Mac question: Working Directory/Rom directory on external volume

[joewhite]

Howdy y'all,

I've got Mame 0.261 setup on an old Mac mini running Catalina that is working well with my X-Arcade Tankstick. The executable, ROM files, and all ancillary files reside on an external hard drive. I thought it would be nice to have Attract Mode handle the front end; however, I cannot seem to get it configured correctly.

I've scanned this forum and googled, but keep striking out.

I've tried using the absolute path

/Volumes/externaldrivename/mamefolder

I've tried making an alias to the Mame folder in my Documents folder and using

$HOME/Documents/mamefolder

and after reading @Hanone's suggestion in the thread at http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=3869.0 I created a symbolic link to the folder in my root directory and used

$HOME/mamefolder

but none of these worked.

What am I overlooking?

Code: [Select]

# Generated by Attract-Mode v2.6.1
#
executable           $HOME/mame/./mame
args                 [name]
workdir              $HOME/mame
rompath              $HOME/mame/roms
romext               .zip;.7z
system               Arcade
info_source          listxml
pause_hotkey         $HOME/mame/marquee
artwork    marquee         $HOME/mame/marquee
artwork    snap            $HOME/mame/video;$HOME/mame/snap

PS Why are there four challenges (CAPTCHA and three questions) to search and to post? seems a bit excessive

[zpaolo11x]

When you say it doesn't work, what does it mean? What error you get from the terminal when you try running a game? Also, no need to have $HOME/mame/./mame $HOME/mame/mame is enough

[joewhite]

Trying to generate the ROM list, I get zero added roms.

It appears to be a permissions issue.

Checking the console, I see

Code: [Select]

Sandbox: attract(xxxxx) System Policy: deny(1) file-read-data /Volumes/whd/mame/roms
I have given Attract Mode Full Disk Access, and made the mame folder world readable-writable-executable

If I move the roms folder from the external to my home directory, it works fine.

Was not running from Terminal, but from the binary.

[zpaolo11x]

Did you give full disk access also to the attractplus executable that is inside the app bundle?

[joewhite]

finally saw this thread

http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=3087.30 in which zpaolo11x suggested adding bash to full disk access, which did the trick.

Now, to wait for it to generate the list for all my roms. ;-)

[zpaolo11x]

That was the next thing I had in mind but new year celebration got in the way

[joewhite]

Thanks for the help, Paolo!

Happy New Year!!!