Have you cleaned the optos?

The switch on the subway between the whirpool exit and lost mine kickout has failed. The game thinks you shot the mine directly if that switch doesn't trigger. If the switch is working, it tells the game the ball arrived at the mine kickout via the whirlpool and not from a direct shot at the scoop.

There is a setting to adjust the lost mine difficulty - go through Adjustments -> Feature Adjustments and step through the list, not sure exactly which it is.

Sometimes the manual doesn't have all the adjustments listed as those are printed before all the updates are released. But I'm pretty sure you can make that adjustment in the LH6 home ROMs. Not 100% sure but seem to remember being able to do so after installing that set.

By sheer coincidence was looking at this last night, I have the LH6 rom and can't find a setting for the lost mine items

In the online rule sheets it's talks about how 'reflexing' can impact if you start with the flashlight or not, but I have no idea what reflexing means...

I have such a hard time hitting the lost mine shot lol .... I think I noticed on my game it always starts with "Flashlight" already acquired, and i just need to get the "map", and "key". So I never hear the "I've got a flashlight.." I didn't know it was a setting, good to know.

Not completely sure but it can also depend if the game is set on easy or difficult ?

Here's the deal with the Flashlight.

The ONLY way I've ever found to have it in play is if you put the game in Tournament mode. In all other modes the Flashlight is spotted at the start of the game. I don't believe there is any other way to adjust it, regardless of which ROM you're using.

Yeah, I've seen that too.

I think there's something to this. I sent off my boards for servicing and when they came back, now the flashlight is not spotted. ROM is LH-6, which is the same ROM I was previously using and the flashlight was always spotted (except in tournament mode). I don't know if CoinOp Cauldron did anything with my game ROM or not, but the game was at least reset to factory settings.

Caveat: I have some repair issues going on with my Lost Mine right now and haven't had the chance to fully play-test yet so the above is just my preliminary take.

I wonder if restoring factory defaults would make any difference to the counting?

You could try resetting the factory defaults a few times to see if you can get it so the flashlight is not spotted.

I think P-8 is the prototype ROM though and it's going to have all the bugs that were fixed by subsequent ROMs.

I had the same type of experience, although my Lost Mine opto was failing and I don't know if that contributed to the occurrence of the flashlight. This was with the LH-6 ROM, right after the factory reset. I had a few instances of getting flashlight award (i.e. it was not being spotted) right after the reset to factory defaults. The thing is my Lost Mine was triggering by itself so it wasn't exactly "normal" gameplay. This was happening pretty early in the game. Since fixing the Lost Mine opto I haven't seen that happen again (now the Flashlight is spotted). So, maybe its something that only happens right after reset, or maybe you can only get it if you hit the Lost Mine very soon after the first ball is in play.

So, I'm back to thinking the only way to play where it's not spotted is to put the game in Tournament Mode. The only thing is, that Lost Mine shot is so hard to hit that I'm fairly certain the spotted the Flashlight to make up for that. I rarely get the Gold Rush even when it is spotted.