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Missing Games Checker Plugin 2.1

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AgentJohnnyP
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About This File

Missing Games Checker (MGC) is a powerful LaunchBox plugin designed to help collectors instantly identify missing games from their platform libraries based on official LaunchBox metadata. Compare your local collection against the LaunchBox database, track completion percentages, filter regional variants, and export missing titles directly into LaunchBox Wishlists!

image.png.95edeb2f10042447fa315caa0bc13cb4.png   NEW in v2.1!

  • Dedicated "Wishlists" Category Nesting: When exporting missing games to LaunchBox, MGC can now seamlessly create a custom Wishlists root category in your sidebar—complete with an auto-installed Wishlists.png Clear Logo icon

  • Dynamic Hardware vs. Wishlist Categorization: Toggle between nesting wishlist platforms under the new Wishlists category or keeping them inside their default hardware categories (Consoles, Handhelds, etc.). Moving platforms back and forth carries all scraped metadata and box art automatically without duplicates!

  • Enhanced Right-Click Context Menu: Added "📋 Copy Title to Clipboard" alongside existing title/platform export tools for ultra-quick search workflows.

  • One-Click Search Clear: A sleek, interactive 'X' button now appears beside search boxes whenever text is typed, allowing you to reset your search filter instantly.

  • Title Columns Locked: The 'Title' columns are now locked in place while scrolling across the table details.

  • Improved UI & Stats Layout: Moved Platform Completion Statistics directly above the Owned Games grid for immediate visual feedback.

CORE FEATURES AT A GLANCE

  • Powered by LaunchBox SQLite: Built on LaunchBox’s modern SQLite database for sub-second load times, instant processing, and a ultra-lightweight ~1.3MB footprint.

  • Platform Completion Statistics: Color-coded completion metrics give you immediate percentage feedback (80%+ Green, 30-79% Yellow, <30% Red) on your library progress.

  • Export Wishlist Platforms Directly to LaunchBox: Generate shadow platforms filled with placeholder games for missing titles. Download box art, banners, and media in LaunchBox for games you don't even own yet!

  • Regional & Released Filters: Strict-filter missing games by region (North America, Europe, Japan) or toggle the safety-net checkbox to capture titles with missing region data.

  • Interactive Grid Search & Column Filters: Real-time global search, column header sorting, multi-value field filtering (Genres, Region, Developers), and frozen title columns for easy horizontal scrolling.

  • Collector Clipboard & eBay Search Integration: Right-click any missing game to quickly copy formatting, spreadsheet-ready tabbed data, or launch an instant eBay search query in your browser.

  • Clickable Media Links: Direct links to YouTube gameplay videos, Wikipedia articles, and LaunchBox Games Database entries right inside grid cells.

  • CSV Exporting: Export owned or missing game tables to standard CSV format for offline library management.

Instructions for Using the Missing Games Checker (MGC) v2.1:
Requirements:

  1. LaunchBox v13.19 or higher. (v13.18 and lower should use MGC v1.2)
  2. Games in LaunchBox.
  3. The LBMissingGamesCheckerPlugin.dll file.

Installation and Usage:
1. Install the Plugin:

  • Download the latest release of the MGC plugin from this page.
  • Make sure LaunchBox is closed.
  • Unblock the downloaded zip file (Right-click on the zip -> Select Properties -> Click or Check "Unblock" if available)
  • Open the zip file and place the `LBMissingGamesCheckerPlugin.dll` file into your  LaunchBox\Plugins folder (example R:\LaunchBox\Plugins).

2. Access the Plugin:

  • Launch LaunchBox, then access the Tools menu and find Missing Games Checker(v2.1).

3. Using the Plugin:

  • Select a platform from the dropdown menu and click Check It!
  • MGC will display a list of games owned and a list of games missing from your collection based on the LaunchBox metadata.
  • You can export the list of missing games to a CSV file for easy reference.

Extra Notes:

  • The Owned Games list is pulled from YOUR collection. If fields are missing information, make sure your collections metadata is up to date. Check out this LaunchBox Video on how to do that.
  • The Missing Games list is pulled from the local LaunchBox.Metadata.db file. If you find information is missing, visit the LaunchBoxDB website to see how you can contribute!
  • I've worked HARD to make the plugin as robust and efficient as I can. That being said, some computers may experience delays in processing the metadata at the start, processing any large collections' of games, and filtering/sorting large lists. Please be patient! Once you begin a process, it will complete! But the UI may become unresponsive during processing.
  • NO data is modified in this plugin. Data is compared from the local Database file (which updates automatically by LaunchBox) and your collection data reported from LaunchBox.

Troubleshooting:

Reporting Issues & Feature Requests
Click on the "Bug" to open the debug log after the issue occurs. Click the Copy to Clipboard button and provide the relevant debug log here for review.

When reporting issues, please provide the following:

  • A brief description of the issue.

  • The output from the Debug Log (via the Bug icon).

  • (Optional) Your exported .CSV file or a screenshot of the error window.

I'll review the information and post a fix/suggestion as soon as possible.

Also, if you would like to have MGC perform additional tricks, let me know!! I do appreciate the feedback and will enhance the plugin over time based on your findings/suggestions.

Special Thanks

A huge thanks to the LaunchBox team and their API documentation for making this project possible, as well as Jason's helpful video tutorial.

Check out the source code on GitHub if you're interested.

Cheers! 🍻

Edited by AgentJohnnyP
v2.1 release.

What's New in Version 2.1   See changelog

Released

📣NEW in v2.1!

