C-Beats

Friday at 03:15 PM

What all do you have in \\LaunchBox\Plugins? Honestly never heard of things disappearing and it not being one of the two things you've already mentioned (that I believe I told you). Can you do the following for me:
1) Import the games in question
2) Go to Tools > File Management > Create a Backup
3) Send me that data file in a PM as well as a list of some of the games you see missing when you log back into LB

Friday at 03:11 PM

2 hours ago, MrSco said:

so I guess i switched my bigbox video setting to use VLC a year ago as directed by @C-Beats ... and more recently when I checked the setting, I only checked in LaunchBox settings, not also in BigBox and BigBox had it still set to VLC from last year's testing... So now BigBox AND LaunchBox are both set to WMP for video playback and I've had BigBox attract mode running for over 24hrs and no issues or crashes. Its the longest it's ran without crashing in a long time. I'm gonna let it go for another couple days over the weekend to be sure, but it seems like the code base has fully switched back to VLC being garbo and wmp being stable now. ... maybe pop a warning to users who have VLC still set in their settings warning of instability with a check box to not remind again if they wanna keep vlc garbo... cause if thats really the issue, thats pretty bad to allow users to make their settings unstable by having updates roll out without warning the user their settings are no longer ideal... they'd have to go into the settings and see that VLC is now labeled (Deprecated)... which I'd argue is useless to most users who have no idea what that word means lol

Yeah when we moved to .NET 9 it cleaned up stability in WMP but tanked it for VLC. There IS a prompt now last I knew in BB when you try to set playback to VLC (WMP is default) that tells you crap could break.

Friday at 01:37 PM

7 hours ago, chinagreenelvis said:

What on earth are you guys thinking?

That we don't support older versions of the plugins because they have obvious flaws (hence the need for a new version) and we don't want to have to deal with reports of issues we know are fixed in a newer version. Was either this or we'd just auto-download new versions and then have to immediately restart the application you just opened. Notification at least lets you handle the update at your own leisure. So I guess what I'm trying to say is...

Thursday at 12:11 PM

what format are your games in?

Wednesday at 02:57 PM

Just now, MrSco said:

This has been happening for years. Tested after every update and on multiple systems. Always running the latest version. You can see the history in this post and others

Yeah, it comes up again pretty regularly, as stated there have been some ups and downs with Attract Mode stability, but there have been quite a few releases where as long as you were using a theme built correctly that attract mode worked just fine. The migration to .NET 9 admittedly stirred up a lot of old ghosts we had previously rid ourselves of and so there was a recent version or two where it was pretty bad, but the large majority of that should have been corrected by now when using the correct settings. Why I wanted to make clear, if you're still seeing it let us know because it's news to me that people are stilling having issues on current version.

Wednesday at 02:16 PM

5 minutes ago, boslaw said:

Hi, when I have guests I want my cab to be super simple. 50 Mame games, no alternate platforms, no alternate playlists, nothing else. Just the option to choose from one of the 50 games. But how do I do that? I can use a Playlist, but that seems clunky. Instead of just seeing the list of games, my users see "Playlist" which looks odd. I know there must be a way to do this but I haven't figured it out. I am using BigBox if that makes a diff.

Import the 50 games and then in Big Box make your default view "All Games" instead of Platforms or Platform Categories. Then you'll load right into a game wheel with those games in it.

Wednesday at 01:26 PM

4 minutes ago, MrSco said:

Tested many variations over the years. Even this one. Crash city. Such a shame cause it’s an amazing app otherwise. It just can’t play videos for shit

There have definitely been times where the app hasn't be as stable, but as of the current release our internal testing last I knew is showing it is. I'd try to update to latest and try again. If you're not seeing it as such let us know via the bug report system.

Wednesday at 12:57 PM

11 minutes ago, MrSco said:

I wouldn’t hold your breathe. It’s been busted like this for many years now and across many devices. Lots of others having the same issue. The only workaround is to use a theme that has attract mode not play any videos. Super lame in 2025 we can’t play some videos without crashing.

AttractMode using WMP and the default theme should be stable. Changing theme or video playback can make your mileage vary pretty considerably since theme's can be made in a way that is known to have issues with memory stability. VLC in current build also is known to bring down the app faster because of a leak in the process.

Wednesday at 12:27 PM

10 hours ago, Eyebrows Cat said:

But this is the android forum.

lol fair enough. The number of times I've done that is already staggering and I likely have quite a bit more before I learn my lesson lol

Wednesday at 12:11 PM

6 hours ago, jestermgee said:

SOLVED!

So after scanning that page code again I noted nothing in the "game info" part of the page has any data in that page but there is a "GameDetailsView" binding reference right where I would expect that block to show so following my intuition I followed this to the GameDetailsView.xaml and now it is making far more sense, I see the value: PlatformClearLogoImagePath

So it's just a case of finding the linked files which now makes much more sense.

