faeran

I'll see what I can do. Would have to be a blind fix and you'll have to let me know whether it worked for you. I'lll see what I can do for beta 2 or beta 3.

We actually haven't touched FFMPEG yet in either LB or BB between 13.27 and this beta, but we will be soon. You'll see some major rework done in Beta2 and 3, followed by many rounds of fixes throughout the rest of the cycle. Stay tuned. Well glad you can now see which step it's failing on on your computer, so at least that's something. That step should really only take a handful of seconds, so something on your computer is timing it out. You having to force close may be a clue, could point to a locked file somewhere in the chain there that LB needs to function for whatever reason. I'll see if I can lean out that step even more for people in your situation.

I did a bunch of testing but was unable to actually get the process to get stuck, so it's quite possible there's more to it than what you may be thinking. This will be a long beta, and this first pass has nothing specific to Big Box performance in it. That is slated for beta 3. Beta 4 and beyond will be all fixes like this, so more to come. Thanks, the platform specific 3D model override preview window will be fixed for beta 2. Looks like maybe a CTC plugin essentially trying to do its own thing when it comes to displaying image in certain situations. This should be fixed in beta 2. I'll see if I can recreate this and knock it out.

13.28 Beta thread has opened:

Hi everyone, Welcome to the LaunchBox 13.28 beta thread. This release will include a number of larger under the hood changes across both LaunchBox and Big Box. Lots of exciting changes will go in this cycle. We'll be touching core areas of the application, so all the help we can get is much appreciated. Here's what we could use help testing. Beta 1 3D Double Jewel Case model - Try the new 3D Double Jewel Case with games that have front, back, and spine artwork, including titles with dual-spine media, and confirm the model displays correctly from multiple angles. LaunchBox List View performance - In the default theme, browse a large library using LaunchBox's List View with badges enabled, then confirm scrolling, selection, sorting, column changes, and general navigation feel stable, responsive, and persistent. Startup and shutdown experience - Restart and close LaunchBox and Big Box a few times and confirm the revamped startup window and new shutdown progress window display cleanly, show useful status messages, and complete without hanging. Startup and Shutdown Applications - Configure apps to launch or close when LaunchBox starts/exits, when Big Box starts/exits, and when switching between LaunchBox and Big Box, then confirm the right apps run or close at the right time. If an app hangs during shutdown, confirm the shutdown progress window shows the stuck step and the force-close option behaves correctly. Searchable Options pages - Search for several settings by name and related terms in Options, then confirm the correct pages and settings are easy to find and the search stays responsive. Default Image Group and image group overrides - Change the new Default Image Group under Viewing options, then set custom image groups for platforms, playlists, and platform categories. Confirm the correct image types appear throughout the interface, and that "Use Default" clears only the selected override without changing the global default. Metadata search while editing games - Edit games with common or ambiguous titles, run metadata searches, and confirm best matches appear first while other possible matches continue loading correctly. Multiple install instance detection - Run separate LaunchBox or Big Box installs from different root folders and confirm they can operate independently without incorrectly blocking each other. Legacy Big Box theme resource loading - Switch to older Big Box themes such as CriticalZone, Unified, or other legacy themes and confirm their images, styling, views, and navigation load correctly. Full Changelog Beta 1: New Premium Feature: Added a new 3D Double Jewel Case model, including automatic spine handling and dual-spine options New Feature: Added configurable Shutdown Applications, so apps can be closed automatically when LaunchBox or Big Box exits or when switching between them New Feature: Added a new shutdown progress window that shows what LaunchBox or Big Box is doing while closing, with a force-close option if shutdown hangs New Feature: Added play session history tracking, with an option under Data settings to enable or disable it New Feature: Added searchable Options pages, making it easier to find settings by name or related terms New Feature: Added a Default Image Group setting under Viewing options, so users can choose the default image type used across the interface Improvement: Reworked the LaunchBox list view for much better performance in the default theme, especially with large libraries, badges, custom columns, and fast scrolling. The new list view is fully themeable, and custom theme developers can update their themes to support it Improvement: Revamped the startup window with a newer WPF-based design and clearer startup status messages Improvement: Improved metadata search when editing a game by showing best matches first, then other possible matches as they load Improvement: Improved image group handling for platforms, playlists, and platform categories, including a new "Use Default" option to quickly clear a custom image group and return to the global default Improvement: Improved LaunchBox and Big Box instance detection so separate installs or root folders can run independently without blocking each other Improvement: Improved Options page performance and search responsiveness Improvement: Improved ROM import parsing and welcome wizard import handoff behavior Improvement: Improved startup/shutdown app handling and switching between LaunchBox and Big Box Improvement: Updated the Windows build to use newer native launchers and the .NET 10 runtime/tooling stack Fixed: Resolved metadata database replacement/update file lock issues that could block metadata downloads or updates Fixed: Resolved Big Box theme resource loading issues for themes loaded from their original installed location Fixed: Corrected platform alternate-name matching in the local metadata database Fixed: Resolved image group overrides incorrectly changing the global default image group Fixed: Corrected playlist image group overrides so playlists with duplicate display names use the correct unique playlist entry Thanks to everyone who helps test and provide feedback. We appreciate all the bug reports, confirmations, and suggestions that help us improve each release.

