MysterNybble

In LaunchBox -> Tools -> Options and search for controller :), there's a checkbox you can turn off and a drop down to select the input (it has to be on/connected when you get to this screen). The memory dump analysis is a new trick in our bag of tricks, so if you get one, that could help

Was it the *same* game you played later? We are still working through challenges in detecting certain scripts/launchers so we think the game ended before it actually did (i.e. a pre-launcher launches the game and we don't see the game itself but only see the script or launcher). If the first game is consistent, let me know more about how that game is setup/what game it was if you could. We are trying to improve startup video laggy stuff still but glad to hear that the wheel feels great now :).

I just heard the zelda-opening-a-chest noise in my head, thank you for telling me this!

If you put LaunchBox into single controller mode, you can select the input you want, would that work? Inputs are riddled with oddities so if you need it to stay in All Controller mode I might need to work with you to identify what LaunchBox is seeing as far as 'controller input' to see why it's doing that.

We are working on these sorts of things but often times we can't recreate it and fixing things blind doesn't always turn out for the best. The best thing you can do it, when you notice this send us a few details: What you last saw: i.e: during the shutdown screen which screen it was stuck on, or the shutdown screen went away but it's still there LaunchBox Debug Logs Memory dumps: Perhaps the most useful for the elusive ones is a memory dump. From task manager you can right click on the exe and create memory dump which we can dive into to see what LaunchBox thinks it's working / why it might still be stuck. You can ignore the media engine process, that one will shutdown when LaunchBox itself does. LaunchBox has two processes running you might need to either identify the main one (memory usage is a strong indicator here) or just send us both These files can be large (they usually compress well though) and may contain private data so treat accordingly. Uploading to cloud drive (google, dropbox, etc.) and emailing or DMing me the link works well. I understand it is frustrating, but I really do want to fix these things for you and with enough or the right information usually I can :-P.

