Can't launch games externally on Android as of the 2025-01-17 nightly release unless the complete core path is passed

[leonstyhre]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• This is a bug in RetroArch frontend
• I have searched the existing issues

Description

On Android, all cores fail to load when launched externally (from a frontend or via the am command) as of the 2025-01-17-RetroArch_aarch64.apk nightly build unless the complete path to the core file is included in the Intent. It works fine in 2025-01-16-RetroArch_aarch64.apk and earlier.

Expected behavior

Doing something like the following should work:

am start -n com.retroarch.aarch64/com.retroarch.browser.retroactivity.RetroActivityFuture -e CONFIGFILE /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.retroarch.aarch64/files/retroarch.cfg -e LIBRETRO mesen_libretro_android.so -e ROM /storage/emulated/0/ROMs/nes/1942.zip

And this has worked fine up until the 2025-01-17 nightly build.
To make game launching work in the latest nighly builds, the following is required:

am start -n com.retroarch.aarch64/com.retroarch.browser.retroactivity.RetroActivityFuture -e CONFIGFILE /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.retroarch.aarch64/files/retroarch.cfg -e LIBRETRO /data/data/com.retroarch.aarch64/cores/mesen_libretro_android.so -e ROM /storage/emulated/0/ROMs/nes/1942.zip

As you can see the path to the core file is passed in the second example.

Steps to reproduce the bug

Running any game/core using the am command without passing the entire path to the core file, such as this:

am start -n com.retroarch.aarch64/com.retroarch.browser.retroactivity.RetroActivityFuture -e CONFIGFILE /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.retroarch.aarch64/files/retroarch.cfg -e LIBRETRO mesen_libretro_android.so -e ROM /storage/emulated/0/ROMs/nes/1942.zip

Version/Commit

1.20.0 (Git 48d903e)

Bisect Results

No response

Present in the nightly version

Yes, this is reproduced in the nightly build

Platform & operating system

Android

Affected Cores

All cores

Environment information

Any Android device.

Relevant log output

[Jetup13]

Can confirm. Log:

=== Build =======================================
Capabilities: ASIMD 
[INFO] Version: 1.20.0
[INFO] Git: 5db9b7f
[INFO] Built: Jan 19 2025
[INFO] =================================================
[Core]: Frontend is built for dynamic libretro cores, but path is not set. Cannot continue.
Fatal error received in: "init_libretro_symbols()"

Might be related to commit 69ceb95?