Mala crashes when I try to config mame

[dkersten]

Running mame 0.154b 64 bit.  Mala 1.82 beta.  Also does same thing with 1.74

Mame works fine standalone or with mameui64.

Created the config for mame with mame64 -cc
Copied the mame.ini to mame64.ini since that is what mala looks for. (this works on other machines for me and if I don't and try to create the ini in mala it errors out and then crashes with the same crash log)

The mala.exe.log from when I enter the configuration and then try to enter the mame config is as follows:

2014/07/30  17:37:51.03   Error: Exception Message: 'auto' is not a valid integer value, Object Function: AppDeactivate, Exception Class: EConvertError, Object Class: TfrmMameConfig
2014/07/30  17:37:52.95   Info: Showing taskbar
2014/07/30  17:37:52.95   Error: AppException: Terminating MaLa

I have reinstalled mala, changed versions, reinstalled mame, and even changed my vid card because at first mame wouldn't work in d3d with my integrated card and I figured maybe that was the reason for the crash in mala too. 

I can launch games fine. 

[dkersten]

This got even worse because as I added games, I couldn't get them to run any more in Mala.. The first few I installed worked fine, and I could run the other roms from mame, a command line, or from mameui64, just not from mala.  And since I couldn't get into the mame config from mala (this is where it crashed), I couldn't check to see where it was getting it's rom directory from.. 

So I first took a usb stick with all the mala and mame setup (no roms, no xml) from my other machine.  I ran mala from the stick on this computer, and once I set up the right directories for files it worked perfectly.  So I copied the mala folder over to this one after wiping out the one I had installed from scratch, and still nothing.

Then I pointed the Mala install on the hard drive at the mame directory on the USB stick, and it worked.  Since I had downloaded it twice from the mame dev site and installed it clean 3 times, and the fact that mame on it's own worked perfectly, I had to assume the mame folder was all correct.  So I figured maybe it was something in my mame.ini (or mame64.ini since that seemed to be what mala was looking at).  I copied the ini files over and still no go.

Then I figured maybe the mame.xml file was bad, even though I had recreated it 3 times.. Copied it over, no go.

Finally I gave up and just copied all of the mame folder from the usb to the hard drive, and now Mala works perfectly!  I can get into the config just fine, and all my roms work perfectly again.

I honestly don't know what it was because this was a clean install with files downloaded (more than once) from the mamedev.org site.  Also it is the same version I run on my other cabinet (where I got the files).  So the version didn't change, the ini and xml files didn't affect it, and mala was working with other files.  The one thing I did notice was that almost every file I copied over from my other machine was smaller than the ones on this machine. 

edit:  Just figured out that I am running .153 on my other machine, and by copying that version over, mala works fine.  Just doesn't work right with .154.  Guessing it is something to do with the .ini file as it crashes when you go to edit mame.ini from mala and has the "auto is not a valid integer" as an error..

[Vigo]

I'm having the same issue with mame .155. Any updates?

I currently can't run games, but it could be a different issue at this point. Been updating and overhauling a lot at once.

[dkersten]

I am pretty sure it had to do with having an older .ini file with a newer version of mame, combined with having multiple .ini files set up in my mame directory (one in the mame folder and one in the /ini folder).  I was recreating the ini file, but only the one in the mame root directory, and it seemed to be looking at one I had in the /ini folder in the mame directory. 

I would recommend starting fresh by moving your existing mame directory to a different location, unpacking the entire package from the mame dev site, copy your custom mame build to it if you have one, run the mame64 -cc, copy the mame.ini to mame64.ini (so Mala sees it even though it doesn't use that file, another glitch with Mala), and then make your mame.ini settings changes manually to get HLSL working (if you use it).  Then make sure Mala is pointing at the mame folder and the new mame64.exe and it *should* work when you go into the mame configuration in Mala after that.  At least it did for me. 

Once you have that part working, start moving any supporting folders from your old mame directory into the new one.  Don't move the .ini folder over unless you have a lot of custom .ini folders for individual games, and if so, don't move the mame.ini from that folder over. 

I personally like to keep my media folders in a separate directory (ie snaps, videos, marquees, control panels, roms, etc), but because of Mala, I keep the samples in the mame folder. 

Again, keep in mind that many of the settings, especially having to do with the d3d stuff, don't work right in Mala because much of that has changed sometime in the past few versions (possibly .154, but not entirely sure).  For anything HLSL you are better off enabling it, then going into mame and using the slider controls to tweak it until you like it, then record the settings and manually transfer them into the mame.ini.  Of course, once you start to manually edit the mame.ini file, you probably won't use Mala to do it any more. 

For the record, I have compiled .155 and updated all my roms, but I have not yet tried to run .155 with Mala.  However, I did successfully set up .154 with Mala on my last build, and taking care to be sure there was only one .ini file and making sure the entire directory was new, then moving my supporting folders into place made it go flawlessly.

[Vigo]

Thanks, Dave. I'll give that a go, that makes sense to me. Updating my romset to .155 has been a bit of a nightmare.

I discovered why my roms have not been working. I also made the mistake of rebuilding to 7z, but I didn't realize that Mala gamelists don't play well with 7z format. It would be nice to see a few fixes to Mala to keep it relevant with newer versions of mame.

[dkersten]

It took me many hours but I finally have my romset updated, and spent a lot of time weeding out the gambling roms.  I started with a  full set from .14x, which might have been a mistake, but then early on I made a lot of mistakes.  And as I went, I thought things were interchangeable, which I have found they are not.  The .ini folder and even many of the .ini settings are one of those examples.  I am working on getting all the chd's for the games I have now, along with fleshing out the videos, all of which takes huge amounts of time and bandwidth.. But if I keep up on it, I am hoping that as new releases come out I can get updated faster.  Might be time to pick up a portable terabyte drive to store the master set on.. never thought I would need this much space for mame, lol..

[yotsuya]

Might be time to pick up a portable terabyte drive to store the master set on.. never thought I would need this much space for mame, lol..

I did something similar with a SATA TB drive and an adapter I have. Full set on the drive, chucked in a cabinet for future use.