Dedicated "Wishlists" Category Nesting: When exporting missing games to LaunchBox, MGC can now seamlessly create a custom Wishlists root category in your sidebar—complete with an auto-installed Wishlists.png Clear Logo icon

Dynamic Hardware vs. Wishlist Categorization: Toggle between nesting wishlist platforms under the new Wishlists category or keeping them inside their default hardware categories (Consoles, Handhelds, etc.). Moving platforms back and forth carries all scraped metadata and box art automatically without duplicates!

Enhanced Right-Click Context Menu: Added "📋 Copy Title to Clipboard" alongside existing title/platform export tools for ultra-quick search workflows.

One-Click Search Clear: A sleek, interactive 'X' button now appears beside search boxes whenever text is typed, allowing you to reset your search filter instantly.

Title Columns Locked: The 'Title' columns are now locked in place while scrolling across the table details.

Improved UI & Stats Layout: Moved Platform Completion Statistics directly above the Owned Games grid for immediate visual feedback.

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 4
  • Unusual Gem 3
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AgentJohnnyP

AgentJohnnyP 29

Posted

Sorry everyone! LaunchBox made some changes which has seem to broken it, and with 13.19 and the switch to SQL this DEFINITELY will not work. Unfortunately, my full time job is an 8 day a week thing so any fixes will not come around until late spring/summer at the earliest. I'll revisit this on my break and will see about getting it working again. Until then, enjoy LaunchBox and your retro collections!!! GAME ON!!!

image.gif.9fb92778dea01666fee34a2b1861a7b4.gif

jacksonjack

jacksonjack 1

Posted

1 hour ago, AgentJohnnyP said:

Sorry everyone! LaunchBox made some changes which has seem to broken it, and with 13.19 and the switch to SQL this DEFINITELY will not work. Unfortunately, my full time job is an 8 day a week thing so any fixes will not come around until late spring/summer at the earliest. I'll revisit this on my break and will see about getting it working again. Until then, enjoy LaunchBox and your retro collections!!! GAME ON!!!

image.gif.9fb92778dea01666fee34a2b1861a7b4.gif

Thanks for letting us know, it's a shame, I just finished importing all my roms and was going to complete the missing ones over just that period... is there anyone you can hand your work to, perhaps even from the LaunchBox team? Your plugin is kind of super essential you know?!

chinagreenelvis

chinagreenelvis 13

Posted

So what version of LaunchBox does this need to work properly? I can't get it to show up at all in 12.9, so I'm assuming a separate installation of 13.18 is required?

Zaphod54

Zaphod54 10

Posted

On 6/11/2025 at 7:54 PM, chinagreenelvis said:

So what version of LaunchBox does this need to work properly? I can't get it to show up at all in 12.9, so I'm assuming a separate installation of 13.18 is required?

See the authors post above from February 12.  There were changes in newer versions of LB that broke it.

KRI$85

KRI$85 14

Posted (edited)

It's a pity that the plugin no longer works with the latest Lb 😕
Is there any replacement for this plugin? 

Edited by KRI$85
JoeViking245

JoeViking245 2,180

Posted

On 8/19/2025 at 1:48 PM, KRI$85 said:

Is there any replacement for this plugin? 

I'm not sure about a "replacement". But they seem like they may do similar things.

 

 

  • Unusual Gem 1
AgentJohnnyP

AgentJohnnyP 29

Posted

Hey everyone!

Sorry for the delay, but I’m incredibly excited to announce that Version 2.0 of the Missing Games Checker (MGC) is officially live!

When LaunchBox updated their local app structure to use the much faster SQLite database instead of the legacy XML files, the V1.2 of this plugin became obsolete. I took the opportunity to completely rebuild the plugin from the ground up to run natively on the new SQLite backend.

The result? The heavy loading bars are gone, the plugin is a fraction of its original file size, queries that took seconds now take milliseconds, and I’ve added a bunch of highly requested tools for purist collectors!

What's New in Version 2.0:

  • Automated "Shadow Platform" Wishlists: This is the big one! You can now export your missing games list directly into LaunchBox. MGC will automatically create an isolated, safely nested "[Platform] Wishlists" category in your sidebar, populated with your missing games.

  • Native 3D Box Art Scraping: Wishlist platforms automatically inherit the Scrape As property of the parent console. This means you can right-click your new Wishlist platform and instantly download 3D Box Art, Clear Logos, and metadata for games you don't even own yet!

  • "Purist" Regional Filtering: Only collect North American or European releases? Use the new dropdown Region Filter to hide global releases you don't care about. (It also includes a checkbox safety net to include/exclude database entries with missing region metadata so you don't miss anything).

  • Right-Click Quick Actions: Right-click any missing game in the grid to instantly launch an eBay search for physical copies or copy the title to your clipboard.

  • Lightning Fast SQLite Integration: Total UI overhaul. Instant filtering, completion percentages, and zero UI thread lockups.

  • Plus More!!!

How to Install:

  1. Make sure LaunchBox is closed.

  2. Download the attached LBMissingGamesCheckerPlugin.dll.

  3. Drop it into your LaunchBox\Plugins folder.

  4. Launch LaunchBox, open the Tools menu, and select Missing Games Checker.

If you're upgrading from V1.2, just overwrite the old .dll file. (Note: Because V2.0 relies on the new database structure, please ensure your LaunchBox is updated to a modern version!)

A massive thanks to everyone who provided feedback on the first version. Let me know what you think of the new Wishlist generation feature, and happy collecting!

  • Like 2

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