Jason Carr

Beta 10 is out now with a fix for the crashes and some minor fixes for image loading delays.

Has it been fixed in 3.1.6?

Yes, threading should be much improved in beta 9. However, we do have some further minor improvements coming for beta 10 that might still help. It sounds like you have multiple issues here; I expect that beta 10 (should be out shortly) will solve the LaunchBox crashing issues, though those issues should not exist in 11.2 at all, so I suspect that there are several different issues going on. Per Big Box, the issue is likely either an app conflict with some sort of security software, or an issue with a controller, or something of that nature. It also could be a data issue. If you can zip up and PM me your LaunchBox\Data folder, I can look to see if it's a data issue or not. @wallmachine It may fix it, but it also may not. I still don't know what is causing that issue for you, unfortunately. Would certainly be nice if it did fix it, though. Unfortunately that log isn't telling me much of anything.

Hey all, I finally figured out the issue with the crashes. Should have a new beta out with a fix here soon.

Okay, I have added some code for the next beta that will remove those folder symbolic links on exit, which should solve the file syncing problem, as of course you shouldn't be syncing while LaunchBox or Big Box is running anyways. The only issue then would come up if you forcefully kill all the LaunchBox and Big Box processes with Task Manager. Even if LaunchBox or Big Box crashes, it should recover properly and delete those links. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Yes, it will work exactly like it does currently.

What are you referring to? No, we are not losing portability.

Hi Wally, keep in mind that a lot of what you're referring to comes down to the syncing tool. What file syncing tool are you using? Any good syncing tool will provide the option to follow symbolic links or not. For example, I use FreeFileSync (which I highly recommend), and by default, it does not follow symbolic links (but it does have the option to turn it on). Regardless, the decision to use folder symbolic links was not made lightly. In fact, I worked for 2 days to try and make it so that they were not required, but unfortunately, in order to maintain backwards compatibility with existing themes and plugins, we don't have much of a choice. The only other option that we have in that regard is to throw the entire Core folder into the root LaunchBox folder, which would clutter up the root LaunchBox directory something awful, and cause lots of other confusion. I do not agree that the .NET Core thing "broke portability", but I understand where you're coming from, and I can see how it was annoying in your case. It would be good to know what file syncing tool you are using. Hi Wanderer, that is a possibility. We've worked hard to reproduce those crashes, and unfortunately haven't been able to, so most likely it does come down to something unique on your system. Generally, we do not recommend putting media specifically over the network, because it's pretty much guaranteed to cause performance issues at least. Games themselves can be huge, and I often do put those over the network without any real issues, but for media, it's definitely not recommended. For my relatively large collection, the media is still less than 200 gigs, so keeping the media local isn't too much of an issue. The games themselves (which end up being multiple terabytes) I do keep over the network without issues, so I wouldn't bother moving the games (only the media).

Not sure, but I am able to replicate it, so I'll get it fixed.

Beta 9 is out now with the following: Further threading optimizations Image fixes for the retro achievements profile popup Improved ROM prioritization so that prototype/beta games are not prioritized as much Big Box now runs under Linux Wine I linked to it just above, but if you're interested in running LaunchBox or Big Box on Linux, see this thread:

By "crashes", do you mean legitimate crashes, or just delays within the app? It's best to clarify that "crashes" are when the EXE stops running completely. Error screens or delays in the app are a separate thing.

Yup, I'm furious. Not really. For real though, this was all just caused by confusion and using the wrong words. You didn't realize that plugins and project references are two separate things, apparently. I never told you that they're the same. Regardless, we're not gonna put up with an attitude like that for much longer, FYI. Fair warning.

Hey all, the first post of this topic and the associated script file has been updated. Big Box now works in 11.3-beta-9.

Beta 8 is out now to address some thread priority issues with the image cache and image population getting delayed in LaunchBox.

We'll look into this.

Muhahahahaha. AI indeed. Let me know if you have that error happen again.

Project references are not user plugins; that's where the confusion lies. Plugins are either located in the LaunchBox\Plugins folder, or the Plugins folder inside of the Big Box theme folder.

@Android16 The stack trace you provided tells me 100% without a doubt that those errors are occurring while loading plugins. So somehow or other, plugins are being loaded. That stack trace error does not occur if there are no plugins to load. It's possible that you are getting a different error without plugins, however. If so, please let me know what that error is. These are all options that are available. You can turn it on under the View menu. I've been testing the Colorful - Light and Colorful - Dark themes, and haven't seen any stability issues, and those themes use that exact same Ao.Bigbox.Themer.v3_9_7a.dll plugin without apparent issues. However, that plugin has so many random features that it's possible that there's a bugged feature that Colorful isn't using. Please do let me know if you still see the stability issues with a different theme so we can help to narrow it down. Can you get me a video of the video snaps playing too fast issue? We did upgrade to the latest version of VLC. I'm not seeing that issue though.

Where are they not displaying? I see. Can you confirm if it's caused by that plugin or not? Does it happen with other themes or without that plugin? I hope we can get that plugin working, but we might hit a wall on that (might need to hit up @eatkinola to get his help to determine what's going on, since we don't have the source code).

Any plugins installed? Unfortunately that log doesn't give us any useful information.

Hey all, 11.3-beta-7 is out now, and the instructions and scripts in the first post of this topic have been updated. Videos are now working in LaunchBox.

Beta 7 is out now, primarily just with some compatibility fixes for Linux Wine. For anyone interested, I'll be updating this thread here in a moment:

@Android16 That error is apparently caused by a plugin, either in your Big Box theme, or in your LaunchBox plugins folder. What themes are you running? Do you have any plugins?

I have no idea what you mean by "immediate crash", so I'll ignore that for now. If you need to add a DLL "reference", you can do that by right-clicking on Dependencies and selecting "Add COM Reference". Then just browse for the file.

FYI guys, I have LaunchBox working with VLC videos and Big Box is starting up as well now (though seems to be locking up shortly after startup). The next beta should be an improvement. I'll update this thread when it's out.

@wallmachine "FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION" and "EXCEPTION IGNORED" can both be safely ignored, unless you're running into some other issue. They can help to find other issues, but by themselves they don't mean that there's any problems.