Thanks, the links are updated on the GamesDB. Based on the article you provided and our SteamID system, I updated Final Fantasy VII to the newer version for now. Just note the LaunchBox app plays no role in the GamesDB metadata changes. They kind of live in parallel beside each other.

Send me a PM with the published theme files and I'll take a look at what may be going on there.

If you would like to troubleshoot this, send me a PM. Just be ready for a lot of questions, so we can try and deduce what might be going on on your machines. Are you using a specific custom theme or have specific plugins installed? My hunch after you said this is maybe it's due to a custom plugin of some kind. Does the same thing happen when you switch to the default theme? Thanks for the info. I did some investigation on that app and it looks like they made the decision to place their video in another bucket than the normal one mostly all games/apps use called "trailers - other trailers". We'll make sure to including that bucket as well.

Thanks to all you guys we released Beta 5 with all the issues we were able to reproduce. Some we just took a stab at since we were unable to recreate them (like processes being stuck), so if you were having issues, take a look at the changelog to see if there was an attempt on solving your issue and test it out and report back. At this point we've scheduled the release for next week, so let's hope we make it! Here's the changelog for beta 5: Improved: System Tray options have been clarified with a new Enable System Tray setting, and tray-related close and minimize behavior now only applies when the system tray is enabled Improved: Local metadata refreshes are more reliable across imports and metadata downloads, with better reuse of active refreshes, more accurate progress reporting, improved package validation with database hash verification progress and more reliable retry handling Improved: LaunchBox restart handling is more reliable for theme installs, plugin updates, options changes, and data restores Fixed: Like and unlike support now works correctly for Themes and Media Packs in the Media Manager, making it easier to give feedback on community-created downloads directly from LaunchBox Fixed: Automatic ROM imports now better respect disabled auto-import settings and more reliably avoid creating duplicate games or duplicate additional apps when scanning for new ROMs Fixed: Several System Tray shutdown and cleanup issues have been resolved, improving quit, minimize, restore, and restart behavior when tray options are enabled Fixed: Several Big Box stability issues related to controller navigation and background image updates have been resolved, reducing the chance of crashes or freezes while navigating with a controller or loading images Fixed: FFmpeg/FFME video playback now loops more reliably without freezing or crashing at the end of playback Fixed: Metadata downloads now handle cases where no games can be resolved, preventing unnecessary failures and helping preserve queued media download work

Just to set expectations. When Steam overhauled their videos system and broke our Steam trailer download support, they basically made all of their video files not accessible. There's literally no videos on their servers for anyone to download anymore. Instead, they replaced it with live streaming versions of them. So, instead of files that can be downloaded, they are video and audio streams. This means the only solution we really had at that point was to capture the video and audio streams and use a program to mux them together and create a file to save to disk. Doing all of that cannot be realistically as fast as simply downloading a file, like we were able to do before, but it does work. All of it can be tested in beta right now, so let us know how you like it.

