Solution MAME Missing files

[evilllama]

As this topic keeps coming up… It seems that no matter what image is used or the Pi model, people run into the issue of emulationstation showing a clrmamepro verified set, but failing to load with the missing files error.

The fix is to ensure both the es_systems.cfg file and the mame.cfg file are directed to the location of your ROM sets. If you transferred with the USB method, Pi did this correctly for you. If you did this over your network… human error could be the issue. Check the location of your ROMs. Otherwise….

es_systems.cfg can (typically) be found at
/etc/emulationstation/es_system.cfg
Look for MAME and ensure <path> leads to your ROMs (move ROMs or change path if needed)

mame.cfg can (typically) be found at
/opt/retropie/emulators/mame4all/mame.cfg
Look for rompath=/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame and ensure this leads to your ROMs (move ROMs or change path if needed)

This may seem redundant or overly simple, but if you want to know why I say this please read below. If you don’t care and want your ROMs to work, just change the ROM locations or paths and go play games. :)

From what I have found, the es_systems.cfg file tells Emulationstation where to look for the the ROM sets. This shows the ROMs in Emulationstation. THEN, Mame4AllPlus (M4AP) is executed and told to run ROM “X”. M4AP then looks at a location that is designated under the mame.cfg file for the files to run game “X”.

So when one gets the “missing file” error whens loading a ROM, they need to ensure that BOTH the es_systems.cfg file and the mame.cfg file are directing to the SAME location.

My line of logic comes from my personal installations and that every solution seems to be fixing the paths within the .cfg file(s) and/or putting the ROMs in the correct folder.

On all my Pi set ups, I run ROMs from the USB. In one installation, I had one(1) MAME ROM on both the USB and on the SD card. That one ROM ran without an issue, but every other ROM stated it was missing the required files. When I changed the path in mame.cfg, every single ROM loaded without an issue.

I then started another Pi build, and I changed the mame.cfg but forgot to change the es_systems.cfg. No ROMs showed in emulationstation. I changed the path in es_systems.cfg and every ROM showed and executed without an issue.

On my 3rd installation, I changed both paths and never had an issue loading MAME ROMs.

Example threads and solutions:

MAME Roms not working

mame4all "required files are missing"

[Floob]

SO this issue is related to running roms from a USB device as opposed to the default location on the SD card? Then yes, you may well need to re-point the paths as you have done.

I’ve kept mine simple and run all roms from SD.

[colosimo]

I have tried multiple times to configure RetroPie and still cannot manage to get MAME roms to load without getting the missing files error. Just did a fresh install of retropie and both the es_config and mame config are configured to load roms from the right directories and still no luck.

Is there anything else I can try?

I have a raspberry pi B+ running V2.3 of RetroPie.

[chito]

use Romcenter. When i first setup my roms with clrmamepro its said everything was cool but i couldnt run them. romcenter fixed that. there were still roms missing. romcenter is wayyyyyyyyy easier to use as well, you can see every rom and it has a traffic light system so you can see which ones are good and which one need fixing, and you can select a rom and see exactly whats missing so its easier to find missing files. never liked clrmamepro. such a bad ui among other things.

PS: I used the same dat file. romcenter didnt seem to mind

[gv0000]

Same boat Colosimo. I have my roms on my SD but I loaded some of them with a USB, could that be the reason nearly none of my roms work? Which is the weird thing, if NONE of my roms worked it would make a lot more sense then 1 or two working (Like Simpsons and the original AeroFighters); anyone have any possible ideas of why this might be?

[colosimo]

Could it be that the roms are corrupt? I have tried several roms and only got frogger to work.

[Roo]

[quote=87893]Could it be that the roms are corrupt? I have tried several roms and only got frogger to work. [/quote]

You need to verify you have the right ROMs. You can do that with either of the popular ROM manager tools, clrmamepro or Romcenter. I prefer clrmamepro but it’s really personal preference. If you want to try clrmamepro, I wrote a tutorial

https://github.com/retropie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Managing-ROMs

[quote=87890]Same boat Colosimo. I have my roms on my SD but I loaded some of them with a USB, could that be the reason nearly none of my roms work? Which is the weird thing, if NONE of my roms worked it would make a lot more sense then 1 or two working (Like Simpsons and the original AeroFighters); anyone have any possible ideas of why this might be?[/quote]

You probably have a newer rom set. RetroPie uses an older set of ROMs, based off MAME 0.37b5. The tutorial would help you too.

[jojoman1229]

Could anyone explain the process of moving the ROMs to the correct destination?

[Floob]

[quote=94036]Could anyone explain the process of moving the ROMs to the correct destination?[/quote]

There are paths set here:
https://github.com/retropie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/MAME

You can copy the roms here using the normal method, FTP, USB etc..

[kmhamel]

I did a full binary install of 3.0 up from 2.6 and mame4all could not find the roms. mame4all-libretro could find and run them no problem. My roms are on a harddirve, I use berryboot. I gave up trying to fix the problem and just got the new 3.0 image, made a berryboot image and installed that. No problem now, mame4all now works great. Something must be off in the binary install (I tried it twice).

[kendamachamp]

Hey guys, I’ve been lurking on this forum for a while and got my arcade cabinets almost 100% exactly as I want them. I just can’t get the mame roms working. I have the same missing files error as this thread, but I’ve confirmed everything points to the right place. I confirmed that the roms work on my pc when I open them with the mame32 emulator, so I know they are valid. I’ve tried dropping them in all the various locations for the mame emulators, but I can’t get past that error. I’m ready for help. I even tried unzipping them to see if that helped.

