Jason Carr

This is correct. Currently there is no way to 100% properly update everything without removing your existing MAME games and re-importing. I rarely ever update my MAME games (only do it if there's a new game available that I actually want to play, which is rare), but these are the steps that I take when I do: Save my favorites by creating an auto-populate playlist that has all of my favorites, then convert it into a manually-populated playlist Delete all my MAME games Re-import using the MAME full set wizard, but don't import any media Open the favorites playlist previously created and batch edit them all to be favorites Run the Download Metadata and Media wizard on the new games if desired It certainly could be an improved process, but if you want a perfect set, this is currently the best way to do it. I don't recommend updating MAME games every month, because it's usually a waste of time, but I'll assume that you have a good reason for doing it.

Steam wrapper games are games that just launch as Steam games when you launch them. If not, we should have @C-Beats take a look to see what might be happening. I know Epic is having major issues though lately because of the amount of traffic, so it's entirely possible that their API is just busted right now (to be honest that's my hunch since we weren't running into these issues until recently when they put GTA V up for free).

Windows Security should not be an issue. I run it and never turn it off on anything. I was really just referring to any third-party security or anti-virus apps.

It's always possible that we introduced a bug, but I have four machines with various configurations that I run regularly in order to test stability, and I'm not seeing those crashes. So most likely it's either a Windows, .NET Framework, or driver bug that is unique to your machine, but it's always hard to say for sure. I will say that Windows 10 has not exactly been the most stable as of late for me, but it hasn't been affecting LaunchBox or Big Box for me. Just seems like Windows Explorer crashes every 5 minutes lately. Let me know if unplugging the fridge helps. Otherwise, you might want to try unplugging any other unnecessary things that you have plugged in via USB, and try closing down any background apps, especially anti-virus or security apps.

Hi @MintBreath, I believe that is the first time I've heard that request. Can you create a ticket for it under Help & Support > Request a Feature in the header of this page?

Alright. Sadly I'm not seeing any helpful info in that log file. All I can figure at this point is there's some kind of general stability issue that isn't typical. Do make sure you're all up to date on drivers and Windows updates, if you haven't already.

It's possible if you're using a really old version of MAME that we haven't tested with.

Not likely. This is on our list and we keep trying to replicate it, but we have yet to. We'll come back to it here again soon.

Thanks Pixel. We have a fix for this in place, will in the next beta.

Not something I can add right away, but I do see the benefit. Probably would be best to put in a BitBucket ticket for it.

If you want to re-import everything from scratch, you can do so quickly. It won't take 4 hours. Remember that you can always remove games without removing any media, and then just not download any when re-importing.

It sounds like your system just can't keep up with the enlarging operation, so it falls behind. I wouldn't say that's really an appropriate use-case though, holding down Ctrl and + for ages. If you want to make big changes to the box sizing, you can always just drag the slider in the button bar. Precise zooming can be done by clicking on the slider and then using the arrow keys. Are those games just wrappers for Steam games? That could be why they're not importing. Yeah, we probably should scroll that list down. Apparently we don't at this point. The Text checkbox shows or hides the text at the bottom of the boxes in the new default theme.

Ah, that could explain the stability issues you're seeing with multiple themes. No need to download a separate copy of VLC; only the copy that comes with LaunchBox is used. Let me know if you still see stability issues after switching to VLC.

You can use the Lost License page here: https://www.launchbox-app.com/premium/lost-license Or, if you have issues, please email support@unbrokensoftware.com and we can help you out.

Interesting. I know the Unified and Unified Redux themes are perfectly stable, but I was under the impression that Unified Refried was too. In fact, everything in the themes manager should be stable. Are you using WMP or VLC for your video playback engine?

Turns out I'm getting the same errors if I run Unified Refried. Those errors may be nothing, but maybe not. Not sure. I'll do some stability testing with Unified Refried. In the mean time, it would be helpful to know if you have stability issues with other themes.

Unfortunately my best guess is that this is somehow related to the data weirdness you have going on. I haven't seen this elsewhere.

I'm not following you here. Are you talking about the blue background fading in? I don't see any theme changes in the video.

I'm noticing some weird stuff in that log file, the weirdest being "Application identity is not set". All I can figure is that that would be caused by a plugin. Are you using any plugins? What theme are you running?

Yes, I'm the main developer and the original creator. Good to hear. I just updated the MAME metadata for 0.221, but none of the third party sources are updated yet, so those are still on 0.220. You can go to Help > Force Update Games Database Metadata in LaunchBox to force a download of the updated MAME metadata.

Hey all, I've updated everyone in the above thread. For consistency though, and to eliminate some confusion, I'll copy some important info here. LaunchBox has a much more involved algorithm for MAME imports. It's impossible to provide all of the options that we provide with just the MAME XML. The MAME XML does not have all the data needed in order to do the filtering and such. The MAME XML that comes with LaunchBox is heavily processed and uses data from literally five different sources in order to provide the accurate data and filtering that the MAME full-set importer uses. It's not as simple as just using the MAME.xml file that comes with MAME. ------------------------------------------------------------- Because of the above, the user would have to hunt down this data from five different places in order for any kind of a tool like this to work. We do have an internal tool that we use, but we make heavy use of SQL Server in order to process the data correctly. So that's not really feasible. ------------------------------------------------------------- We do need a good way to communicate with users what the current supported MAME version is, yes. The hardest thing that we have to deal with is the fact that we rely on several other data sources (such as catver.ini from Progetto-Snaps) and these are all manually updated by humans, after each MAME release. Some of them are updated sooner than others (some of them take a week or more to update, for instance). What I generally do is wait a day or two after the official MAME release each month, and then update all the files that are available. It is possible to just update the data from MAME itself, and then the rest of the data can be updated when they're available. This means that for new games, the new games may be available, but might be missing some metadata until after the third-party sources update their files. I know this seems like a big mess (and it is), but trust me, I put tremendous amounts of research into this when I built it; it's really the best option for accurate MAME data, and the code that we built to combine it all together is gold. Oh, also, no, you can't look at the date/time on the MAME.xml file in the Metadata folder to have any clue on when the MAME metadata was last updated.

Yeah, thanks. I'll be updating the files that are available here shortly.

Oh, also, no, you can't look at the date/time on the MAME.xml file in the Metadata folder to have any clue on when the MAME metadata was last updated.

We do need a good way to communicate with users what the current supported MAME version is, yes. The hardest thing that we have to deal with is the fact that we rely on several other data sources (such as catver.ini from Progetto-Snaps) and these are all manually updated by humans, after each MAME release. Some of them are updated sooner than others (some of them take a week or more to update, for instance). What I generally do is wait a day or two after the official MAME release each month, and then update all the files that are available. It is possible to just update the data from MAME itself, and then the rest of the data can be updated when they're available. This means that for new games, the new games may be available, but might be missing some metadata until after the third-party sources update their files. I know this seems like a big mess (and it is), but trust me, I put tremendous amounts of research into this when I built it; it's really the best option for accurate MAME data, and the code that we built to combine it all together is gold.

LaunchBox has a much more involved algorithm for MAME imports. It's impossible to provide all of the options that we provide with just the MAME XML. The MAME XML does not have all the data needed in order to do the filtering and such. The MAME XML that comes with LaunchBox is heavily processed and uses data from literally five different sources in order to provide the accurate data and filtering that the MAME full-set importer uses. It's not as simple as just using the MAME.xml file that comes with MAME. Because of the above, the user would have to hunt down this data from five different places in order for any kind of a tool like this to work. We do have an internal tool that we use, but we make heavy use of SQL Server in order to process the data correctly. So that's not really feasible.