Hotel Mario (US) - Game randomly freezes on the level completed screen

[sfreyux]

I've been testing Hotel Mario (US) in CHD format on the SAME CD-i 0.239 core.
The game works fine until it randomly freezes inbetween levels.
I can still open the RetroArch menu or the MESS ingame menu, but the game stays on the level completed screen no matter which buttons I press.
This happened twice: the first time when I completed level 1-5, and the second time when I completed 1-1.
I'll check a third time w/ logging enabled and I'll post the log in case it freezes again.

[sfreyux]

Update: using a ISO dump with the same hash of the TOSEC release listed in cdi.xml, the issue seems solved. In my previous tests I've been using a CHD from the latest MAME set at the time of writing. Probably a bad dump or smth.

[sfreyux]

Update: just yesterday Hotel Mario (US) started freezing again on the screen in between levels (when the remaining time is added to your score) even when using an ISO with the same hash listed in cdi.xml.
I'll try again and check the log file.