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Hi Everyone, 1.19 Beta 1 is out with a bunch of fixes and a new addition: Playlist support! 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: You can now create and manage playlists entirely on Android. Open any game’s menu and tap Add to Playlist to create a new playlist or add to an existing one. Once created, a new Playlists section will appear in your library A new Show Playlist Filters option on the Options page lets you show or hide playlist filters under your filter sections Browsing Filter and Game pages just got faster thanks to major behind-the-scenes optimizations The Settings pages have been refactored for quicker loading and smoother transitions The alphanumeric index has been fully rebuilt using a custom control that dramatically improves load times for any view using it and gives theme developers more flexibility Fixed syncing issues with PlayCount and PlayTime, making your game stats sync properly with the LaunchBox Games Database and stay consistent across Android and Windows builds Default text list views (FilterBasicTextList, FilterTextListWithDetails, GameBasicTextList, GameTextListWithDetails, GameTextListWithTwoColumnDetails) have been converted to utilize CollectionView, improving performance and enabling support for the new AlphaNumeric control Known Issues with Beta 1: You are unable to edit the metadata of a playlist right now You cannot change the view of the list of playlists Here's some more Context with our changes to help you with testing: You can now create and manage manual playlists directly on Android. Open any game menu and tap Add to Playlist. You can create a new playlist or add the game to one you have already made. Once you create a playlist, it will appear in your filter section alongside All Games, Favorites, and other filters. Note: Playlist filters are hidden by default. To see them, go to Options then Navigation then enable Show Playlist Filters. You can also assign media to playlists like banners, box art, and clear logos. No media is included by default. Navigation throughout the app is now faster and smoother. The alphanumeric index has been fully rebuilt. It now loads quicker and offers more flexibility for theme developers. Default text list views now use CollectionView, which improves performance and allows support for the new index. Important: Some of these changes require updated themes. Go to Manage Themes and update all themes you are using. Because of the large amount of code restructuring, this update could introduce new bugs. We fixed everything we could find, but your help testing during the beta is greatly appreciated. If you see any strange behavior or navigation issues, please let us know. Updating your themes is also necessary to take advantage of the new index. Syncing issues with play count and play time have been fixed on the Android side. These stats should now sync correctly between Android, Windows, and the LaunchBox Games Database. If you have had problems here in the past, please test and report back with your results. Beta 2: You can now easily import and launch games installed in Vita3k. Just use the Import Games tool, choose Sony PlayStation Vita, and point to Vita3k's emulated storage space Improved the new alphanumeric index to better respect whether favorites are listed first or not Fixed an issue where RetroArch core selections were not saving if the core was unknown to us. Core selection should now save correctly in all cases Play time tracking now resumes properly after returning from an emulator session Fixed an issue where clearing play count did not remove play count from additional applications Fixed issues with renaming playlists, saving metadata, and changing themes for the playlist section

Hey all, Just wanted to fill you guys in on some of the changes that have been made to the LaunchBox Games Database behind the scenes. Game Deletion Workflow Overhaul We’ve completely revamped how games are deleted to prevent long term issues with user's LaunchBox libraries and future GamesDB Integrations: Users can now submit one of 3 reason types when requesting a game deletion. If marking a game as a duplicate, a link to the duplicate is now required. All deletion requests will go through both our standard moderation and a new Tier 2 moderation process, which has the final say. If a duplicate is approved for deletion, a new system will now link the deleted game to its replacement, so metadata and media can still be accessed by users who had it in their libraries. This change is especially important as we begin to integrate services more deeply with the Games Database. We want to avoid situations where deleted entries break integrations or game links for users. Bug Fixes Some sneaky little bugs have been squashed: Fixed an issue where ESRB ratings, Wikipedia links, and Video links weren’t sticking after moderation approval. These should now save reliably. Resolved a problem where some users saw part of their Changes Status pages mysteriously vanish. They’re back where they belong and you can now rejoice! Search results got a tune-up: Multi-page results are now back. Relevance has been improved across both the main search bar and the mini search on game pages. For users running into API limit issues (you legends), we’ve put in place a few improvements to help reduce those headaches. Most folks wouldn't have hit this limitation, but hopefully with the changes we made it should happen much less often, if not at all. Image Upload Restrictions Refreshed Some upload restrictions have returned from the dead to ensure media quality stays top-notch. Here’s a quick refresher: PNG with transparency required for: Clear Logo, Box - 3D, Cart - Front, Cart - Back, Cart - 3D, and Disc Icon images: must be no larger than 256x256 Square images: must be a 1:1 ratio Poster images: must be 2:3 ratio, with a minimum width of 600px All other media types can be JPG or PNG

