Jason Carr

Okay, so we are dealing with actual crashes here it looks like. If you both would, please open up Event Viewer in Windows. Then open up Windows Logs, then Application on the left. You should see at least one error related to the crash, and there may be more than one for each crash. If you can copy and paste the error text here for any that you have, that might help to figure out exactly what's happening. We'll work through this as best we can and get it figured out. Keep in mind that data backups are automatically taken both when you start up and shut down LaunchBox, so it's pretty much impossible for you to lose all your work, thankfully (outside of hard drive failure). You can always take manual backups of your Data folder too if it gives you some peace of mind.

Okay, does the window get faded? Do you ever see Windows prompt that it's locked up? Or does it just appear to be sitting there not doing anything forever? Edit: If you have a screenshot of it in that situation, that would be helpful.

Okay, keep in mind that it might just be taking a bit. It might come back if you give it a few seconds. Just because Windows fades out the screen doesn't mean that LaunchBox is necessarily locked up; more than likely it's just busy and needs a few seconds. We do our best to eliminate those situations where the interface is locked up while doing something, but we haven't eliminated them all, especially on slower hardware (though I have no idea what kind of hardware or how many games you have). How long are you waiting before giving up on it? I should probably ask these same questions to @jonnieboyrevel as well.

I'll need more details on exactly what is happening in order to help out here. The problem is that often times people think they're having the same issue as someone else, but it ends up being a completely different issue (just like we saw further on up the thread). I would say that your best bet would be to keep your current install, and just install another copy into a different folder. That way you can test if you get the same issues with a new install. If you do, then we know that your install isn't the problem. If you don't, then we know that the issue is somehow with your LaunchBox configuration, data, or media (and you don't have to throw away your setup in the mean time). I can help you narrow it down further at that point.

@Hifihedgehog Unfortunately separating the marquee window out into a completely separate process isn't really feasible (we'd end up doubling the memory requirements, performance would suffer, etc.), and it'd be way too tricky to do all the communication between the two processes. There are solutions out there, though (they're just horribly documented by Microsoft and terribly confusing lol). It's on my list.

Yeah, we could use a standard list of playlist names. The tricky thing though is that there's just so many options, and everyone wants different things, so it's a lot harder to pull off than platforms.

Let us know if unchecking that box fixes the issue. Checking the box to prioritize EmuMovies shouldn't really have anything to do with the issue, so that's only if you prefer EmuMovies images over LaunchBox Games Database images.

Ha, no worries. Congrats!

Can you try removing your plugins? That's my only other thought at this point.

Hi Tony, it's on the list for the next community poll.

Unfortunately this was probably caused by the blue screen somehow. So other than trying to improve Windows stability, there's probably not much you can do to prevent it in the future.

That is common functionality across all themes. I guess we just never put in code to automatically resume the video in that case. I'll put it on the list.

Unfortunately no, all dip switches have to be at the default settings in order for high scores to work. I just tested the high scores key mapping and it seems to be working fine for me, so that should be working. Can you check to make sure that you don't have multiple things mapped to that same key in your key mappings? You can also get to the high scores by going into the game details and selecting View High Scores.

The themes manager does require an Internet connection to gather the details of all the themes. If you don't have an active connection, you can still change themes by simply changing the Theme setting under the Big Box View options. I haven't seen this or been able to replicate it elsewhere at this point. @Middcore and @KM_Zero, can you send me a screenshot of your LaunchBox\Core folder in Windows Explorer? Also, does it help anything to update to the latest beta? You can update to the beta by going to Tools > Options > General > Updates and checking the box to update to beta releases. You may also want to disable background updates in order to trigger it immediately on a restart.

There's no reason why the above error should ever cause you to lose half of your LaunchBox setup (in theory, that shouldn't be possible). Worst case scenario, you can always restore your data from a backup under the Tools menu. Backups are automatically made on startup and shutdown of LaunchBox. On top of that, media files shouldn't ever be just magically deleted in batch, even when an error occurs. I don't have details on exactly what happened here, but most likely you still have all the media that was downloaded, and you can restore all the games from a recent data backup.

Hi @jtravapd, that error is caused by the option to "Remove roughly-matched duplicate images (recommended)" shown on this screenshot below: So in theory, you should be able to uncheck that box and it should prevent it from happening. That said, I've never seen anyone have this issue before, so I'm not sure why it's a thing. Let me know if unchecking that box does indeed fix the issue.

Looks like that could potentially solve one of the many issues, so good to know. It'd still be a nightmare in many aspects though, unfortunately. We'll consider putting this on the next poll.

Well, I tested the data; there's no corruption in your data files. So the data isn't the issue apparently. It has to be something else with the machine I guess. Can you try running chkdsk again to see if it finds things to fix again? If so, you may be dealing with a bad drive. Otherwise, we can dive in further. Do you get any error messages when it crashes?

If you can zip up and PM me your LaunchBox\Data folder, I can take a look to see if they're corrupted.

Yes, it does create dummy files. Those crashes are not normal, however. Keep in mind though that the crashes can be *caused* by killing LaunchBox repeatedly, if you're just not patient while it's trying to save, and you cause the data files to become corrupted. Unfortunately the logs you posted aren't telling me much. By chance, did you use any third party utilities for imports? Do you have any plugins?

There are many, many more issues involved in using bezels than just "finding the right window". That's about 2% of the work. There have been a million discussions on this, so I don't really want to get into the details, again. But one of the biggest issues is that bezels are impossible to do without disabling fullscreen exclusive mode in all the emulators (which is what Rocket Launcher does and it hurts emulator performance). Rocket Launcher has full control over all of your emulator settings and everything. It's a nightmare, and could eat up all of our time if we let it. On top of that, Rocket Launcher has proven that its approach is not a stable solution.

@MrSco I still never was able to replicate your issue, but I did put some significant fixes into 11.7-beta-3 that could possibly fix it.

Thank you guys. I have both translations updated in beta 3, which I just put out. @Just001Kim I set out to fix the issues you posted, but I ran into some trouble with changing the Windows Forms dialogs in .NET Core. Our plan is to replace those windows here very soon with WPF versions, so we'll definitely get those fixed at that point. Sorry for the trouble there.

Beta 3 is out now with the following: Improvement: Significant reductions in Big Box RAM usage and requirements Download Images and Media window has been overhauled Fixed: Column headers in the Audit window are now copied when copy and pasting the grid from LaunchBox to spreadsheet applications

It would be good to know if you get these same errors on a new install. The good thing though is that you don't have to get rid of your current install; you can just install a new copy into a new folder. Let me know if installing a new copy into a new folder gives you the same issues.