Gamebrowser Woes

[jachin99 82]

I've been trying to setup the gamebrowser plugin off and on for a few months now but I'm never successful at this. I've added a Games library to my server, I logged into my Emu Movies account, which is the paid version, I've edited the xml in my MBC folder, all with no luck. I honestly really don't understand how the settings work. Why do I have to edit the xml file directory, and do I need to do this in addition to adding games to my library, and systems to the settings within the gamebrowser plugin? I also have an issue where Emby is only fetching metadata for a few games while that same game gets complete metadata in launchbox. Here is what I have setup so far. I have my games nested within a folder of the same name for the game, and each of those games are nested within a game system folder (Wii, NES, etc), and each system is nested in a video games folder on my media drive.

I have direct paths setup when I pointed Emby to the folder (\\pc\folder). My gamebrowser xml looks like this, word for word.

<GameSystems>
    <anyType xsi:type="GameSystem">
      <Name>Gamecube</Name>
      <Executable>C:\Program Files\Dolphin\Dolphin.exe</Executable>
      <Switches>"--exec={rom}"</Switches>
    </anyType>

Should I fill in the exec with the location of the executable?  Do I need to insert the names for my roms?  

When I go into the games menu I see folder icons for each game but when I select the game, Emby goes into that folder and says no items instead of launching the game.  Thanks

 

[ebr 14913]

Hi.  Have you seen this?

 

GameBrowser and MB Classic 258+

[jachin99 82]

Yep. I walked through that and still no luck

[throgmorton 96]

I haven't looked much at ROMS but with PC Games I did have issues with the switches tag, basically I couldn't get it to work, so maybe the same thing is happening for ROMS?  What I ended up doing was basically creating a .BAT file which launches the executable with the appropriate switches.  You maybe want to test one title with a batch file to see if that solves the launching of the game.

[jachin99 82]

I bet it is the same problem. For your windows games was EMC trating the game as if it were a folder instead of launching the game like a command?

[throgmorton 96]

It wasn't treating the game like a folder it was just launching the executable but nothing would happen as in order to get the executable to work you need certain switches.  The same would be true if launching from desktop, if you simply clicked the executable nothing would happen, only if you clicked the shortcut which has several switches embedded it would launch the game properly.

[jachin99 82]

Can you describe how you did this in more detail?  i can probably figure out the syntax of the batch file but how you did you fill out the XML to get gamebrowser to execute the batch?  Did you use the switches tag or did you use the executable tag?

[throgmorton 96]

I quickly tried to setup a Sega Genesis emulation using Kega Fusion to see if it works and I was able to launch the ROM. I even had pre-run a windows game just to compare log files if there was issues, but I'll basically provide you a breakdown of what I did. 

• Created a network share on my NAS called ROMS
• In the ROMS network share I created a folder called Genesis which will be where I house my Genesis ROMs
• In Genesis I created a Folder called Aladdin and place a copy of the Aladdin genesis ROM in there.
• I then used the Emby server to add a new library and pointed it to my ROMS network share (Ialso gave it the optional network mapping of Z: which is the mapping on my PC for the ROMS share but not sure if this is necessary or not). 
• I then used GameBrowser plugin on the Emby Server to add a Sega Genesis Game System which is pointed to the Genesis folder on my ROMS share
• Finally I re-scanned the Library so that the items will populate.

So basically on my server this type of setup should have generated the gamebrowser.XML config file that looks like this (N7770-10G is my NAS, note the Windows share was already done prior to this):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<PluginConfiguration xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <GameSystems>
    <ConsoleFolderConfiguration>
      <Path>\\N7770-10G\GAMES</Path>
      <ConsoleType>Windows</ConsoleType>
    </ConsoleFolderConfiguration>
    <ConsoleFolderConfiguration>
      <Path>\\N7770-10G\ROMS\Genesis</Path>
      <ConsoleType>Sega Genesis</ConsoleType>
    </ConsoleFolderConfiguration>
  </GameSystems>
</PluginConfiguration>

I then edited the GameBrowser.XML file on my HTPC in the ProgramData\MediaBrowser-Classic\Plugins\Configurations\ directory and it looks something like this (I removed a bunch of Windows Games just showed a sample):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GameBrowserSettings xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <GameSystems>
    <anyType xsi:type="GameSystem">
      <Name>SegaGenesis</Name>
      <Executable>C:\Kega\Fusion.exe</Executable>
      <Switches>-fullscreen "{rom}"</Switches>
    </anyType>
  </GameSystems>/>
  <DosGames />
  <WinGames>
    <anyType xsi:type="GameSystem">
      <Name>BlazeRush</Name>
      <Executable>C:\Program Files (x86)\Targem Games\BlazeRush\game.exe</Executable>
      <Switches></Switches>
    </anyType>

    ...
	
