Jason Carr

Not a bad idea, though my list is getting pretty long at the moment, so it's not something I can tackle right away.

Actually, no, it wouldn't. Games would either be marked as missing, if using a manually populated playlist, or just not show up if it was an auto-populate playlist. They would then show back up when games were back in there.

If you create manual playlists, as long as you're not naming them the same as the existing ones, you shouldn't have to worry about them ever being removed or overwritten. So that shouldn't really be an issue.

A clean install might be a worth a shot if you have the time. One other thing did just jump into my head though; I'm not sure of the exact setting but I remember one guy having a weird issue where MAME was not working properly when using a certain video rendering mode (OpenGL vs. DirectX maybe?). So that might be worth trying.

Hi Boomerps2, that is indeed something that we haven't heard of issues with in a long time. If you're having the same issue on multiple PCs, that maybe suggests that it's some kind of weird issue with your collection, or something of that sort. I have a bunch of questions in order to help narrow it down: How many machines is it freezing on? What are the specs of each machine you're running it on (CPU, GPU, and RAM)? What version of Windows are you running on each machine? Are you running the same collection on each machine? How long does it take in attract mode before it typically freezes? What version of LaunchBox are you running on them? I think that should help hopefully move us forward to getting it figured out. It won't likely be easy to troubleshoot but usually we can get it figured out eventually. One common issue that we find to be the culprit in these kinds of situations is crappy anti-virus products or other applications running in the background that can cause issues. You can try disabling anti-virus and turning off all background processes; that may solve the problem.

I'm guessing maybe the screenshot list above is outdated or something; that could be a possibility too.

Either my text editor is lying to me or "dayton93" is nowhere to be found in the MAME lists.

Without diving in deeper, it could be any number of the items that you left checked. If I understand correctly, you only unchecked the "Skip games unplayable in MAME" box, which leaves the 13 other reasons to skip checked, including hacks, prototypes, non-arcade games, etc. We use the MAME metadata pretty much exactly as it's available in order to determine what to skip. That said, I just checked the MAME XML (straight from MAME itself), and it does NOT include some of the Daytona games you reference above, so my best guess at this point is that you're comparing against non-MAME games. Again, the playlists are only created for games in the MAME arcade lists.

Without diving in deep, my guess would be that the remaining games are not in your collection because you filtered them out on import. Unless you unchecked all the boxes, many of them will get filtered out. Most likely they're being filtered out because they're not working games.

Whatever list you're comparing to apparently isn't a list of what's available in LaunchBox. All playlists are created when you use the Create Missing MAME/Arcade playlists tool. You don't have to worry about anything being missing.

Yeah, I see what you mean. You can import Sega Model 3 to the Arcade platform if you want, and set up a playlist manually, but it's certainly easier just to create a new platform.

Playlists aren't missing games, period. Previously they were in older builds, but the new playlists have it all covered. What list are you comparing to?

Okay, I think I maybe see what you guys are saying. An auto-playlist does not exist in LaunchBox for Sega Model 3 (for example), because MAME doesn't work with Sega Model 3 games. If you want Sega Model 3 in your collection, currently you should create a Sega Model 3 platform, import games to it, and select an appropriate emulator. As for Arcade Classics, you can simply use the Arcade platform.

I don't know what's going on, but something isn't clear. What do you mean by "I'd rather not import a bunch of non working games just to fully populate playlists"? Do you mean that you're missing playlists?

What version are you running?

I have it on my shortlist to fix the bulk edit issue here.

You can delete your current arcade playlists and then go to Tools > Create Missing Arcade/MAME Playlists. As long as you have the latest versions, that'll do it.

...this already exists if you use the MAME full-set importer. Similar features are also available while importing standard ROMs for MAME.

You do not have to import a bunch of non-working games in order to fully populate playlists. I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but it definitely sounds like you're missing something. The MAME arcade full-set importer does specifically allow you to not import broken games. That's really the whole point of the importer. It allows you to skip broken games, casino games, etc. The new arcade playlists use auto-filtering instead of the previous game lists to build them out. So if you have the updated playlists, there shouldn't be any such thing as missing games.

Beta 5 is out now with a fix for the above error as well as the following: - Improvement: A new ListCache.xml data file has been added that helps keep things running smoothly for collections with thousands of playlists - Fixed: Incorrect counts could occasionally display in various places in LaunchBox and/or Big Box; this was previously due to hide games options not always being accounted for in game counts - Fixed: Auto-populating playlists were sometimes not updating when game metadata changed These changes are fairly significant; a lot of the codebase was touched, so testing is in order. That said, this should allow folks to have collections with multiple thousands of playlists without serious delays. The first time that LaunchBox and/or Big Box is started up after adding a bunch of playlists (or the first time you start up this beta), LaunchBox/Big Box may take a very long time to load, but subsequent startups should be quick. The cache that I added has to be refreshed when changing the options to hide or show hidden or broken games, or games with missing media, so changing those options will force the cache to invalidate, which is likely to cause delays, but if it wasn't delaying in previous builds, the only reason for it is that things were not always updating properly. Here is the basic strategy I used to implement this: When the list of games is being displayed for a particular category or playlist, the results are never cached, and are always fully processed. Since the processing only needs to happen for one playlist or category, performance is not typically an issue. This resolves the issue with playlists not always updating properly when game metadata is changed. When displaying the number of games for a playlist or a category, the count is cached. This count is automatically updated when the games are fully processed (such as when selecting this item in the sidebar and loading the games for it). However, it is assumed that the previous calculated count is accurate until the full games list is loaded for that category or playlist. This results in some rare cases where the counts in the sidebar may get temporarily out of date, but they should get updated when selecting that platform and loading the games for it. LaunchBox and Big Box both maintain separate caches for the lists; this is because LaunchBox and Big Box can have separate settings for hiding and showing games.

Hmm. My only guess is that it would be some kind of bizarre driver bug. Obviously Big Box uses a lot more of the video card than LaunchBox (though they both use the exact same WPF engine), but other than that I'm completely lost, unfortunately. I would first try making sure that you're 100% up to date on all Windows updates and drivers.

Thanks guys; I have this error fixed for the next beta. Hopefully it will be out before the end of the day, if development goes well.

This is unfortunately an extremely complicated process due to how MAME uses ROMS, parent ROMs, etc. It's not as easy as just removing stuff that isn't directly referenced, because ROMs often require other ROMs. We may add this at some point, but it's not planned for the immediate future.

There's absolutely nothing shady that we do with the premium licenses. The details are clear as day on the purchase page: Obviously there are two options for a reason, and the text is very clear. Use it forever, but you'll be required to renew your license for $10 in order to access new features after one year. Everyone who purchases does so from this page, and this stuff hasn't changed for a very long time. We've refunded superlativeB and also issued him the latest version of LaunchBox that should work for his license. We do everything we can to reduce confusion on this and frankly, no one has been confused in a very, very long time.

I just tested as well and everything is working fine with the latest official release (8.9). @memeforlife I'm not sure if 8.3 was affected, but we did have previous issues with Steam revoking our API keys, which is why we're having the user get their own API keys now. You may have to upgrade if that's the issue, but I'm not sure exactly what you're running into. As far the user name, it should be as easy as starting up the wizard and entering your custom URL into the field on the second screen (that's your user name): @charlie69er We'll need more details as far as what is happening in order to help you out. Are you seeing an error message? What's the error? Exactly what is happening that is not working for you?