Long delay and game restart issues with Zaparoo MiSTer Core update

[zaparoo-automation-bot]

Issue created from Discord

Source: Zaparoo / #mister-fpga

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Reported Message

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janimator0 (@janimator0) - 2026-02-15 21:36 UTC

First off: LOVE the new Zaparoo MiSTer Core update, the new UI (and overall polish) is a huge win. 🙌

That said, I’m noticing a couple things that feel like bugs (or at least undesirable behavior), and I’m curious if anyone else is seeing this or if it’s just my setup. Note: I use Zaparoo like real cartridges. I often leave the last-played card inserted in the reader between sessions. Also, these issues are new for me, I didn’t have them on older versions.

1. Long delay before cards are detected after boot.
   After powering on the MiSTer, it takes ~57 seconds before Zaparoo starts recognizing cards.
   Side effects:
   I can’t play immediately after powering on (I usually insert the “game” before turning the system on).
   Because I have autoboot enabled, I can be a few seconds into a game, and then detection kicks in and interrupts what I’m doing.

2. Game loads twice / gets restarted mid-session
   Example of what happens:

• Yesterday I played Zelda, and I leave the card inserted.
• Today I power on to continue.
• Autoboot launches the game right away, so I’m playing within seconds.
• Then ~15 seconds into gameplay of Zelda OOT (actual running around) , Zaparoo finally detects the card and pulls me out of the game to load it again from the beginning.

Conclusion / question
This didn’t happen for me on older Zaparoo versions. My guess is either:
card detection is happening much later after boot now, and/or it’s no longer “ignoring” a card it already knows is inserted until something changes. If Zaparoo could detect the inserted card immediately (or much sooner) after MiSTer finishes booting, it would SOLVE BOTH issues on my end.
Anyone else experiencing this behavior (long detection delay + reload/restart while already in-game)?

Context (previous messages)

wizzo (@.wizzo) - 2026-01-25 23:03 UTC

The best you could do is for that card, add some zapscript to wait a bit and then open the menu and actually navigate and change the option. Not ideal but it would work

wizzo (@.wizzo) - 2026-01-25 23:03 UTC

If there’s some particular mgl configurations you’d like available instead of writing the files manually I’m open to adding some additional launchers

wizzo (@.wizzo) - 2026-01-25 23:05 UTC

I’m also open to adding some way to define keyboard macros like you need to change the settings. Because some other people also requested similar to launch games inside 8bit computer images. But it needs some thought about how to work best

wizzo (@.wizzo) - 2026-01-25 23:06 UTC

Do you have anything else plugged in? And can you please get me a log file ideally after you tried to unplug it a few times and it suddenly works. Then get the file without shutting down the mister from the scripts zaparoo

wizzo (@.wizzo) - 2026-01-26 04:44 UTC

I saw one other person with this issue