Link to the 13.23 Beta Thread:

Hey All, We are back with another beta round! Thanks to everyone helping us test the latest beta builds. Your feedback is super valuable, so please include the following info when reporting any issues: 📝 When submitting feedback, include: Your Windows version A clear description of the issue Whether the issue can be consistently reproduced The steps to reproduce it 🎮 How to Join the Beta To opt into the beta: In LaunchBox, go to Tools > Options > General > Updates Enable Update to Beta Releases When a beta is available, you will be prompted at startup or can check manually via Menu > Help > Check for Updates 🔌 A Quick Note on Plugins Some beta builds include early versions of official plugins that are not yet live in the Plugin Manager. Because of this: You may see update prompts for plugins that are actually newer in the beta Please avoid updating plugins while using a beta if you are planning to provide feedback. This helps us get accurate data and avoids breaking improvements 🎞️ VLC is now considered legacy If you are reporting any issue in either LaunchBox or Big Box, you must first ensure your video engine is set to Windows Media Player. For Big Box: Go to Options > Video and set the Video Playback Engine to Windows Media Player For LaunchBox: Go to Tools > Options > General > Video Playback and do the same Note that these settings are separate. Changing the setting in one does not affect the other. Always re-evaluate the issue after changing this setting before submitting a report. Beta 1: New Premium Feature: Added a new Screensavers feature to Big Box, letting users discover games with fully themeable views and interact directly with the games shown Improvement: Platform detail views in both LaunchBox and Big Box now display numerical counts for games that are beaten, completed, or mastered, based on Game Progress Tracking stats Fixed: RetroAchievements were not loading in Game Details when using a List View, resulting in no achievement data being shown Fixed: Removed the outdated Change Badge Images option from the Badge menu in LaunchBox, which no longer applied after the media manager overhaul in version 13.21 Fixed: Legacy Big Box themes using Old Default theme code had a stray completed graphic that would always show, regardless of user data Fixed: Selecting a game too quickly in Big Box could prevent LEDBlinky from displaying the correct lighting behavior Fixed: A specific crash related to the MAME High Score system is now caught with error handling, and logging has been added to help identify the root cause The screensaver feature is a bit of a work in progress, but the core principles are there. The view itself is designed to be an alternative to Attract Mode. It cycles through games, giving you another avenue to discover games in your library. There's an action button that allows you to quickly navigate to the Game Details page of the game you are looking at. The default theme currently comes with 3 completed views, and 1 placeholder. By release, all 4 views should be filled in for the default theme. Each theme will have the ability to have up to 4 distinct screensaver views, and theme devs have the full breadth of game bindings at their disposal when building out these views. More detailed theming info for theme devs will be coming soon. Beta 2: New Feature: LaunchBox now opens with a brand new Welcome Wizard that helps users quickly set up their games, preferences, and media so they can jump straight into the fun New Feature: A new automation rule for Game Progress Tracking now allows games to be marked as paused if they have not been played in a user-defined number of days New Feature: A new Media Settings section under Tools > Options > Media > Automatic Imports lets users customize which media files are downloaded during automated imports Improvement: When arranging by Game Progress, sorting now follows your user-defined order for progress values and headers Improvement: Platform icons have been visually refreshed for Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Game Boy Advance, and PICO-8 to better represent each system Improvement: Screensaver 4 for the Default view is now complete and available for testing Improvement: The “Attract Mode Master Volume” option in Big Box is now called “Idle Master Volume” and now controls both Screensaver and Attract Mode audio. Improvement: Marquee screens and LEDBlinky integration should now function properly with Screensavers Fixes: Games hidden by the user will no longer appear in the Game Discovery Center Fixes: The Beat em Up clear logo now displays correctly under all conditions Fixes: Resetting play time and play count now also resets these values for all additional apps attached to a game Fixes: Hybrid views now provide proper audio feedback when navigating with a controller or keyboard Fixes: Some custom LaunchBox themes were silently failing to poll the selected game, which could prevent item highlighting from working correctly Fixes: In some custom LaunchBox themes, multiple carousel controls in the Game Details panel were not always updating as expected Beta 3: New Premium Feature: LaunchBox and Big Box now include a brand new FFMPEG-based video playback option, delivering more reliable performance, with the old VLC engine now phased out

