08738: Fresh plugin.ini via 'mame -cc' may create empty file.

ID	Category [?]	Severity [?]	Reproducibility	Date Submitted	Last Update
08738	Plugins	Minor	Always	Jul 30, 2023, 18:24	Aug 17, 2023, 18:56

Tester	john_iv	View Status	Public	Platform	MAME (Official Binary)
Assigned To	hap	Resolution	Fixed	OS	Windows 10/11 (64-bit)
Status [?]	Resolved			Driver
Version	0.257	Fixed in Version	0.258	Build	64-bit
		Fixed in Git Commit	367ce4d	Github Pull Request #

Summary	08738: Fresh plugin.ini via 'mame -cc' may create empty file.
Description	The clean plugin.ini created by the command 'mame.exe -cc' is creating an error when launching a game with -verbose or -bench. Removal of plugin.ini removes the error, as does typing regular text after the characters and saving the resulting file: c:\O\Games\MAME>type plugin.ini ∩╗┐ c:\O\Games\MAME>mame pacman -bench 90 -snapname bench Error loading plugin.ini Average speed: 16380.61% (89 seconds)
Steps To Reproduce	1. Remove plugin.ini if present. 2. Edit mame.ini and clear pluginpaths directory. [updated] 3. Run 'mame.exe -cc' to create a fresh one. 4. From command line use 'type plugin.ini' to see the characters. 5. Run 'mame.exe pacman -bench 90' 6. Receive error loading plugin output to screen. optional Expected: Empty plugins.ini should not be created leading to this error if there is no plugins directory or one is not referenced in Mame.ini. Actual: Empty BOM headered plugin.ini is created with mame -cc which leads to the error when running games.
Additional Information	Happens in 0.257 release from mamedev.org and tip of master 0.257 (mame0257-75-g1fe2664723f). [Edit: This occurs when the mame.ini pluginpaths line is blank; see discussion w/ Hap below]
Github Commit

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Affected Sets / Systems

Attached Files	plugin.ini (3 bytes) Jul 30, 2023, 18:24 Uploaded by john_iv [Show Content] [Hide Content]

No.21673 Robbbert Moderator Jul 31, 2023, 03:56	The 3 characters in your file are EF,BB,BF which I assume is a UTF-8 header. Notepad identifies it as as "UTF-8 with BOM". I believe that is intentional, however it would be a good idea if the list of plugins were included with their default settings.
No.21674 hap Developer Jul 31, 2023, 09:03 edited on: Jul 31, 2023, 15:36	You mean the newly created plugin.ini is 3 bytes? For me, it gets filled with the default plugin options, so no error when loading pacman. edit I can repro it if i rename the plugins folder. Are you sure you didn't modify mame.ini to point to a different pluginspath(one that doesn't exist), and are you sure you have the plugins folder? If no, it's a user error. At the same time, IMO MAME shouldn't create an empty file with just a BOM header. If it can't find any plugins, it shouldn't create a file at all.
No.21675 john_iv Senior Tester Jul 31, 2023, 17:05	Thanks Hap, the plugins path was blank in mame.ini (probably cleared for a prior LUA load error or something). So in this instance I wonder if the logic should be hardened to not create the file per your second point. If people want to forgo anything to do with plugins they can do so without its files or ini entry and subsequent error. Note, the use of 'mame.exe -cc' did not create the missing default entry to pluginpaths. I know that 'mame -cc' does 'fill in the gaps' by creating some other entries in mame.ini, but it must not for this pathing?
No.21676 hap Developer Jul 31, 2023, 19:57	After https://github.com/mamedev/mame/commit/367ce4d6b75975809dbde39294349a3d294044b0 , it won't create an empty plugin.ini file anymore. mame -cc updates mame.ini, it does not overwrite it with default settings. eg. if i do a mame -cc, it will still have my rompath, and will still have "window" set to 1. If you completely remove the "pluginspath" line, then yes it will create one and set it to "plugins".
No.21677 john_iv Senior Tester Jul 31, 2023, 20:53	Confirmed fixed, 0.257 (mame0257-82-g367ce4d6b75). Thanks -