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MIA ROM Tracking
RomVault is the only ROM manager that supports tracking MIA (missing in action) ROMs. These are ROMs that are known to exist since they are included in DATs with hashes, however they have not been found or shared publicly. RomVault's MIA tracking feature allows you to see which ROMs are MIA directly from the RomVault UI.
How does the MIA ROM status work?
RomVault's MIA ROM status is based on the presence of the mia="yes"
tags in the DATs. Most No-Intro DATs include this tag for MIA ROMs. All DATs provided by DatVault support this special tag for MIA tracking.
The MIA tags in DatVault DATs are submitted by the community and removed automatically when MIA ROMs are found and scanned using RomVault. The community-driven approach ensures DatVault DATs contain the most up-to-date information about MIA ROMs, so there is no longer a need to refer to external wikis for MIA information.
Do I need DATVault for MIA tracking?
Yes and no. Most official No-Intro DATs include the mia="yes"
tag for MIA ROMs and these will correctly display MIA status without DatVault subscriber access. However, all DATs provided by DatVault support this special tag for MIA tracking. If you want to see the MIA status for all DATs that DatVault supports, then you will need to use the DATs that are delivered by DATVault.
I found an MIA ROM! What do I do?
Congrats! You are free to do whatever you like with your newly found MIA ROM. However, the RomVault Discord is not the place for sharing ROMs. Please do not share any ROMs on the RomVault Discord. If you are a DatVault user who has opted-in to sharing “Found MIA” information then a notification is automatically sent to DatVault so the MIA tag can be removed for the next regularly scheduled DAT update.
How do I opt-in or out of sharing Found MIA information?
If you are a DatVault subscriber, you are automatically opted-in to sending Found MIA notifications to DatVault if you are using a supported version of RomVault (version 3.5 or higher). You can enable or disable these notifications in the RomVault global settings. At this time only DatVault subscribers can send Found MIA notifications. If you do not have an active DatVault key, then no notifications are sent to DatVault.
Can I manually flag ROMs as MIA?
The mia="yes"
tag works for most XML formatted DATs. This tag needs to be added at the ROM level. You are free to modify your own DATs to flag any ROMs you like as MIA. This may be useful if you collect some archived DATs that are not available in DATVault. Example:
<game name="CD Battle - Hikari no Yuusha-tachi (Japan)"> <description>CD Battle - Hikari no Yuusha-tachi (Japan)</description> <rom name="[HRKI10107-1FAAT].raw" size="83161008" crc="12F75116" md5="43A8DCD7439EC3130926E168BE9C8BF0" sha1="A9E4836155CBF41CFE2E5916A3E0FFEEA529F8D7" mia="yes"/> <rom name="[HRKI10107-1FAAT].toc" size="2016" crc="174AD16D" md5="882263C0BC00FB91444F10B197C58337" sha1="305640439EC787374BE5125EA5E68DF0F400EA5C" mia="yes"/> </game>
Can I submit ROMs as MIA to DatVault?
Found MIA notifications can be sent by any DatVault user, however new MIA submissions are currently limited to select users to ensure data quality.
How can I get access to DatVault DATs with MIA information?
Just sign up to be Patreon supporter! If you would like to learn more about DatVault, then check out the guide which explains the features and benefits in more detail.