I believe their server was restarted and things look like they are back up again on their side.

Sounds like you may be using the deprecated VLC video playback engine in Big Box instead of WMP. You can change that in Big Box options, or if you can't make it in there, change it in your LaunchBox\Data\BigBoxSettings.xml file. It should be: <VideoPlaybackEngine>Windows Media Player</VideoPlaybackEngine>

Beta 6 is out with the following: Improvement: Game Progress value is now included in the Cloud Game Statistic Syncing service (Tools > Cloud > Enable Game Statistic Syncing) Improvement: A new Game Progress button has been added to the default LaunchBox theme for quickly changing a game's progress manually Improvement: Auto-import now supports non-emulated platforms (such as Windows) Improvement: Pause screen's Achievement window now displays the new RetroAchievement types Improvement: Game Progress changes made during gameplay are now better reflected when returning to Big Box Fixed: Automated Progress is now correctly triggered by more import methods, including startup and manual import scans Fixed: Disabling automatic game progress now correctly takes effect in all scenarios Fixed: Xbox storefront logout now properly respects your choice to log out Fixed: Big Box's Hybrid View 3 alphanumeric index now scrolls in the correct direction Fixed: Big Box now better respects your selected badge pack

Sorry to hear. It should work just fine. If you would like to troubleshoot this, we can do it here. What you'll want to do is follow the path of 1 ROM file through LaunchBox to make sure everything seems good. You'd be answering the following questions: Does the game in LaunchBox point to a ROM that exists The game exists in a platform, what Emulator is set up for that platform to launch and what core (there are multiple versions of RetroArch, so you'll want to make sure you are pointing to the one that you have installed on your device. That's basically it. In order to do this, first you'll pick a ROM file, find out where it exists on your drive, then in LaunchBox, edit that game's metadata and make sure it's pointing to that same file. Then open up the platform's Emulator settings and make sure it's pointing to the correct Emulator. You can use the validate button to make sure it exists. Since it's RetroArch, you'll also want to make sure that the core you are telling RetroArch to use is actually downloaded inside of RetroArch, or alternatively, you can switch to a core that you know for sure is in use. If you need extra help, take screenshots along the way, and post them here.

I ran a few tests internally but I'm not seeing any issues with Achievements. Might be worth opening up a separate troubleshooting thread to see if anyone else in the community is seeing what you are seeing. Try Filter.Name instead of Platform.Name. There are many differences with the hybrid view. I'll try and whip up an article before release over on our WIP documents, but for now there's the 4 views available you can look through for help (try the Aetherial theme for more hints). If you haven't seen the new strategy guide area, you can find it here: https://feedback.launchbox.gg/help . It has a dump of the Big Box documentation file, and I'll be continuing to update it with future additions.

Beta 5 is out with the following: Improvement: Added two new Hybrid View options to the default theme, bringing the total to three Improvement: The default theme in Big Box now displays your Game Progress status Fixed: Adjusting the time on automated Game Progress rules now properly saves (no longer stuck at the default 30 minutes) Fixed: Storefront imports from the EA app now work correctly after adapting to the takedown of EA's deprecated Origin API Fixed: In Big Box, all available options in pop-up menus can now be selected as expected Fixed: Non-English characters in the installer should now display correctly again Fixed: The media installer header now properly reflects the correct version of LaunchBox Known Issues: Default Big Box theme - Platform Hybrid 3 - Alphanumeric Index navigates incorrectly Big Box - FlowBadge element - the correct badge pack is not always being used The EA "fix" ended up being an entire rewrite due to EA taking down their old Origin API. For users that do have EA games, testing would be much appreciated. At this point we have all the default hybrid views we are looking to add to this release, including the 3 default views and the custom theme (called Aetherial) that can be downloaded from the Manage Themes section. Appreciate the help in testing the 4 views. We are approaching the end of this cycle, but we are not quite there yet. Everyone has at least one more week to test the changes of this release out. Thanks everyone!

