faeran

Hi Everyone, 13.19 Beta 1 is out with a bunch of improvements and fixes. The main goal of this release will be focused on performance and under-the-hood advancements to help us get into a better position for future updates. To that affect, beta 1 includes two major changes, including a complete under-the-hood change to how the LaunchBox Game Details view loads in each time you select a new game. Instead of reloading the entire pane, we are now only updating the bindings in that view. We've also migrated the app to .NET 9 (previously were using .NET 6.0). From a user-standpoint there's nothing you'll need to do other than running the update, as .NET 9 is built directly into the app. If you are using a custom theme, you'll want to make sure to use the Theme Manager to update them to the latest versions before commenting below. Thanks to all who help test these beta versions. Don't forget to include the following information in your feedback to help us out with tracking down with any issues you may face with these betas: Your Windows version Description of the issue Can it be reliably reproduced on your end? Reproduction steps You can opt into the beta within LaunchBox by going to Tools > Options > General > Updates and turning on Update to Beta Releases. If a beta release is available, you will get prompted each time the app opens up, or you can manually check using Menu > Help > Check for Updates. Full Changelog: https://www.launchbox-app.com/about/changelog Beta 1: Improvement: Improved speed at which the Game Details View loads in LaunchBox Improvement: LaunchBox has now been upgraded to .NET 9.0 (from .NET 6.0) Improvement: The LaunchBox Game Details Default view now features Related Games in a dedicated, easily accessible section, for a more performant and user-friendly experience Improvement: The ability to disable individual Related Games sections has been added in LaunchBox, accessible under Options > Visuals > Game Details Fixed: Restored the expected behavior for the top background image in the Default theme's Game Details view. It will now prioritize images from your Background image group before using a Gameplay Screenshot as a fallback Fixed: Resolved an issue where image loading could be disrupted by multi-threaded gremlins Fixed: Corrected an error introduced in version 13.18 where dragging and dropping non-ROM game files would incorrectly assign an unassigned emulator value Fixed: Eliminated the unnecessary prompt to select a RetroArch core for platforms that have already been imported Fixed: Restoring saves on an Additional App could inadvertently overwrite the save data of the primary game Known Issues with Beta 1 (which will be solved in beta 2): Some views in Big Box, including the system menu, and Options menu show up black due to .NET 9 namespace migration issues Beta 2: The Black Screens Big Box have been fixed (introduced in beta 1) Under certain conditions game media within the carousel could show images from a previous game if the new game had no media (introduced in beta 1) Known issues with Beta 2 (which will be solved in beta 3): Opening a second Game Details view using the Related Games feature is not always loading properly Related Game tabs not always resetting back to the first tab in the list under certain conditions Expanded achievements is sometimes left on after changing to a new game Platform Icon within Game Details not always appearing Beta 3: Fixed: Opening a second Game Details view using the Related Games feature is not always loading properly Fixed: Related Game tabs not always resetting back to the first tab in the list under certain conditions Fixed: Expanded achievements is sometimes left on after changing to a new game Fixed: Platform Icon within Game Details not always appearing Fixed: Clean Up Media utility no longer freezes when initiating scan Fixed: Margin issue with the default theme's Documents and Links sections Fixed: Visibility issue with the default theme's Media Preview box Beta 4: Improvement: This update replaced LaunchBox's legacy XML-based local game database with a high-performance SQLite database. Expect a noticeably faster startup time, lower memory usage, and a solid foundation for even more performance gains in upcoming releases Improvement: The included version of VLC has been updated to version 3.0.21, bringing performance improvements, bug fixes, and updated codec support Improvement: Platform Clear Logo and Icon for Bandai Super Vision 8000 is now included when importing this platform Fixed: The auto-import feature for Playstation Vita games using the Vita3k emulator is now working correctly Fixed: Resolved an error that occurred under specific conditions when using UNC paths Fixed: Badges and Star Rating graphics on the GameDetails view should now work as intended (introduced in beta 1) Fixed: Media Carousel alignment under certain conditions in specific custom themes Fixed: Included 3DO Interactive Multiplayer logo not showing up after platform import Known issues with Beta 3 (which will be solved in beta 4): Star rating graphic in Game Details view not showing accurate info all the time Badges that appear in the Game Details view not currently appearing

Looked into it a bit more and yes, you are right. The reason you were seeing what you were seeing with Bargon Attach because our current system uses their auto-play feature which then simply choosing the first game version on the list and plays that. That particular game has some unplayable game in that slot. We'll definitely be taking a crack at shoring that up for standalone ScummVM in a future update. As far as RetroArch core is concerned, we'll also get in the ability to import the core specific scummvm files without the need to using a dummy platform first in the next update like you did in your workaround.