  </WinGames>
  <EnableQuitKey>false</EnableQuitKey>
  <SelectedQuitKey>0</SelectedQuitKey>
</GameBrowserSettings>

Note the <Name> tag has to match what GameBrowser is expecting I had to look in the log file to see this but it was SegaGenesis no spaces.

 

 

Here is an exerpt of my log when I launched the Aladdin ROM (Note the line trying to match GameSystem, as this is where I got the name to use):

2017-11-14 23:43:29.5569,Debug,,Not playing intros for Aladdin,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:43:29.5736,Debug,,Creating a new instance of GamePlaybackController,27,Worker thread for Common
2017-11-14 23:43:29.5756,Info,,Gamebrowser playback controller about to play Aladdin(Z:\Genesis\Aladdin\Aladdin (USA).gen) ,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:43:29.5776,Debug,,Having to get media experience by reflection due to bug in Windows 7,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:43:29.5786,Debug,,GetMediaExperienceUsingReflection was unsuccessful,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:43:29.5806,Info,,Gamebrowser playback controller playing Aladdin,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:43:29.5842,Info,,*** GAMEBROWSER *** Trying to match GameSystem for SegaGenesis,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:43:29.5842,Info,,*** GAMEBROWSER *** GameSystem List has 1 entries,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:43:30.6204,Info,,*** GAMEBROWSER *** Process.Start(SegaGenesis,, C:\Kega\Fusion.exe -fullscreen "Z:\Genesis\Aladdin\Aladdin (USA).gen"),1,Application
2017-11-14 23:43:30.6234,Debug,,Sending Http Post to http://192.168.1.155:8096/emby/Sessions/Playing?CanSeek=False&IsPaused=False&IsMuted=False&ItemId=ed37d4cb81a386bbd03761c27016af78&QueueableMediaTypes=Audio&PlayMethod=DirectPlay&format=Json,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:43:30.6998,Info,,Received web socket message: PlaybackStart,48,

Anyways I hope this helps.

 

 

Here is a sample from the BlazeRush windows launch to for informational purposes:

2017-11-14 23:25:16.9656,Debug,,Not playing intros for BlazeRush,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:25:16.9786,Debug,,Creating a new instance of GamePlaybackController,20,Worker thread for Common
2017-11-14 23:25:16.9811,Info,,Gamebrowser playback controller about to play BlazeRush(G:\\BlazeRush\game.gbwin) ,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:25:16.9831,Debug,,Having to get media experience by reflection due to bug in Windows 7,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:25:16.9841,Debug,,GetMediaExperienceUsingReflection was unsuccessful,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:25:16.9866,Info,,Gamebrowser playback controller playing BlazeRush,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:25:16.9906,Info,,*** GAMEBROWSER *** Trying to match GameSystem for Windows,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:25:18.0220,Info,,*** GAMEBROWSER *** Process.Start(BlazeRush,, C:\Program Files (x86)\Targem Games\BlazeRush\game.exe ),1,Application
2017-11-14 23:25:18.0250,Debug,,Sending Http Post to http://192.168.1.155:8096/emby/Sessions/Playing?CanSeek=False&IsPaused=False&IsMuted=False&ItemId=689a8d98a662e22293e49de4f9105ee3&QueueableMediaTypes=Audio&PlayMethod=DirectPlay&format=Json,1,Application
2017-11-14 23:25:18.1065,Info,,Received web socket message: PlaybackStart,16,

Edited November 15, 2017 by throgmorton

[jachin99 82]

I appreciate the help, and I'll try this out soon and let ya know how it goes

[AxeMan 22]

So - is there an actual plug-in that needs to be installed on the Front end? I'm asking because my install does not have a gambrowser directory for the .xml file. I have the plug-in installed on the server and a system configured as well as a library.

 

I'm planning on using RetroArch - and I see at least some people have gotten it working...

[AxeMan 22]

Okay - i'm an idiot - i realize it does not need a folder of it's own. carry on smarter than me people. i'll be back soon enough