AstroBob

Hi Folks, Sorry for the delayed response here. I wanted to chime in since this is technically working as expected What’s happening here is that RetroAchievements relies on something called a ROM hash to detect whether a game has achievements. If your ROMs are archived (like zipped .cue/.bin or .7z files), the tool we use to check for achievements (RAHasher) can’t read the contents properly, and therefore can’t match them to the database — even though the emulator itself might still be able to launch the game. LaunchBox does try to extract some archived files temporarily in order to scan them, but this isn’t always reliable, especially for disc-based platforms like Dreamcast or PlayStation, where there can be multiple files involved and the extraction process can be incredibly long. It’s also much slower, heavier on your system, and more prone to misidentifying the contents. ✅ The best approach is to keep disc-based games unarchived (e.g. use the .cue and .bin files directly) if you want proper achievement detection and faster performance. You'll probably vastly improve the speed in which these games load as a bi-product, since it can take a while for disc-based games to extract, and remember it's doing this every time you load the game. Hope that helps clarify, but let me know if anyone is seeing anything to the contrary

Hi Folks, Thanks for the reports here. We're working to try and nail this down, but it's a bit elusive since we're not able to get a solid repro on this. Are any of you able to consistently reproduce what actions make these values reset back to 0? If so, could you please DM me a copy of your data files with instructions, as I'd love to try and get to the bottom of this. Cheers,

Hi Folks, I wanted to provide an update on the status of this beta. I apologise as I know it's been quite a long one, with long stretches of time in between releases. While the holidays definately had an impact on this, we're also adjusting some of our build and release processes on the backend which has contributed to the longer-than-usual release cycle here. That said, the upside is that we're still managing to squeeze in a few things before the official 13.25 release, but we're hoping to have this wrapped up and ready for you very soon. As always, thank you for all the reports here. I am particularly interested to try and nail down some of the reports around stats tracking, particularly playtime / count / last played, being reset to zero. In all of those cases, I'm curious to known if there is anyone experience that WHO DOES NOT have cloud stats syncing enabled? This has usually been the cause of some of these issues but if you're seeing otherwise and are able to reproduce things please let us know. We know there's an issue here, but haven't quite been able to get a solid repro just yet.

Hi folks, I wanted to share a consolidated update on the Big Box startup video issue, and first off, thank you again for your patience and for all the detailed reports you’ve shared. We also apologize for the long gaps between updates — this has been a particularly difficult issue to pin down. Where things stand now After extensive investigation, we’ve successfully been able to reproduce the issue internally, but only on specific machine configurations. This was a major breakthrough, as for a long time we couldn’t reproduce the problem at all. Even now, the behavior remains extremely inconsistent and temperamental, which has made debugging especially challenging. On affected systems, the behavior often looks like this: • The startup video may play correctly on the first launch • Subsequent launches frequently skip the video • In some cases, restarting Windows allows the video to play again — but usually only once • Even that pattern isn’t reliable, and results can vary from launch to launch This inconsistency is exactly what slowed progress early on, but having at least one reproducible environment has finally given us something concrete to work with. What we’re doing about it Because of how unreliable the existing behavior is, we’ve made the decision to rebuild the Big Box startup video system from the ground up rather than trying to patch the current implementation. The good news: • Early testing of the new system is showing much more reliable startup video playback • Repeated launches behave consistently across the machines we’re testing • The new implementation is currently in active testing, but results so far are very encouraging We’re confident this is the right long-term solution. Official tracking going forward We’ve now created an official Known Issue report that pulls everything together, what’s affected, what we’ve learned so far, and how we’re approaching the fix. This will be the single place we keep updated going forward, rather than scattering updates across forum replies: 👉 Known Issue: Big Box Startup Videos Not Playing Reliably https://feedback.launchbox.gg/p/known-issue-big-box-startup-videos-not-playing-reliably If you’re affected, please upvote that issue to receive updates on when it will land. Thanks again to everyone who reported the issue, tested variations, and stuck with us while we worked through this. We know it’s been frustrating, but we’re finally confident we’re on the right track to resolving it properly.

Hiya, Can you go to Tools > Options, and then under Visual > Filter Side Bar > Game Details, do you have the `Achievements` item checked? This preference is where you configure what shows up in the games detial pane, and this is on my default in fresh builds which is what might explain why you saw it on a fresh install

Hiya, Thanks again to everyone who’s taken the time to report this and help us investigate, and apologies for the long gap between updates while we worked through it. We’ve now created an official Known Issue report covering the Big Box startup video problem. This pulls together what we’ve learned so far, what’s affected, and how we’re approaching a fix, and it’ll be the place we keep updated going forward: 👉 Known Issue: Big Box Startup Videos Not Playing Reliably https://feedback.launchbox.gg/p/known-issue-big-box-startup-videos-not-playing-reliably Quick update on progress We’ve been able to reproduce the issue internally on specific machines Because the issue is extremely inconsistent, we’ve taken the approach of rebuilding the startup video system from the ground up Early testing of this new implementation is showing much more reliable behavior across repeated launches The implementation is still in active testing, but we’re confident we’re finally on the right track. If you’re affected, please follow the Known Issue report above for ongoing updates rather than tracking individual forum replies. If you haven’t already shared system details and would like to help further, the Known Issue post also lists the info that’s most useful for us while testing continues. Thanks again for your patience and for all the detailed reports, they genuinely made a difference here.

