Root-caused against the user's own live output: the settings file had
<string name="ROMDirectory" value="" /> — the key was present, just
empty. The self-healing check only tested whether the string
"ROMDirectory" appeared anywhere in the file, so a key that exists with
a blank value (ES-DE can write this itself if its own first-run "select
ROM directory" step goes unanswered in a headless Moonlight session,
saving an empty path back over GOW's template) looked "already
populated" and got skipped — leaving ROM discovery broken even after
the fix had run.
Now ROMDirectory is independently forced to /ROMs whenever its value is
blank, on top of (not instead of) the existing RunInBackground patch —
no longer gated on the key's mere presence. Verified against the exact
reported bug (ROMDirectory present but blank) plus the existing missing-
file, already-correct, and idempotent-rerun scenarios in isolated /tmp
harnesses before touching the real script.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01VLX1yYKJExGSXmgUhxKQG6
Claude
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