Jason Carr

I've been disappointed with the Tankstick in the past, just because it's way too limited on buttons. It doesn't have dedicated buttons for anything, really; not even exiting games (or at least it didn't last I checked). I've never used it on Android though, either. Sorry I'm not too much help here.

Yes, we do plan to add support for DOSBox in LaunchBox for Android here soon.

Thank you both. I have both translations updated for the next beta.

@hobapli I don't fully follow what the issue is, or what you're trying to do, unfortunately. However, the latest beta may fix some issues with file storage permissions on Android 11 and 12.

0.42 didn't break anything as far as emulators. However, if your device recently updated to Android 11 or 12, you might be running into issues because Google hates us all (half kidding...?). Anyways, the latest beta does fix issues with some emulators on Android 11 and 12. I'm not sure if you guys are referring to the betas, but the official releases have never been broken, so I'm not fully following what's going on in this thread. We did have an issue on Android 12 with version 1.0-beta-2, however.

It's best to use a modern/recent MAME set, along with RetroArch Plus (from the Play Store), or one of the sideloaded versions of RetroArch. You should use the current MAME core. Last I checked, mame4droid was not recommended because it uses really old sets.

Yes, it did get solved, but it sounds like Google or Nvidia screwed it all up again with the latest releases of Android on the Shield. I'll be reviewing it (again) here soon.

Assuming you were updating to 1.0-beta-2, this has been fixed for 1.0-beta-3. Sorry for the trouble.

LaunchBox for Android 1.0-beta-3 is out now with the following: Launching the newest versions of Dolphin, Mupen64Plus FZ, and Mupen64Plus FZ Pro now work properly on Android 11+ (once again you can thank Google for repeated poor design decisions causing these unnecessary issues) Fix for occasional crash when returning to LaunchBox from other apps Fix for the issues installing the beta on Android 12 Thanks guys for bearing with me on all of this stuff. As you know, Google has made all of this a nightmare, but we are slowly making progress. Also, I apologize for the misinformation on AetherSX2. I was negligent and got excited that something finally worked, but somehow didn't notice that it wasn't actually loading the game, only the startup screen. Sigh. But anyways, in my testing, the latest versions of Dolphin, Mupen64Plus FZ, and Mupen64Plus FZ Pro are all working now on Android 11 and 12. I finally found something in the documentation that seems to make those emulators work. As far as I can tell, we've now implemented the launching code for Android 11 and 12 correctly, even for emulators that require the scoped storage garbage. That said, the following emulators still don't work to launch games properly: AetherSX2 PPSSPP The fix that worked for Dolphin and Mupen64Plus does not appear to work for those two. It's possible that something else will work, but we might need to add some extra annoying "select folder again" dialogs in order to make them work as-is. Ideally, the emulators would be updated to work properly with the same types of content URLs as Dolphin and Mupen use. We would appreciate any testing regarding any other emulators that used to work, but don't work any longer on Android 11/12. I may be missing some that need updated. Also, if anyone is able to get us in touch with either the AetherSX2 or the PPSSPP development team, please let us know. Honestly I haven't spent much time trying to reach out to either team (yet). Thankfully, we are making slow progress on this stuff.

I think you should be able to fix this without any hassle by upgrading LaunchBox for Windows to the latest beta, as the issue with the exported videos should be fixed in the latest beta on the desktop. It would also be good to test this before we put out the next official version on the desktop. Are you referring to LaunchBox for Windows or LaunchBox for Android? On Android, we still need to add a feature to change the default version to run.

https://www.engadget.com/paypal-lawsuit-freezing-customer-accounts-funds-073128563.html This is part of what happened to us originally. Hopefully this lawsuit results in some positive changes...

I was finally able to get a hold of a marquee screen myself. I'll post details on that here soon in a separate post.

Hey all, just a quick update. I am currently trying to solve all of these issues (if that wasn't obvious). However, we may not have a choice with Android 10/11 other than to force users to re-select their ROM folders using the new scoped storage in order to get certain emulators to work. I've been trying to avoid doing that (because it's a terrible user experience), but at this point I don't think Google is giving us any other option. So anyways, solutions are coming, but of course it's a huge mess, thanks to Google, and it will still take me a while yet, unfortunately. We'll get there. Thanks for your patience. This is most likely related to the above long conversations (including the original reason why we temporarily stopped working on the Android app years ago). You can blame Google for absolutely terrible design decisions. The final solution here unfortunately has to involve new frontend development from us, as well as new development for the emulator developers. It's a mess. It should all get fixed up eventually though. You need to make 100% sure that LaunchBox is all the way closed if you're going to manually update the XML files. It sounds like it was open.

The URLs that Pegasus uses are like this: content://org.pegasus_frontend.android.files/root/storage/6531-6431-Sony%20PSP/Adventures%20to%20Go!%20(USA).iso For PPSSPP, this results in an error when launching the game (at least in my testing). The error is something like this: We're seeing the same issue, of course, when we try to launch pretty much all of the problematic emulators. I'm just trying to figure out where the discrepancy is here.

I don't mind discussing other frontends by their real names, so don't worry about that. Pegasus actually doesn't use that URL format, assuming you're referring to Pegasus. It uses a format that is similar (the content:// type URL), but it does not use com.android.externalstorage.documents as far as I can tell. It uses a version of those URLs that is special to Pegasus. Ultimately, I'm doing the same thing as Pegasus in beta 2, at least as far as I can tell, but it does not appear to be working. So either I'm confused and missing something, or there's some misinformation going around here.