Hey @retroD999 This is intended behavior, in that all you need to do is drag/drop your ScummVM folder that holds all of your games, then it uses your game folders as the file path to pass along to the emulator. We also built in a ScummVM downloader, which solves any headache with setting it up. I just tested adding the ScummVM core to RetroArch and it seems to play games perfectly fine through the core as well. I set the ScummVM platform in its associated platform section and set the core. Let me know if this isn't working for you and I can help you through the process.

You can long press over your SNES platform and choose delete. You'll also be asked if you would like to delete your media, as well as your ROMs. Make sure you say you don't want to delete your ROMs

Based on this document, it looks like Android apps are run in a container, which means it doesn't have access to a user's local network. That would explain why you are seeing what you are seeing. Here's the link: https://developer.android.com/topic/arc#:~:text=This means that Android doesn't have direct access to the system's LAN interface Here's the quote from that document that explains it: Chromebooks run the entire Android OS in a container, similar to Docker or LXC. This means that Android doesn't have direct access to the system's LAN interface. Instead, IPv4 traffic passes through an internal layer of network address translation (NAT), and IPv6 unicast traffic is routed through an extra hop. We have some changes coming that should increase speed of downloads which basically changes the buffer size of the download. It does improve speeds at least internally. However, just as a general rule of thumb for people reading this, it's still limited to the entire trace between the device you are using and where your games are stored. Therefore, if your handheld has the capability of doing Wifi 5 speeds, and your router is Wifi 6e, then you'll get Wifi 5 speeds. Your speed is as fast as your slowest bottleneck. Then you factor in signal strength, and the remaining trace between your wifi router and your server/computer, and you get a better picture of what your actual speeds might be. Then it'll be more about the hardware itself, storage also have max speeds that sometime are slower than network speeds these days. We can also understand that some native apps can achieve greater speeds than an app like LaunchBox which doesn't have the same toolset as something like a native app. Look out for the next beta and see if it helps your situation.

I'm trying to figure out any reliable way to reproduce this, but up until this point nobody internally can, so not sure what internal or external factors could be causing this. If you can zip up your data folder and send it to me in a PM, that could help narrow things down.

They look good to me. great game too.

This is the first time I'm hearing mention of this. Which theme are you using? Could very much be theme dependent, or a specific option dependent that's only used in specific themes. I would open a separate post for this, or this kind of relates to your scenario, so you may find some answers here too:

Poster and Square images are part of the Box - Front image group. If a game has an official version of either size available, it can come into those image types. If not, it can be used as the best recreation of the original artwork in this form factor. The goal being that in the future, this could be an option inside of LaunchBox/Big Box to display box images that are uniform across platforms, if users prefer.

Yeah, I can understand both options. The only reason I bring up the way that Big Box's hierarchy is set up is because usually users misunderstand how it's technically laid out behind-the-scenes, so no matter what we choose to do, it's sort of like a re-invisioning of how Big Box technically operates, or something that adds some kind of redundancy option to it to appease the way users might be utilizing a specific section. The main reason for the Game Discovery Center to exist was actually to add a new section, separate from a user's Platform, or Platform Categories section, and then add it as an option for users if they prefer to use it as their startup view. At the time it was hard to really know how people would react to it, since nothing like it existed before in the application, but since technically the system view is the link between all other sections, it made sense to add it there as a starting point. Since this view never existed before, no current theme would have a "theme specific" version of it, which is also something we had to consider during development. I do also like the idea of re-organizing the system view as well. Making it more clear which options are "sections", which ones are more options/management areas, and the like. I could see that also helping out. We will consider all of this as we move forward and see what we can come up with.

Thanks for the report. The video is a bit unclear, but is it that screenshots didn't load into the background of the list for the double dragons, or was it something else? If it was, can you edit the game's media and make sure one has downloaded for it?

Thanks for that. While it wasn't happening on our devices, we were able to use your logs to figure out why it was happening with your specific dataset and fix it. We'll push this in the next beta. Not related to the crashing, but in the first MAME2003 video - You checked the option "This is a full MAME set". You shouldn't do this for a MAME 2003 set, or there will be games (and version of games) that get imported that don't actually exist in your set. The export to Android for MAME isn't the best thing to use for a number of reasons, but the main one being that unless you have a full non-merged set, you'd end up with paths to files that don't actually exist. On Windows this isn't a problem, MAME can fill in the gaps, but on Android, you'll end up trying to send a file to the emulator that doesn't exist, causing a black screen. Black screen can also indicate missing core, as in the core LaunchBox thinks RetroArch has isn't the one RetroArch actually has installed. I'm guessing you found yourself in the former. Thanks for your list. Just to give context to it, the only one that's a global issue is the video streaming which was broken whem Google made some security changes. We've searched for solutions to their new security measures, but have yet to find a suitable one, so if we can't, we may disable it temporarily for this update until we find one. We are also exploring possibilities of increasing speeds of the ROM downloads, but no promises there. Could be device specific, but not really sure at this point. The only thing we know at the moment is that it's not happening globally, which makes it a tougher thing to track down. Pretty sure a few people on the team have the same device as you do, I'll get them to test on it and that will give us a few more answers anyway.