It’s retropie 2.6 on RPi2. Both ES config and MAME config point to ~/RetroPie/roms/mame.

Is there a way to capture more info about the missing file? Like where is it looking for them exactly? Then I could search the config files to see what variables are pointing to that location.

Or maybe the internal utility is having trouble unzipping the mame rom, and that’s why it can’t find the required files? I noticed that I have to use “unzip” instead of “gunzip” if I want to extract the files. So that got me wondering if ES is also using gunzip in the background to unpack the files to a temp location? Can I force ES to use “unzip” when it unpacks the roms for play?

[Floob]

Have you used clrmamepro to verify that your romsets match the MAME emulator you are using? It will be different to the version you run on the PC, so unfortunately it isnt a valid to test if they work on the PC.

There is a guide to verify the romsets here:
https://github.com/retropie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Managing-ROMs

You can find the dat files here:

MAME versions and romsets on RetroPie

We can probably help more if you confirm which arcade emulator you are using on the Pi – this can usually be worked out by the folder you have chosen to put the romsets into.

[kendamachamp]

I’ll confirm the rom versions. They came with a package called “6666 Games”. I tried placing them in the all 3 of the retropie mame emulators (mame4all, libretro, advmame) thinking that they must work with one of them… I guess it’s not that simple though

[herbfargus]

your best bet is to rebuild them using clrmamepro. considering the source you got them from it’s unlikely they are the right romset even if it may specify that they are.

[kendamachamp]

I’m gonna try that this afternoon. I didn’t realize you could rebuild them. I thought clrmamepro was just a utility for checking the version.

[kendamachamp]

I rebuilt the roms successfully with the mame4all.dat. Copied them to the roms folder on the Pi. But I’m still getting an error about missing files. Any other debugging tips?

[kendamachamp]

I went ahead and downloaded a new romset of the correct version, since using clrmamepro to convert my existing romset wasn’t helpful. That did the trick. Still having some issues though. MAME doesn’t seem to read in the all/retroarch.cfg. You have to configure MAME as its own beast using the gui menu by pressing TAB when you are in any game. That will modify the /opt/retropie/configs/mame/cfg/default.cfg. Then you should be able to modify that file directly as well to make any customizations, but that file just shows up as a bunch of garbage in my editor even though it is supposed to just be an XML file. Is it encrypted, or some other charset? I tried edit in both the linux and windows environment.

I’m also hitting a snag because my start and select buttons are 16 and 17 (because retropie sees both players as one device), but MAME only goes up to 15 buttons, so I still have to use the keyboard for some features. I was hoping to try editing the default.cfg manually and just put 16 and 17 in the file to see if it can pick them up, but I can’t edit the file manually due to the issue I stated above…

Anyone else having similar issues?

[Floob]

It sounds like you are using mame4all, how about using the lr-mame4all version that will use your retroarch config (press x as you start a game to swap it)?
Yes, the default.cfg you are talking about in mame4all cant be read/edited with a text editor.

[kendamachamp]

That would require getting 0.154 romset instead? Right?

[Floob]

mame4all-pi and Mame-libretro(imame4all) both use the 0.37b5 romsets.
Details are here:

MAME versions and romsets on RetroPie

[kendamachamp]

Thanks for the info, I really appreciate your help. Another website was saying that Libretro ran on 0.154. Lots of conflicting info on the internet. But what you suggested seems to have worked. Some of the roms run better on mame4all and others run better on libretro. But I think I have enough info now to move forward. I might try making the mame4all and the libretro just be symlinks to my rom repository so that they show up in both emulators, and then I can always just try them both to see which one is better for a specific game. I have over 8000 games on eight systems working now on my cabinet thanks to all the helpful people on this site. Hopefully I can be of some assistance to other people in the future.

[Floob]

FBA-libretro runs on a set similar to 0.154 so they may have been talking about that.
Glad you are up and running now :)

[sweden38]

Hello all,
I´m getting a bit crazy with the “MISSING FILES ISSUE”.
Please anyone can bring me a bit of light?.
I have the following text on both files:

emulationstation/es_systems.cfg
<system>
<name>mame-mame4all</name>
<fullname>Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator</fullname>
<path>~/RetroPie/roms/mame-mame4all</path>
<extension>.zip .ZIP</extension>

mame.cfg
[directory]
inp=/opt/retropie/configs/mame-mame4all/inp
nvram=/opt/retropie/configs/mame-mame4all/nvram
hi=/opt/retropie/configs/mame-mame4all/hi
cfg=/opt/retropie/configs/mame-mame4all/cfg
snap=/opt/retropie/configs/mame-mame4all/snap
memcard=/opt/retropie/configs/mame-mame4all/memcard
sta=/opt/retropie/configs/mame-mame4all/sta
artwork=/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-mame4all/artwork
cheat=.
rompath=/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-mame4all
samplepath=/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-mame4all/samples

On the other hand, what is a bit strange is that in “OPT/RETROPIE/EMULATORS/MAME4ALL/” I don´t really have the “mame.cfg” file. What I have is a link of “mame.cfg”(see attached JPG file).
The REAL “mame.cfg” according to the linking file is pointing to:

/opt/retropie/configs/mame-mame4all/mame.cfg

Is it correct???.

THANKS IN ADVANCE.

Sweden38

[Floob]

@sweden38
You can find the config file for mame4all here:
/opt/retropie/configs/mame-mame4all/mame.cfg

Or if you are using the libretro version, it is
/opt/retropie/configs/mame-mame4all/retroarch.cfg

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