FZ, Smash 19XX romhack, and Samsung Galaxy S8

[ProfXavier]

Hello! I have been using Mupen64Plus: FZ Edition, and recently tried to play 19XX (the Smash 64 romhack.) However, it loaded into a black screen and did not appear to be running. I tried all of the emulation presets that come with FZ, but to no avail; I get the same result every time. Regular Smash 64 works perfectly.
I should note that the game used to run fine running the same emulator on my previous phone, the Moto X. I'm not sure what has changed since switching phones.
Is there anyone here who can help me troubleshoot this? I would love to have the game working again. Thanks in advance.

[fzurita]

Can you post your logcat file? Open the game until you get a black screen, then exit. Go to tools, then logcat. Pick share, and post that here.

[ProfXavier]

Was having some problems with attachments, so I've sent you a PM with a link to the file. Thanks!

[fzurita]

I requested access to the file.

[fzurita]

The app complaining about many missing files. Try this:
* First backup /sdcard/mupen64plus-fz/GameData
* Uninstall the app.
* Delete the /sdcard/mupen64plus-fz folder
* Re-install the app.

[ProfXavier]

I think I may have found part of the problem at least.

There's a folder inside of \mupen64plus-fz\GameData\ for the game, but it can't be deleted. I keep getting access denied errors on both my phone and my computer. I wonder if there's a way to delete broken files.

EDIT: Deleted the files with SD Maid. Reinstalled the app and tried again, game still loads to black screen.

[fzurita]

I'm really not sure what's up with your phone. The app does not seem to be installing correctly. Do other games work ok?

[fzurita]

This is interesting as well:

 09-12 19:02:02.924 28842:28886 I/UI-Console ]: using Video plugin: <dummy>

[ 09-12 19:02:02.924 28842:28886 I/UI-Console ]: using Audio plugin: <dummy>

[ 09-12 19:02:02.924 28842:28886 I/UI-Console ]: using Input plugin: <dummy>

[ 09-12 19:02:02.924 28842:28886 I/UI-Console ]: using RSP plugin: <dummy>

This means that you have no plugins selected. It almost looks like the install is getting corrupted somehow.

Try selecting the game, going to settings, and make sure that some emulation profile is selected.

[ProfXavier]

Went back and made sure that profiles were selected other than Global Default. Still no luck here.
I keep going back to the GameData folder to see that there's a weird 0 byte file being made for the game. Normal file browsers, including the one on my PC, get errors when trying to open/delete it. SD Maid seems to be the only way to trash it. This is really weird.

I re-confirmed that other games are working. SM64, Smash 64, OoT, and a few random others seem to work as expected. I'm going to try to rebuild the 19xx rom, because at this point that's the only thing I can think of. Though as I mentioned before, I tried someone else's build of the rom and was getting the same error.

[ProfXavier]

Rebuilt the rom. Still no luck. Clearly my phone is doing something it shouldn't be, but what? I wish I knew what was happening.

[fzurita]

Have you tried rebooting your phone then deleting that folder?

[ProfXavier]

Decided to try a few things before replying to you again.
I noticed that SD Maid was, in fact, NOT actually deleting the folder as I had thought. So I decided to use ADB commands via my PC to really delete the file. I was able to confirm that the folder was being deleted properly via the file explorers on my PC and my phone. After that, I restarted my phone, and ran Mupen FZ again.
It loaded into a black screen yet again. I checked the filesystem to confirm that the broken folder is back.

At this point I have a weird hypothesis. I noticed that the name of the folder shows up in my ADB shell as:
0.11 Dev ^LĒTHERS (U)
This contains some odd characters that are maybe causing some sort of conflict. Maybe Samsung phones don't play nice with weird characters, and this causes some sort of issue when Mupen tries to read it?

So here's my question, what's a good way to change the header/title of a n64 rom? If I can change the name to something else, so that Mupen reads it as a different game, and thus, creates a differently-named folder, maybe that will fix my issue?

[ProfXavier]

Wow, I was right.

I did some research on renaming n64 rom headers and used tools to rename the file to just "19XX v11".
The rom still didn't want to load, so I tried deleting the corrupt folder, and changed the actual rom's filename, and booted up Mupen again. This time, it worked! I finally got it working again.

Thank you so much for your help! I have no idea as to why this was such a big issue, but I'm glad that it's over.

[fzurita]

What was the ROM file name?

[ProfXavier]

19XXTE_011.z64