[Mega LD] JB Harold Blue Chicago Blues (PEASJ5036) Can't change disc side

[dokusaisa]

The game won't continue past the "Change to SIDE II and push button (TRAY CLOSE)" prompt at the end of the second day.

Selecting Disc 1 Side 2 from the Mega LD>Change Disc menu and pressing a button on the controller causes the prompt to repeat in a loop.

This happens on the latest release build and on v146-57-g1dffa3d97

Attached is a save file made just before the disc swap prompt appears.

image: J.B. Harold - Blue Chicago Blues (J) - PEASJ5036 [2025-08-19].mmi  (144,110,166,131 bytes)
sha256: f62c1633dec6fd9290a5cacf8721199d232fc072d74851c70f82ab5cadc3abcf

bios: Pioneer LaserActive Sega PAC Boot ROM v1.02 (1993)(Pioneer - Sega)(US).bin (131,072 bytes)
sha256: 62da6ad0b45ad6bec8bbcbf805d73017751fd674e9da266a6c357879fd95fbee

BCB Save at Disc Change.zip

[inshaneee]

Encountered this bug myself, tested on v146 release and v146-178-g43686810d.

Not sure if this helps any, but the game does seem to be able to swap the opposite way (Side 2 to Side 1) without issue. If you start the game with the disc on Side 2, then attempt to load a save file (like the one above) from Side 1, the game prompts "Change to SIDE 1 and push button (TRAY CLOSE)". If you then switch to Side 1 and press a button, it successfully recognizes Side 1 and loads the save normally.

[RogerSanders]

Hey @inshaneee, @dokusaisa, sorry, I wasn't aware of this issue. Got pinged on discord yesterday and took a look today, and I've got a fix in. Since there's another unresolved issue around performance from the nightly builds though, I've done a custom build which will get JB Harold working for you immediately. The download is now available on my site, but here's a direct link to the build.

[RogerSanders]

Adding a note here that you currently need to wait for a good 5-10 seconds after a side change before pressing a key in JB Harold, otherwise audio breaks. The reason is, the side changing is a little hacky, Ares didn't really have support for this kind of thing before. It takes a few seconds for the side change to actually take effect, but the change is unsynchronized with the actual emulation. If you try and continue too quickly, the game latches old information from side 1, and the audio breaks. This is something we should be able to improve upon. Ideally emulation would completely pause until the side change was fully completed. For the time being though, wait to change the side until you see the "Change to SIDE II..." screen, and after triggering the side change, wait 10 seconds before pressing any buttons. That will ensure audio works.

[dokusaisa]

It works great now, thank you very much!