Beetle PSX crashes when loading a .m3u with nested .chd files

[nullNOVA]

Hi,

Both of these methods work fine using PCSX ReArmed, so I believe it's an issue with the core itself, I will post the log from Retroarch below.

I've tested two scenarios, loading the .m3u with the files it points to within the same folder and also having the .chd files within a nested folder.

Scenario 1:

Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA).m3u
Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA) (Disc 1).chd
Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA) (Disc 2).chd

In the same folder, the .m3u simply has two lines:

Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA) (Disc 1).chd
Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA) (Disc 2).chd

This works!

Scenario 2:

Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA).m3u
Test
Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA) (Disc 1).chd
Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA) (Disc 2).chd

The .m3u has the lines:

/Test/Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA) (Disc 1).chd
/Test/Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA) (Disc 2).chd

This does NOT work.

I can confirm that the same setup works fine in PCSX ReArmed so that I know the paths are correct.

Ideally I would like the nested folder to work as I can exclude subfolders when scanning for ROMs so that no duplicates are added.

I'm using the Steam version of Retroarch, let me know if there's anything I can try.

Thanks!

[INFO] [Content]: Updating firmware status for: "E:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\RetroArch\cores\mednafen_psx_hw_libretro.dll" on "E:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\RetroArch\system". [INFO] [Core]: Using content: "G:\My Drive\Gaming\Emulation\ROMs\PS1\Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA).m3u". [INFO] [Core]: Content ran for a total of: 00 hours, 00 minutes, 00 seconds. [INFO] [Core]: Unloading core.. [INFO] [Core]: Unloading core symbols.. [INFO] RetroArch 1.21.0 (Git 54af661d95) [INFO] === Build ======================================= [INFO] CPU Model Name: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10600K CPU @ 4.10GHz [INFO] Capabilities: MMX MMXEXT SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE4 SSE42 AES AVX AVX2 [INFO] Version: 1.21.0 [INFO] Git: 54af661d95 [INFO] Built: Apr 28 2025 [INFO] ================================================= [INFO] [Input]: Found input driver: "dinput". [INFO] [Core]: Loading dynamic libretro core from: "E:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\RetroArch\cores\mednafen_psx_hw_libretro.dll" [INFO] [Overrides]: Redirecting save file to "E:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\RetroArch\saves\Beetle PSX HW\Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA).srm". [INFO] [Overrides]: Redirecting save state to "E:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\RetroArch\states\Beetle PSX HW\Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA).state". [INFO] [Environ]: GET_CORE_OPTIONS_VERSION. [INFO] [Environ]: GET_LANGUAGE: "0". [INFO] [Environ]: RETRO_ENVIRONMENT_SET_CORE_OPTIONS_V2_INTL. [INFO] [Environ]: GET_VFS_INTERFACE. Core requested version >= V2, providing V3. [INFO] [Environ]: GET_LED_INTERFACE. [INFO] [Environ]: SET_CONTROLLER_INFO. [INFO] [Environ]: GET_LOG_INTERFACE. [INFO] [Environ]: GET_MESSAGE_INTERFACE_VERSION. [INFO] [Environ]: SYSTEM_DIRECTORY: "E:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\RetroArch\system". [INFO] [Environ]: SAVE_DIRECTORY: "E:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\RetroArch\saves\Beetle PSX HW". [INFO] [Environ]: GET_DISK_CONTROL_INTERFACE_VERSION. [INFO] [Environ]: SET_DISK_CONTROL_EXT_INTERFACE. [INFO] [Environ]: GET_PERF_INTERFACE. [INFO] [Environ]: SET_SERIALIZATION_QUIRKS. [INFO] [Environ]: PERFORMANCE_LEVEL: 15. [INFO] [Content]: Content loading skipped. Implementation will load it on its own. [INFO] [Environ]: SET_INPUT_DESCRIPTORS: [INFO] [Environ]: GET_RUMBLE_INTERFACE. [libretro INFO] Rumble interface supported! [INFO] [Environ]: SET_PIXEL_FORMAT: XRGB8888. [INFO] [Environ]: SET_CONTROLLER_INFO. [libretro INFO] Loading G:\My Drive\Gaming\Emulation\ROMs\PS1\Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA).m3u... [libretro INFO] chd_read_toc: finished [libretro ERROR] TOC first(99)/last(0) track numbers bad.

[Transmeta-Niven]

I can confirm that the same setup works fine in PCSX ReArmed so that I know the paths are correct.

Your paths are NOT correct. you have a leading / and that is looking at the top level of your entire filesystem instead of a subdirectory where the m3u is located.
Test/Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA) (Disc 1).chd
Test/Evil Dead - Hail to the King (USA) (Disc 2).chd
This will look in the subdirectory Test/ where the m3u is located.

Also, if you do the normal scan to add entries and it pulls up both discs, when you do a manual scan for just m3u files, and tell it to add to the proper playlist, it will remove the individual discs and replace them with a single entry named after the m3u file, so there is really no need to use a sub directory at all.

I hope this information is helpful to you.

[nullNOVA]

Hi Transmeta-Niven,

Thanks for the response,

Your paths are NOT correct. you have a leading /

As other emulators/cores are able to parse the file paths with the leading \ I can only assume that this is a still a bug.

The reason I have left the leading \ there is because this is actually from a popular ROM pack called TinyBestSet for use with the Anbernic Handhelds, it works fine as-is on that system without any changes, and like mentioned it works fine on PC too using standalone emulators and different cores, just not using Beetle.

that is looking at the top level of your entire filesystem instead of a subdirectory where the m3u is located.

This will look in the subdirectory Test/ where the m3u is located

The .m3u is on the top level, it is the .chd files that are in the subdirectories, I'm not sure if this is best practice.

Thanks for the info about the manual scan, to be honest I know about that I'm just wanting it to be sorted in a single click because I'm lazy like that!

Thanks for your help, as the moment I've just put everything in the same folder and updated the .m3us to reflect this.