Glad you were able to solve it. Yeah anytime you see a binding that points to something ending in "View" then what is being displayed isn't in that file and potentially can be found in a different file in that folder.

Wednesday at 01:03 AM

2 hours ago, BeemanDev said:

I tried putting Platform Icons in
\\LB\Images\Media Packs\Overrides\Platform Icons\Platforms\<PlatformName>.png
but they didn't get picked up, they don't seem to get picked up from
\\LB\Images\Platform Icons\Platforms

where they used to be anymore either, I checked LB v13.19 and they still work fine there.

I even tried putting them in
\\LB\Images\Media Packs\Platform Icons\Nostalgic Platform Icons\Platforms
So I'm not sure where LB expects them to be now?

TBH I've spent about 6 hours wrestling with this, I just swapped back in the core folder and lb root files to v 13.19 I have and everything works fine again. This 13.21 update definitely causes a lot of issues. Maybe If you could add an option to disable "Media Packs" entirely, that would be helpful so if Users have issues they can simply turn them off.

I'll have to check the code tomorrow when I'm back on my dev machine. I can't remember if theme overrides are higher priority than your personal one. If so this could be related to the theme you are using. Some themes have their own (I believe Big Default for example does this)

Wednesday at 01:01 AM

@XvXPhoenix 13.22 Beta 2 may have some code in it that resolves the issue. Once you see it's released on the forums would be it be possible for you to do the following:

Open LaunchBox
Go to Tools menu and create a backup
In LaunchBox open options and go to the updates section and enable beta downloads
Check for updates (I believe in tools, may be in help not at a computer with LB installed)
Let it update to beta 2 (again, once out) and see if you have the issue still there

Omni settings depends on the view in use in Steamy. Do you use Image View or List View?

Image view you'd select Image View in LB (or there is a selector on the right side of the theme, you want the left most button), then in the second grouping click the one that has two horizontal bars in it. That view should be essentially the same as steamy image view
List View you'd want to press the 3rd button on the left grouping and the two vert lines in the second. Then drag the separator that is between the list and the details view (it's invisible but there) to the left until the list turns into a Steamy-esque list and you should have Steamy List view. It works better if you hide the Side Panel (no worries a new drop down appears so you can still use it)

Tuesday at 08:34 PM

Been a bulk edit wizard in app for at least as long as I've been on the project. Select multiple games (can hold control while clicking on them) and then press CTRL+E to open the edit window and change all the selected games at once.

Tuesday at 08:32 PM

12 minutes ago, Eyebrows Cat said:

OS:
Windows10 Pro 64bit ver.2009

Problem:
When changing the name of a platform on which a game is already registered, it takes a long time to move the media, and during that time Launchbox becomes unresponsive.

Whether the problem can be reproduced consistently:
I tried restarting the PC, changing the target platform, deleting the media folder, etc., but there was no improvement.

It is highly likely that this is a problem with my PC environment, so I am posting this to identify the cause. Are there any examples of similar phenomena occurring?

Thank you.

The unresponsive part usually means something is being done on the same CPU thread as the UI and so the UI's "refresh" can't be called and so OS see's this as a hung process. Generally speaking the app will return to normal function once the process completes, it just doesn't play nice until then. Things to look for to improve the time it takes to do this: Make sure neither location are over network which can greatly increase time to move files, make sure both locations are on stable/working drives (bad sectors no good for anyone), make sure you don't have file sync software running on either location, make sure you don't have AV running against LB (Windows firewall should be fine, third party stuff can get pretty iffy pretty quickly)

Tuesday at 06:44 PM

22 minutes ago, BeemanDev said:

OK if I put them here they get picked up and I don't need to make any changes in LB
\\LaunchBox\Images\Media Packs\Overrides\Platform Clear Logos\Platforms\<PlatformName>.png

It is a bit different structurally to before as they would be in
\\LB\Images\Platforms\<PlatformName>\Clear Logo\<PlatformName>.png

But what about the other media like Banner, they stay where they were? Gonna get confusing but...

Logos and Icons I believe were the only platform related that has moved at this time.

Tuesday at 05:00 PM

Easiest way to use a single location for everything is to drop logos in \\LaunchBox\Images\Media Packs\Overrides\Platform Clear Logos. It only supports a single file per entity but if you dump the art there (or point the symlinks) to it correctly it'll work like it always had and then you can manage the logos per platform, category, and playlist via the Add/Edit window (they show as Clear Logo (Override))

Tuesday at 01:15 PM

12 hours ago, jestermgee said:

Preface: I am pretty new to LB but not generally a "noob" in terms of technical ability.

I have just started setting up LB in the last week and have almost everything ticking away nicely to the point I am now in the process of doing tweaks to things.

One thing I would like to know is how I can easily adjust a few elements that are not showing how I would like.

Using the default theme (have tested numerous others but the features I like are in the default) I already know I cannot edit it due to the fact it resets every launch so I have copied it to my own custom theme and messed around in the code to make sure I know which view file I am using.

