Hi all, when I try to load Soccer Kid (AGA) or Skidmarks (AGA) via WHDLoad (which I acquired from whdownload.com) I receive the message:

DOS-Error #223
(file is write protected)
on reading "devs:Kickstarts/kick40068.a1200"

Now, I believe I know why I am receiving that message. I'm running FS-UAE on Manjaro Linux and the kickstart file permissions on linux are read-only. My question is though, is it normal for some games to want to write to the kickstart rom? I did a scan of Soccer Kid (AGA) and Skidmarks (AGA) with VirusZ III 1.02 with the latest xvs.library and it didn't find anything. It just makes me a bit suspicious that the games are trying to write to the kickstart ROMS. I tried Zool2 and it loads up fine with no warnings.

Does that make sense? Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!!

source: http://whdownload.com/games/S/SoccerKid_v2.1_AGA_1150.lha
source: http://whdownload.com/games/S/Skidmarks_v1.0_AGA_0204.lha
source: http://whdownload.com/games/Z/Zool2_v1.0_AGA_0415.lha

@Randune

That doesn't sound right. They shouldn't be trying to write to Kickstart. In fact the games shouldn't know about Kickstart at all as WHDLoad deas with it when it sets up the game VM.

So, if it's stuck on Linux permissions, does that mean you are runnning it off a virtual HD folder?

You should be able to change the ROM protection bits to RWED or what ever it needs from the Amiga side.

@Hypex

Thanks for your response Hypex. Yes, I am running it off a virtual HD folder so that I can copy files in and out easily. On the Amiga side, the protection bits are already set to RWED for the kickstart ROM (Devs:Kickstarts/kick40068.A1200) but it still says that the ROM is write protected. That leads me to conclude that it's the underlying linux permissions being read-only on that ROM file will not allow it to be written.

I can simply change the linux file permissions for the ROM and try it again and it will likely work, but I just find it odd that WHDLoad is complaining that the kickstart ROM is write-protected when certain games are loaded e.g. Soccer Kid (AGA) but not for other games

Last edited by Randune on 17-Feb-2022 at 11:22 PM.

@Hypex

Ok, so I set the linux filesystem permissions on the rom Devs:Kickstarts/kick40068.A1200 to read/write and also had to set the rom.key file to read/write now the games load fine.

Then I did a sha256sum to compare the kick40068.A1200 and rom.key files with their originals and they were exactly the same, so nothing was written to the files, so I don't know why they had to be read/write then, but oh well..it works now.

Thanks Hypex

@Randune

So your suspicions were correct. Still, that is a strange one. However, Linux has a habit being really annoying with file permissions. Was you the owner of the ROM or was it set to root?

I once set up a PS4 controller over wireless for FS-UAE, then some updates later, it stopped connnecting. Before I solved it I was staying at a friends and my attempts at getting it working kept turning his PS4 on and off, lol.

Then I found out it changed permissions to be root and locked me out. I simply found out I just needed to load the the right app and tick a box to include me in the group. Then it works again!

@Hypex

Hypex, the user/group attributes were both set to my regular user which makes sense because FS-UAE was also running under my regular user account so changing permissions for the ROMS to u+w made them work.

Last edited by Randune on 24-Feb-2022 at 11:21 PM.