Nice. Glad you are liking the RetroTastic theme. I made it such a long time ago, I forget how I did it. Your assumption is right that it would probably require some theme tinkering. Here's a slightly altered Vertical Wheel 1 view you can try out. It should basically fall back to a screenshot image if a video doesn't exist. WheelGamesView.xaml Replace the one in the following folder: \\LaunchBox\Themes\Retrotastic\Views\

If you've checked your spam folders and you don't see it, use the Contact Us form at the bottom of this page to send support a message. They can toss you a link.

If you know where your LaunchBox folder is on your device, can you use a files app to rename it temporarily, then open LaunchBox. If done right, it will act as a brand new install. Let us know if you are seeing the same thing or not.

That's baked into the theme itself, so there's no user option that could change switching one element out with another there. However, you could create a copy of the theme and change that part of the code to suit your particular needs.

Thanks for the report. Did a few round of tests but was unable to reproduce the tiny video issue. Were the video files sourced from EmuMovies or somewhere else? As far as looping videos, we were able to reproduce and it should be fixed in beta 2.

Thanks for the report. Arcade over NAS is actually not yet supported. We added a prompt to beta 1 to stop users from accidentally importing them. Local MAME imports are supported, but we are unable to reproduce any crashes with those imports. If you have time, can you upload another video showing the process from the home screen and going through the process of trying to import a MAME set on your local SD card.

It's feature dependent. Here's a good article to read if you haven't yet, which explain why you are seeing what you are seeing, and what you can do about it:

If you can, check out 1.17 beta 1 and see if you are seeing the same thing on your device. You can post any feedback in its beta thread:

Has anyone with the error tried to do this yet?

The Beta Thread for LaunchBox for Android 1.17 has been opened and can be found here:

Thanks, we'll look into this and see if it's something we can recreate on our side and see what we can do about it.

Hi Everyone, 1.17 Beta 1 is out with a bunch of fixes that solve a number of issues that cropped up due to the big MAUI framework change. This will be a short development cycle to shore up as many bugs as we can. Once this update goes live we will be pivoting to new feature releases. For users that were having issues on 1.16, it would be great to hear from you if this beta solves the problems you were facing. Thanks to all who help test these beta versions. Don't forget to include the following information in your feedback to help us out with tracking down with any issues you may face with these betas: Your device specs The version of Android and API version Description of the issue Can it be reliably reproduced on your end? Reproduction steps You can opt into the beta within LaunchBox for Android by going into Option and turning on the Update to Beta Releases option. If a beta release is available, you will get prompted each time the app opens up. Full Changelog: https://www.launchbox-app.com/android-about/change-log Beta 1: Filter Views that utilize background videos should better identify the correct video to play Fixed an issue where LaunchBox would freeze when launching games if notifications were blocked The app no longer crashes if the user exits the network share username/password input dialog Manually changing media from the LaunchBox Games Database for a single game should better reflect the new image selected Fixed a rare crash that could occur when attempting to play a game Addressed a crash that could occur when attempting to import games from a network Fixed an uncommon crash that may occur when users navigate between the hamburger menu items Fixed a crash that could occur on devices whose API is 27 or lower Fixed a rare crash that could stop users from proceeding with the import process Fixed several minor crashes reported by our reporting system Beta 2: Downloading bin/cue games over a network share now includes both downloading and deleting all associated files Introduced a new "Download Game" option for games imported from a network share, enabling users to download games independently of playing them Added the ability to delete the local version of a game while maintaining its availability over the network Increased network buffer size to potentially improve download speeds for game files from network shares The download pop-up for network share files is now more informative Default Nintendo 64 core for RetroArch has been updated due to the previous one being retired Resolved an issue where downloading EmuMovies videos could cause the application to crash Resolved an issue where importing files over a network share did not consistently handle bin/cue files as intended Addressed a problem where the selected platform or game information did not always update accurately when using touch controls Resolved a crash that could occur while navigating within a Boxes Grid view Addressed a crash that might happen during the import of MAME files Fixed a crash that could occur when changing screen orientation while on a Filters View Resolved a rare crash that could occur when long-pressing on specific elements Corrected an issue where the background video element behaved incorrectly when a custom view file lacked a foreground video element Fixed an issue that prevented Platform and Game videos from looping correctly