Load State issue in POP1 and POP2

[Elgeweily]

In Prince of Persia 1 or 2 on the Miyoo Mini Plus (Onion OS 4.2) using DOSBox Pure core on Retroarch, when I load a saved state it causes the whole game to restart back to the game intro, even when I am in Retroarch quick menu and press Resume which is supposed to go back to the game at the same point I left it, the whole game restarts, any idea what could be the issue?

Note: occasionally, a saved state loads successfully, but 90% of of the time it doesn't.

[schellingb]

Is it possible to enable logging to a file on that device and get the log file off the device and post it here? Settings under Logging:

• Logging Verbosity: ON
• Frontend Logging Level: 0 (Debug)
• Core Logging Level: 0 (Debug)
• Log to File: ON

[Elgeweily]

logfile.log

I think the part with the errors (line 224), is when I first start the game, and indeed the same errors show on screen.......but the part where I try to manually save and load (which causes the game to restart) is at line 241

[schellingb]

hmm, it logs "Unable to save state while game is not running" which should mean that you're trying to save a state while in the command line or in the start menu. Due to some DOSBox internals save states only work when a game is running. This is what the log has:

• 63: DOS boots
• 70: Start menu starts
• 203: Auto save state loading is initiated
• 231: RetroArch tries to save the state (fails due to game not running)
• 236: RetroArch tries to load the auto save state (fails due to game not running)
• 238: DOS Game is "PRINCE" is now actually starting (from here on saving/loading would work)
• 248: A state is saved then loaded
• 252: Auto save state on core shutdown then core shuts down

I think the problem is RetroArch's auto-save and save-undo feature. Because loading a state causes RetroArch to save a state to enable the "load undo". Auto-save is a bit complicated due to loading not being supported before the game runs. Undo save states are also a bit of a headache.

For now you can try to set the Emulation -> Save States Support setting to "Enable save states with rewind". This will cause saving/loading before the game is running to not error and maybe it will cause the whole thing to work.

I will try to see if I can make auto-save and save-undo work nicer with the default setting in the next version. Thanks for reporting.

[Elgeweily]

Thanks for your response, but these errors are not related to the issue in question, these errors happen when I first start the game and are caused by the Auto Save/Auto Load options of RetroArch. When I disable both of them in RetroArch Saving settings, the errors go away, but the issue persists.....attached the log file where the errors are gone, but the issue still happens.

retroarch1970_01_0401_01_34.log

[schellingb]

So you ran the game, saved the state, then loaded the state and it caused the core to restart? hmm..

What seems a bit weird is this part:

[INFO] [State]: Saving state "/mnt/SDCARD/Saves/CurrentProfile/states/DOSBox-pure/Prince of Persia 2.state1", 1307448 bytes. [INFO] [State]: File already exists. Saving to backup buffer ... [INFO] [State]: Loading state "/mnt/SDCARD/Saves/CurrentProfile/states/DOSBox-pure/Prince of Persia 2.state1", 1406800 bytes.

Wonder why it says it saved 1307448 bytes but then proceeds to load 1406800 bytes from that the same file...

Can you upload that "Prince of Persia 2.state1" here?

[schellingb]

You say this happens in POP1 and POP2 for you, have you tried other games? Do they all have the same issue or is it specific to POP1 and POP2?

[Elgeweily]

• It happens in POP1 and POP2, I tried Doom and Wolfenstein they are working fine.
• Actually, in the below log, I didn't load, I just saved and the game restarted, I don't know why it tries to load after saving:

[INFO] [State]: Saving state "/mnt/SDCARD/Saves/CurrentProfile/states/DOSBox-pure/Prince of Persia 2.state1", 1307448 bytes. [INFO] [State]: File already exists. Saving to backup buffer ... [INFO] [State]: Loading state "/mnt/SDCARD/Saves/CurrentProfile/states/DOSBox-pure/Prince of Persia 2.state1", 1406800 bytes.

• So, the restart happens when I just save (like the above case), when I load a previously saved state, or when I resume from the quick menu.
• The state file: POP2 State1.zip

Note: Maybe it is unrelated, but sometimes when I close POP2, it exits with error code 139.

[Elgeweily]

I think the loading part has something to do with the fact that the state file already exists and it is trying to overwrite it....because when I save on a clean slot, it just logs "Saving state.......", but in either case, the issue happens.

[Elgeweily]

Ok, here are some more findings:

• The logs don't seem to be useful, I compared the logs from working games vs POP logs, and they are basically the same thing, the logs show nothing wrong.
• There are specific parts in the game, where I can consistently save and consistently load, for example: saving and loading while the game intro is running, works perfectly fine, also saving and loading at the end of level 1 when the prince enters the ship, works consistently fine, and maybe there are other parts as well but I didn't play after that, so is it possible that the game somehow prevents the emulator from saving the state in some parts of the game?