MysterNybble

If you can turn on your logs and send us some of them, we might be able to see what's hanging on your machine :), thanks!

Thanks! I put a proposed fix in place for the next build related to your crash. I'm cautious in saying I fixed your issue, but hopeful :). The ipac could count if it's in dinput/game controller mode, but either way, the issue I saw could happen with just the Xbox controllers. The trackball and spinner probably behave more like mouse input than a controller, but again, it may not matter.

Thanks! While not conclusive (crashes never really are!), this strongly points to some input/controller-related issue. I'll have to scour our DirectX/DirectInput code to see if we're doing anything unsafe. This would explain the 'randomness'; it could be 'not every time but sometimes' while a controller powers up or down or loses connection to Windows itself.

Glad it seems better, means we're on the right track. That said, while all these logs helped, it still didn't point to exactly what's going on. If you see another hang (and you're sure it's hung) in Windows task manager -> details -> launchox.exe -> right click -> create memory dump file, the file this makes might be useful if you are willing to share it (the file could contain sensitive data from your computer's memory, so if you want to send it outside the forums, that is fine). I have additional logging in our next release (likely a full release, and not a beta) to help further, but programming = whack-a-mole, amiright?

The VLC test logs show that it was still using WMP. The setting may not have applied, or Big Box may not have been restarted after it was changed. Remember that Big Box and LaunchBox have different media player settings so you need to set it in the app you are testing, then restart it, and test again. We also recently added automatic native crash dumps that should hopefully be sitting on your computer. Check the LaunchBox folder's \Logs\Crash Reports\Pending folder and send me whatever you have there (both now but after you're able to reproduce the VLC crash with the settings checked). Each crash report has a minidump and json file, both are helpful. If you don't see anything there, let me know as that means my minidump isn't working and I'll need to look into that.

I have low confidence in this actually helping, but I was able to give this a go ... but I don't think it's quite there yet (which is why it's not even in the change log), but I added something I'd like you to test for me: You'll need to restart your app for it to go into effect. It may actually make playback worse (but will apply to both big box and launchbox), but curious if you can try this out to compare and let me know what you see/feel. The long of it is that WPF (the UI technology LaunchBox and Big Box are built on) can naturally reach 40 fps (on my machine) for custom rendering, but it offers a lower-level option, that this experiment is trying to replicate. It was a bit of a rush job, and I had mixed results on my very capable machine, so I may not keep it as much more than an experiment until I can figure out what else I can do to improve it.

Good news is beta 6 (coming soon, likely tomorrow) should restore missing video transitions and fix the vlc thumbnail flash. We've also improved the startup handling to be more resilient (not confident this will fix your issue, but it could, and if it doesn't, it should produce better diagnostics to help us figure it out). I am also looking into your fps report for vlc to see what we can do there, likely not in time for beta 6 but maybe before release if I can figure it out. Thanks for all of the reports, videos, and logs, they really do help us find issues or at least find limitations in our diagnostics.

Thanks so much for pulling this - super helpful, and apologies for missing these when you reported them in 13.27. Good news: this crash seems to align with one that we saw and should be in beta 6 (which should be out "soon"). Of course, with software, fixing one thing may just highlight something else, but progress is progress. Thanks again.

In addition, the Windows crash dump could be useful if you're willing. Please look for a .wer file along with a .dmp, .mdmp, or .hdmp file from the time of the crash in any or some of these folders: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive (or ReportQueue) C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive (or ReportQueue) C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\CrashDumps for a BigBox*dmp file The crash dump is the important file. If none exists we may need to enable dump tracking in windows. Which you can do by: Open regedit Create the key/folder "BigBox.exe" in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps\BigBox.exe Create the DWORD value "DumpType" with a value of 2. Then if you can get it to crash again, look for the above files. The crash dump can contain personal data so you may want to send it to us private via email, DM, or featurebase bug report but collect the .wer, the .*dmp, and the log files in the launchbox logs folder.

Would you be able to turn on debug logging for this exact test and send over the 3 log files it will make? This is odd and hoping to see something in those logs. Thanks!

Thanks for the video. If you had debug logging enabled, can you share those files (there should be 3 per run) as well? If not, can you turn it on and recreate a short session similar to your video, showing that the videos aren't loading in, then wait on one of them to see how long it takes to load, and then go back to just navigating around (but try to do all this in 30s so the logs don't get too confusing)? At least do this with the VLC video engine selected, and if you have time, repeat the same test (closing and reopening between each test so we can get clean logs). Doing WMP as well might be useful as well, but please close/open Big Box between the tests to create separate log files. Thanks for helping us out!

Super helpful! Thanks so much. If you relaunch your Beta 3, it should tell you to update the media engine plugin (should update to 1.0.5), then restart when it prompts you to, and cross your fingers, and it should fix this issue with VLC playback (and has a strong chance of fixing the related issue with WMP/ffmpeg as well, but I haven't confirmed that yet).

Would love to see the debug log files if you can recreate this for me. Enable debug logging in LaunchBox's options, then recreate the issue. This will create 3 files in the Logs folder: the normal log and 2 media-engine logs. The media engine handles background music irrespective of which video player you choose, so seeing these logs will be useful. Good to hear. We're hoping to lean into this VLC player/media engine as *the* video/audio playback solution across the board once we iron out all the wrinkles.

Can you help me understand this better? How long does it take to gobble up all that memory, and how are you using it? Screenshots of task manager would be useful (before/after/timing) More interestingly, what *exactly* do you mean by "never gives it back"? Does BigBox.exe stay running (according to task manager) or... where does the memory go? Would love to fix this for you (and everyone). (also read faeran's post above for other information that is useful for us to have)

Thanks! We do a manual merge so any/all changes should be seen