I have all that information. The problem is, I've tested using proper content URIs with Mupen64 Plus AE and it doesn't work to launch any games. Is there a frontend that it is working for?

Unfortunately I've already proven that they do not all require exactly the same solution. They may in the future, but the other emulators don't yet work as they should.

Hey all, I finally have an update to this stuff. LaunchBox for Android 1.0-beta-2 is out now. Details are here: However, unfortunately updating everything to Google's new security model did not solve the issues with PPSSPP that some users are seeing. I believe this is because PPSSPP still needs to implement the content URIs properly. I'm hoping to reach out to the development team here soon to see if we can tag team a solution. If anyone has any good contact info for them, please let me know. Also, to explain why some people are using PPSSPP just fine on Android 11 while others aren't able to, it's because of Google's terrible design decisions. Permissions are allowed when upgrading from older versions of PPSSPP, but not when installing the latest version fresh. So, for those of you who are unable to launch PPSSPP, you may be able to fix the issue for now by uninstalling PPSSPP, installing an old version of it (somehow), and then upgrading to the latest version. You can thank Google for the unnecessary rigamarole. Finally, if anyone is aware of a frontend that is able to properly launch a completely fresh install of the latest version of PPSSPP on Android 11, please let me know. As far as I am currently aware, it's not possible, but I can't say for certain because Google's documentation is very poor. Also, this stuff could not be more confusing, especially with the upgrade permissions thing.

Hey all, as an update on this, I just released LaunchBox for Android 1.0-beta-2. Details are here: However, it still does not seem to solve the issues with Dolphin. I believe Dolphin still needs to implement the new content URIs in order to solve the issue. I'll be attempting to reach out to the Dolphin development team here soon. If anyone has a good contact, please let me know. For now though, the above workaround does work. It works because of Google's stupid design decisions lol. Permissions are allowed when you upgrade from an older version of the app, but not on a fresh install. Makes about as much sense as worshiping a fork.

@Goodmango @bundangdon @GabiAle97 LaunchBox for Android 1.0-beta- 2 is out now, and AetherSX2 now works properly in my testing. Details are here: That said, unfortunately none of the other related emulators that I tested are working properly with the new solution (Dolphin, PPSSPP, Mupen, etc.). It appears that AetherSX2 has implemented the content URIs properly, but the other emulators haven't yet. We can dive in with more details in the beta testing thread. I'm hoping to reach out to emulator developers to get those figured out here soon.

Version 1.0-beta-2 is out now with the following: Support for the dreaded new Android file permissions model has been added; devices that are running Android 11 or higher will now be prompted to allow access to all files on startup, which is necessary in order to properly launch some emulators Full support for the new AetherSX2 PS2 emulator has been added Unfortunately I had to switch gears away from the videos for a bit in order to solve the annoying permissions issues that are popping up everywhere. This is the first step in solving the issues launching games with various emulators on Android 11+. AetherSX2 properly implements the new content URIs, and so we are now able to launch games with it, even when restricted on Android 11+. However, unfortunately there are numerous other emulators that have chosen to upgrade/compile against the new Android version, but have not yet added full support for the content URIs, and thus we're currently up a creek until the emulator developers finish developing those features. Those emulators include PPSSPP and Dolphin, as far as we can tell. Both emulators work fine with earlier versions and earlier Android versions, but have issues launching games on Android 11+. It's possible that there is yet another solution to otherwise solve this issue that we haven't found yet, because Google's documentation is terrible, so speak up if you know of a solution. Otherwise, we will work to contact the various emulator developers as we can. Also, this release may solve some issues with file and folder permissions, if you were previously running Android 11+ and couldn't access a particular folder (such as when trying to move the LaunchBox folder). The good news in all of this is that we no longer have to worry about Google's new permissions changes, because we've finally worked through them and confirmed that we can still properly operate as a frontend (even though there will likely be many more pain points along the way, such as not being able to launch emulators that have only half-way updated to the new permissions stuff). That said, and this is very important to note: if we were still on the Play Store, we would not have been able to continue operating as a frontend at all. This is because we require the new MANAGE_APP_ALL_FILES_ACCESS_PERMISSION in order to parse all files on the device (find ROMs, etc.), which Google refuses to allow apps like ours to use while on the Play Store. It's a permission that is granted only to file browser apps and similar, and we don't fit into any of the "allowed" categories. All of this is just to explain the confusing history in this thread, and our having to stop developing for Android for a while. It's all thanks to Google's poor decisions; that said, we are very grateful to at least be able to continue developing for Android, and finally get most of these issues figured out. So thankfully, we no longer have to worry about the future feasibility of LaunchBox on Android. That is, until Google turns around and makes another exceedingly poor decision...

Duh, thanks. Whoops. Yeah, we're going to add something to Android to solve this soon.

In the import wizard you have options to either import from a folder, or select a bunch of files. You would use the option to browse for files, not the folder option.

Okay, that means that somehow there is a configuration issue (or a device-specific bug) with RetroArch, though unfortunately I don't exactly know what it is. There is a way in Android to clear all app data for an app. You should be able to do that from the app settings on your device. Perhaps that's worth a try?

Odd. Are you able to successfully launch games in RetroArch from the other frontends?