256. No file carries the name, so the database is unchanged.
A names_searched list is one place the launcher fills with the first name it finds, so a core file it would never open once another name of the list is held is not reported missing. A place no declared file and no packed core file fills receives, under the launcher's name, a file the core accepts by content. The layer is applied inside find_undeclared_files, which verify and the pack builder both read, and a test reads their source to keep it there.
The scraper reads each component's prepare, launcher and functions scripts at the components commit the BIOS list comes from, and the presets they copy: the fixed paths set_setting_value writes (melonDS seven, xemu three, Dolphin GBA), the folders handed over, the dir_prep links (LRPS2 pcsx2/bios back to bios/, Dolphin and PrimeHack GC regions under saves/), package copies into bios/, RetroArch core options naming a file (pcsx2_bios, DuckStation per region), XRoar romlists, the PICO-8 exec and the RPCS3 and Vita3K firmware downloads.
platforms/retrodeck.yml is regenerated at fcd0d729: only the launchers section is new.
The scraper walks each package's functions the way RetroPie runs them in one shell (assignments, arrays, for loops, brace expansion, $md_id, calls into other packages) and records every link, copy, move and setting that names $biosdir, the addEmulator flags (sdltrs -romfile3), the BIOS read outside $biosdir (basilisk --rom, gngeopi -B) and the launch scripts that exit without their file (fs-uae kick13.rom, reicast dc_boot.bin).
Each package also gets a package record with its rp_module_repo and the systems it registers, which maps a package to the build it compiles. The schema gains package, repo, systems and the moves and package kinds. platforms/retropie.yml is regenerated at 46128cd2: only the launchers section is new.
The scraper now records, from configgen at the pinned tag, the names each Recalbox launcher tries and where it hands them: the Hatari TOS cascades (standalone, hatari and hatarib cores), GSplus, Amiberry kickstarts, the PCSX2 region choice, the Dolphin IPL presence test, xemu, the mupen64plus 64DD IPL, the Mini vMac boot disk and the o2em_bios option. The system_directory libretroRetroarch gives each core, and the per-system overrides after it, are passes_path records.
Recalbox starts its emulators from a Python configgen too. The parsed source, the record and the ast helpers move to configgen_launchers so both readers use them. Batocera's extractors are unchanged.
The scraper reads the EmuScripts at the commit checkBIOS.sh is pinned to: the BIOS paths changeLine, iniFieldUpdate and RetroArch_setConfigOverride write, the ares and melonDS configs whose paths sed rewrites, and the bios/ directories linked to Flycast, Azahar, the Switch emulators and shadPS4. The script to emulator mapping moves beside the extractors so both read one table.
The scraper reads the start scripts and the configs each package installs at the tag the BIOS list is pinned to: configs that name a BIOS path, the yabasanshiro search, directories handed to DuckStation and the PCSX2 builds, and the ln -s commands that put bios/ where an emulator reads. A package that ships one config per device gets a device field only where the values differ, as melonDS does on AMD64.
The scraper reads emulatorLauncher's generators and es_features.cfg at the commit the BIOS list is pinned to: Ares, Hatari, Mesen, Amiberry, WinUAE, PCSX2, the PSX BIOS cascades, Xemu, openMSX and DuckStation. Each extractor raises when its construct is gone.
The scraper parses the configgen generators with ast at the pinned tag: DuckStation and its legacy build, Hatari, xemu, melonDS, mupen64plus 64DD, x16emu, GSplus, and the o2em and neocd core options. An extractor that no longer recognises its code raises instead of writing an empty list.
"No core opens it" claimed more than the search shows: what was
checked is that no profile of a core the platform runs names the
entry by name, path or hash. The reason and the page sentence now
say that.
Abdessamad Derraz