Beta 2 has been cooking for a while, but it's finally out for everyone to test. We mostly focused on Steam support, including importing and syncing your Steam library, with Steam artwork, trailers, and a bunch of import customization options. We also added a bunch of new platforms, emulators, and a bunch of fixes. Thanks everyone for the help with testing this as we get closer to release. Here's the full changelog: Added Steam game importing for the new Windows platform. This lets you bring your Steam library into LaunchBox for Android and launch supported games through compatible Android Windows launchers Added Steam media support. Steam games can now use Steam artwork and trailers, including box fronts, clear logos, backgrounds, and videos, giving imported Steam games better media coverage out of the box Added Steam library update support. LaunchBox can now compare your Windows/Steam platform against your Steam library to add newly owned games and optionally remove games you no longer own Added options to customize Steam imports. You can choose whether to import only games, include family-shared games, search the LaunchBox Games Database, prioritize Steam metadata, prioritize Steam media, or allow duplicate imports Added platforms: Windows, Arduboy, Sega Model 3, Uzebox, WASM-4, and Microsoft Xbox Added emulators: GameHub Lite, GameNative, Pizza Boy SC Pro, Azahar (Vanilla), Linkboy, Lynx.Emu, PICO-8: Android, PICO-8: Picpic, Aethersx2 (Turnip), SkyEmu, MelonDualDS, YabaSanshiro Pro, Vita3k (ikhoeyZX), Super3, X1 Box, aPS3e, and eka2l1 Added RetroArch core mappings for Arduboy, Uzebox, and WASM-4. These platforms should now be easier to import and launch when using RetroArch Improved streaming video support. LaunchBox now handles more streaming video formats, including HLS streams, which helps Steam trailers and other online videos play more reliably Fixed Local and Cloud filters so games appear in the correct place. Games with local files now show under Local, while Cloud only shows games that exist only on a configured network/cloud location Fixed a possible crash when returning to LaunchBox. This could happen if notification or data services were not available yet when the app resumed Fixed possible image resize conflicts during media downloads. This could prevent media from failing or becoming inconsistent when multiple images were being processed at the same time Fixed scoped-storage handling for additional applications. Launching alternate versions or additional apps should now use the correct file path or URI Fixed scoped-storage lookup to use the selected application path. This helps when launching an additional app or alternate version instead of the main game file Fixed the built-in Vita3k Android emulator launch command

That's an old issue with the native WPF grid view system, which in essence is just a bad system overall. The next release will completely replace it with an entirely custom one, which should give us a lot more control over everything with the list view.

We will be tackling a larger overhaul next release, which hopefully that will help some for users. When I see this happen, it's usually caused by some kind of bad file permissions issue that can usually be fixed with a restart. I'd love to get rid of themes that utilize those old and outdated (and really unneeded) files, but time is the limiting factor there. The shutdown process is highly dependent on how much a user does during their session, but in essence there's a lot of files that go back and forth, and things can get stuck there sometimes that are almost always some kind of read/write issue. Basically, it's not a beta issue, it's more of a "LaunchBox needs to do these things and the computer is saying no silently and LaunchBox just keeps waiting for it to be done". The release after this one will better expose all the things LaunchBox does during a shutdown sequence, and provide ways out of a stuck process.

Thanks. Looks like it's due to using a controller. Fixed internally. Looks like this snuck through. While the option is off, it still runs a quick check on certain things, so we made it not run those checks now while the option is off. Based on what's being read here is that the video file it was playing was slightly corrupt, in a way where the file is out of sync with its own start/end time. Basically it's reporting its time incorrectly and Big Box ends up using the incorrect time to make a decision and it locks Big Box. I tried with a few files, even attempted to corrupt one of my files but was unable to recreate this scenario. It was enough to attempt a fix, but I cannot test the fix. If either of you have a file where it's always doing this, send that, along with your data folder that represents all the settings you have when the issue happens, to me in a PM. I was unable to get this to happen, but I attempted a fix for the automatic ROM import combine ROMs situation, so we can hope that helps, and you can help test when it's out. Based on what's happening during that step, that usually means there's some kind of "LaunchBox can't manipulate a file" issue due to all the normal reasons you can think of, like - another process is holding it hostage, or file permissions, or AV/security software.. etc. I made some changes to the process to try and simplify it as much as possible, but if the OS is telling LaunchBox that it doesn't have access to the file, it may not be enough. Sometimes Windows can get into a bad state and a restart of your computer could clear things like that.