Hi folks, Wanted to jump in to provide an update on this, and firstly, apologies for the radio silence and lack of updates here. We’ve been closely following the reports in this thread, but until recently we were unable to reproduce the issue internally. We strongly believe this is related to a combination of specific machine environments, but the good news is that we’ve finally been able to track down a machine that does experience the problem, which gives us something concrete to investigate. We’re currently digging in to understand exactly where the issue lies and what’s causing it. Frustratingly, as I’m sure many of you are experiencing, the issue is incredibly temperamental. While we do now have a machine that exhibits the behavior, we’re still not able to consistently reproduce it. For example, in my case on a Lenovo Legion Go, I’m seeing behavior similar to what others have reported: the startup video will usually play on the first launch, but on subsequent launches it’s skipped. Some users have reported that restarting Windows causes the video to work again, but only on the first launch after reboot, with later launches skipping it once more. Even that behavior has proven inconsistent for me personally, sometimes the video is skipped even after a fresh restart. That said, as we continue debugging, it would be extremely helpful if anyone affected is willing to share the following details, as they may help us narrow down a common factor: Machine specs Integrated vs. external graphics Windows OS version How you’re launching Big Box (standalone EXE, via Windows shell, or launched from within LaunchBox) Which startup video are you using (please include a link to the forum download page if possible) Whether you have a single startup video or multiple videos in your startup folder Confirmation that your startup videos are located in LaunchBox/Videos/Startup Which playback engine you’re using (FFMPEG vs. Windows Media Player), and whether switching engines makes any difference We’re continuing to work toward getting to the bottom of this, and we apologize for how long it’s taken to get a solid lead. Once we’re able to consistently reproduce the issue, I’ll likely create a known issue entry so everyone can more easily follow along. In the meantime, I’ll continue to provide updates here as we make progress. Thanks again for your patience and for all the detailed reports, but hopefully we're on the right track to nail this down once and for all

Sorry for the issues here, this isn’t an issue your end, but an issue with the EmuMovie’s API being down at the moment. Unfortunately this has happened a fair few times recently but usually resolves itself after a day or so. Might be worth trying again once you’re back and hopefully should be up and running again

Hi Folks, Thanks for the report. We do have an official troubleshooting guide regarding performance, with multiple steps and optimisations that you can take that may help out. I’m attaching it below: - https://feedback.launchbox.gg/help/articles/9454889-troubleshooting-launchbox-and-big-box-performance It would be great if you’re able to run through that guide and make some of the suggested tweaks to see if that helps, and also please make sure you’re on the latest 13 version (currently 13.24), since we are continuously adding optimisations and improvements around performance. Let us know how you get on and if any of those suggestions make a noticable difference for you

Hi there, Sorry for the delayed reply here. May I ask are you able to update to the latest beta 13.25 beta-3, since there have been some fixes to the screensaver mode in this version. If it still happens on this version let us know - How to update to beta versions

Just adding for anyone else stumbling upon this post, we have a troubleshooting guide specifically for instances of LaunchBox / Big Box getting stuck in task manager. - https://feedback.launchbox.gg/help/articles/0507346-troubleshooting-another-instance-is-already-running-error It provides some steps you can take to try and troubleshoot this if it continues to happen

Hi Folks, Just to let everyone here know we have a feature request scoped for this which you can access here: - https://feedback.launchbox.gg/p/favorite-tag-game-controller-mapping-and-filter-side-bar-pinning Please don’t hesitate to upvote it to follow along with updates. Cheers,

Hi Folks, I’m not sure if this is 100% related but Epic Games recently updated their terms of service, which needs to be accepted on their website before the imports will work. If you log into the Epic Games store via your browser, if you are prompted to accept the new terms, once you do so imports should work again. If not let us know and we can rule this out and see what next steps would be

Hi everyone, We’ve just released a new beta version of LaunchBox that restores Steam trailer downloads and resolves the related crashes. You can get the fix by updating to the latest beta (currently 13.25 beta-3). To learn how to update to a beat build, check out our guide here: 🔗 https://feedback.launchbox.gg/help/articles/4797671-launchbox-beta-versions If you’d prefer not to update to a beta build, don’t worry — this fix will be included in the upcoming official 13.25 release. Thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve this issue.

Hi folks, apologies for the delayed follow-up on this. Unfortunately, there is no official fix for the Microsoft Storefront integration just yet. We’re still working on it, but whenever these backend changes occur with each storefront provider, it often requires us to rewrite a significant portion of our integration code. We’re facing similar issues at the moment with a backend change to Steam, which we’ve been prioritizing and hope to have resolved very soon. We’re due to push our official Android and Windows updates in the coming weeks, so for full transparency, it’s very likely that we won’t have a fix for the MS Storefront integration ready in time for that release. Rest assured, though, that we are actively working on it. The workaround that @kmeyer1212 suggested is a good one, if you have shortcuts, you can still point your game entries to those. And as of a recent release (I believe 13.24), Windows shortcuts are now handled properly with auto-ROM imports and directory scanning. I know this isn’t ideal, but we’ll be sure to update the official bug report as soon as we have more information. Thanks for bearing with us.