Hello everyone! Our very first (ever?) 3-digit release deserves its own beta. tl;dr: 14.0 was a great success, a few issues snuck in, this is a beta for a hotfix for many of them, please include logs and details when reporting issues, try to focus on the bugs listed below, and save general feedback, unrelated issues, or ideas for the next full release or use our feedback/bug report system. It is intentionally bug-fix only as a tidying up of some of the issues that have been reported and discovered since 14.0 was released (just a week ago as of this post, whew!). It spans a variety of areas across both LaunchBox and Big Box. We are hoping for a short beta cycle for this hotfix so we can get these fixes out to the masses. IMPORTANT! Please remember to include the following when providing your testing feedback: The program you are referring to that you have tested: LaunchBox or Big Box Your hardware specs and OS What you were doing in the app and how you were doing it Which theme you used The input you were using during your testing: controller, keyboard, or mouse List all community plugins that you have installed If you experience any crashes (LaunchBox or Big Box crashes to your desktop), we'll need the whole crash report, which includes Windows event logs (a lot of times it's multiple logs related to the same crash) and the mini memory dump that is stored in your Logs folder. The dumps may be large and include private data, so reach out if you want to share privately Your LaunchBox and/or Big Box debug logs Your feedback will be especially valuable if you were experiencing the issue in 14.0 and confirm you are no longer seeing it in this beta, so please let us know what you see. Here's what we could use your help testing: Beta 1 Storefront games: Repeatedly launch and exit storefront games from Big Box and LaunchBox, confirming the frontend returns without freezing or leaving the startup screen behind. Controller reliability: Rapidly tap and hold controls, reconnect controllers, and navigate Big Box Options, confirming there are no crashes, missed presses, repeated movement, or double activations. Please test both DirectInput and XInput devices if possible. Startup and pause screens: Repeatedly launch and exit games and open and close the pause screen, confirming each overlay disappears and keyboard and mouse input return normally. Big Box hybrid and 3D views: Change sorts, filters, searches, platforms, and categories, confirming the wheel, selected game, details, models, and game count remain synchronized. Big Box wall views and Jump To: Try a search with no matches and a descending Title sort, confirming the no-games message appears and Jump To lands on the correct game. Legacy theme videos: Browse games with videos using Old Default (Legacy) or other older themes, confirming the correct Game Details video loads and follows your video priorities. Startup with pending media: Restart LaunchBox with media work queued and change the Default Image Group, confirming startup no longer sticks at "Initializing process" and unavailable choices safely fall back to Boxes. Flip Box: Flip a box in the default Image Grid, then scroll, resize, or refresh images, confirming it flips correctly and does not unexpectedly return to the front. Add/Edit Application window: Open the window for applications, versions, documents, and links, confirming every option is visible or reachable by scrolling on smaller or scaled displays. Last Modified dates: Note a game's Last Modified value and select it while details load, confirming that viewing the game no longer changes the date. RetroAchievements: Check a recognized game with no published achievements, confirming it is no longer incorrectly marked as Mastered. TeknoParrot media: Download EmuMovies media for a dedicated TeknoParrot platform, confirming it now uses the Arcade_PC catalog without affecting regular Arcade or MAME platforms. Full Changelog: Beta 1 Fixed: A deadlock that could freeze LaunchBox and exhaust threads after launching and closing several storefront games Fixed: DirectInput polling and maintenance races that could cause native crashes, missed short inputs, or repeated held inputs during Big Box Options navigation Fixed: A pause-screen activation race that could leave LaunchBox or Big Box unresponsive to keyboard and mouse input Fixed: An unexpected error window could appear behind the startup or pause screen when a fade did not finish in time, leaving LaunchBox and Big Box looking frozen Fixed: A startup state mismatch that could leave LaunchBox stuck at "Initializing process" when pending media work could not start; invalid saved image groups now fall back to Boxes Fixed: Legacy Game Details videos failed to load in Old Default (Legacy) and matching legacy LaunchBox themes Fixed: Big Box hybrid game wheel repopulation issues that could leave stale, mismatched, or blank 3D model slots after sorting, filtering, or switching platforms Fixed: Big Box wall searches and filters with no matches left an empty view without the no-games placeholder Fixed: The Big Box A-Z index jumped to the wrong location when Title sorting was descending; those sorts now use the Jump To list Fixed: The Add/Edit Application window did not always grow enough to show all options; constrained screens now provide scrolling Fixed: Selecting a game updated its Last Modified date while recalculating derived media or achievement metadata Fixed: Games with no achievements available on RetroAchievements could be incorrectly marked as Mastered because of invalid completion progress Fixed: Flip Box did not work in the default fast Image Grid and could revert to front artwork during scrolling or image refreshes Fixed: Dedicated TeknoParrot platforms used the general Arcade catalog instead of EmuMovies' Arcade_PC catalog for media downloads Thanks for all of the help and detailed reports. We absolutely appreciate you and the help you provide in improving each release!

Thanks and sorry! Should be working now

If the VLC option is working for you (remember big box and launchbox have separate options)... yes, you can uninstall k-lite.

I looked as best I could, and the file is oddly the right size, and two small sections of the pixel data were somehow overwritten. So really it could be a million things, temporary storage, filesystem, RAM, NAS, sync issue while saving, the list goes on. The date of the files tracks as to something that happened a couple of weeks ago so 🤞 it was a fluke? I can't rule out that LaunchBox itself didn't play a role, but it definitely doesn't look like a partial download, nor do we 'touch' the file in many places other than getting it there. You might want to take this as reason to be cautious to look at other external factors and make sure you have a backup of anything that's improtant to you if it does turn out to be hardware or something unwanted happening elsehwere.

How is your controller connected? Direct to windows, Steam Input, DS4Windows, etc.? USB or Bluetooth?

Got it, I'll see if I learn anything from the corrupted file, but otherwise, let us know if you see anything else happening.

Try the final 14.0 release recently released, hoping that your issues are limited to the beta, but let us know!

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.