I am simply using Notepad++ to try make some basic changes so I do not have VSCode or anything installed as yet.

One simple change I would like to do is change the platform icon in the top right, it is very dim (almost completely hidden) and I would like to make this non transparent so when browsing global favourite lists etc I can easily see what system the game is for:

I would also love to adjust the main text to be white so it is easier to read on a TV in the lounge but have failed to find the correct hex value for this page view, seems to me there may be a global control for some elements instead of per-view control?

I have come from a Meedio/XBMC background where editing files like this was pretty simple as they were basic xml files but the way these are created is not quite as simple to understand using a basic editor so any hints to adjust these few things will help me understand how to adjust more down the track. Not looking to overhaul everything, just a few QOL tweaks.

Files in question are in \\LaunchBox\Themes\{Theme Name}\Views. The file in question is one of the Wheel Game views. You'd look for a line with a FlowImage that is passed the platform logo and then change it's opacity to 1. To change the style of all elements in the view you can add a default control style to the resources at the top of the file. Googling "WPF override default style" should get ya pretty close to what you want/need. Feel free to ask more specific questions on the forums once you get that far.

May 22

Use the "Games Missing Media" sidebar, let it scan artwork, select games missing box front, select all the games and then go to Tools > File Management, select bottom option. Export/Move the files to a new folder

May 22

Anything worth saving is found in your Data folder. If you have backups enabled in LaunchBox it'll automatically back up that folder into a single archive and stick it in the Backups folder. It'll keep the last 10 backups at startup and shutdown for easy roll back. You can also manually create a backup file via the LaunchBox interface and store that somewhere you want as well.

May 22

2 hours ago, Gilatron said:

Is there a way for me to show Clear Logo instead of, or alongside, the game title in Game Details panel? Maybe a 'simple' xml tweak? Love the theme anyway, just switched to it recently

You'd have to add a FlowImage control where that text is, set the ImageType to "Clear Logos". You should be able to find the syntax for it by looking in the default theme (or really any theme with a logo displayed there). I didn't in this theme to simply save vertical space in the details view so I could use that space to view metadata which I tend to care more about.

May 22

13 hours ago, XvXPhoenix said:

13.21, if it's not a universal issue, I wonder what's causing it on mine? I switched to 4 other themes just to make sure and this is the only theme it happens on. I've manually uninstalled and reinstalled it as well as tried a "repair" which I know just does the same thing but figured it was worth a shot.

I know what you're reporting IS a thing we saw in some themes when we made the change but thought we had resolved in all of them by the time the release went out, so it's entirely possible. I just have to track down the exact settings required to make it trip up. Could you post up a screen shot of your Game Details option page? The one that shows which elements are turned off/on? I'll mimic it and see if that produces what you're seeing.

May 21

If the files aren't listed in import it's almost always because you already have them imported and just aren't seeing them because they are hidden, or imported to a platform they shouldn't be. First step is to look in View > Show/Hide and make sure nothing is being auto-hidden via that menu. If those are all off and you still can't find it you can run the Audit tool to attempt to find what game imported is pointed to the file in question (list view can likely be used as well)

May 21

On 5/17/2025 at 3:48 PM, XvXPhoenix said:

This is absolutely my favorite theme to use with LB! Unfortunately, after a recent LB update, it will only load media for every other game selected. For example, I can choose the PSX game "1 Xtreme" and none of the media (video, box art, disc, etc) will load in the expected window however if I then pick "2 Xtreme" all media loads as expected and the video clip plays. I can then pick "3 Xtreme" and again, nothing loads. Then, I can go back and pick "1 Xtreme" and ta-da, the media loads and the video clip starts to play. So you might think, maybe it just needs to cache, but no, if I then go and pick the previously successfully media loading "2 Xtreme", no media. Hopefully this is an easy fix or just a setting I can change to fix this as I would hate to stop using this theme!

Verified it's a theme-related issue as all media loads with the default theme loaded, another custom theme loaded, and in BigBox.

Hmm... I just tried this on my setup and unfortunately not seeing what you are. What LB version are you using?

May 21

Yeah, I fully realize you're more knowledgeable in any attempt to utilize RL and it's differences. I've not ever used the software. Just stating that cold starting again from LB has become pretty straight forward and much faster than it was in the past when you are I first started our builds. You start getting into the weeds and needing custom command lines/emulators for every game/app sorta thing and I can definitely admit now you're looking at QUITE a bit more work lol

May 21

The DB file you download from in-app is generated once per day and like 2A EST (or somewhere close to that). Anything approved since then won't be in the file. You also need to make sure LB has the latest local file and you can force that download in the Tools > Download menu. The logic in Add/Edit Game is a bit looser and can show you several results where the bulk tool does not. I'd attempt to go to a single game you know should be in that file and use the search tool in the Edit Game window and see if you can find it that way for starts. It may help shake out why you're not seeing anything.

If it still doesn't work provide a few links to the games that aren't working for you and we can do a deeper dive into it.

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