While I won't be able to do this, I'm open to anyone wanting to take the code and make this a reality.

Thanks for the reports. We did some extensive testing and while there doesn't look to be any issue with launching games, nor was there any code changes to our launching logic, we did find an issue with selecting items in a pop-up that we will fix for the next beta. Basically, choosing the first selected item on the list in a pop-up is not currently performing the intended action. Whether choosing "Launch With", or "Additional Apps/Versions" and choosing the first selected item, or really anywhere in the app when choosing the first selected item. Also, the minutes not saving with the Game Progress Automation rule will also be fixed in the next beta as well. We are currently finishing up work with other fixes and a couple more default hybrid themes that each have a unique aspect to them that highlights what's achievable, and as soon as everything is ready to go, beta 5 will drop with all of this. Thanks for continued testing of our betas, which makes our releases better. Don't forget to include all the details listed out in the first post, as it helps us with reproducing whatever you guys are seeing on your end without us having to read between the lines.

There's a lot that we are working on in the background. We'll have something to beta within a week or so, with the focus being on navigational performance.

Beta 4 is out with the following changes: Improved: The Big Box Default theme now displays Game Progress, and you can toggle its visibility via Options > Game Details Improved: Game Progress Option pages in LaunchBox received minor wording updates for improved clarity Fixed: The Automatic Game Progress feature will no longer auto-set games to Active / In Progress after just 30 seconds of gameplay—it now correctly uses 30 minutes (or the time you adjust it to) Fixed: Background music now behaves better in Big Box’s Hybrid Views Fixed: Game Progress status (Beaten and Mastered) now update more smoothly when earned Fixed: Badges now fall back to the Nostalgic pack if your current pack is missing a specific badge Fixed: Clearing play time in LaunchBox will now reset Game Progress to Unplayed in applicable scenarios Fixed: Controller badges now show the correct tooltip when mousing over non-selected items—no more mystery tooltips Fixed: Removed the old Unplayed/Completed badges, since the new Progress Badge handles all that and then some For people on previous betas, if you had the issue of games moving to the "Active / In Progress" state if a game had over 30 seconds of play time (instead of 30 minutes), you can either manually bulk edit those games to a different value, or follow the same steps to refresh your game's progress. Same steps below as beta 3. This should be the last time you'll need to do this 🤞 Open LaunchBox, go to your All Games section. Select all games, open the Bulk Editor, and set Progress to blank (ie. empty). Close LaunchBox and wait for the background save process to finish completely. Navigate to: LaunchBox\Data\Settings.xml Open the file in a text editor and delete any of the following lines if they exist: <HasMigratedToProgress> <HasSetAutoProgressDefaultValues> Now reopen LaunchBox. It should migrate your data again with the new default structure correctly in place.

Yes. The old Unplayed and Completed badges are now considered legacy in the beta, and expect them to exit the interface before release. Glad you are taking advantage of the open ended system so quickly and seeing it work. While we are probably not looking to expand the default list, the entire system is designed to be whatever user's want it to be. The tooltip is a known issue and should be solved by beta 4. It's currently displaying the last game/selected game's value instead of the value of the game you are moused over.

Beta 3 is out with the following changes: New Feature: Game Progress now supports customizable Categories and Values (e.g., "Active / In Progress"). Default options are included, with the ability for users to create their own New Feature: A new Progress badge is available under Badges > Game Attributes > Progress, visually changing based on a game’s progress value (e.g., a "Done / Beaten" game shows a flag). These badges are included in the Nostalgic, White - Filled, and White - Outline sets (update white badges under Tools > Manage > LaunchBox Themes & Media...) New Feature: A new Game Progress Priorities page is now available under Tools > Options > Data > Game Progress Priorities. This page lets users sort progress categories and values, and add or remove unused ones. It’s also accessible via a gear icon next to the Progress field in the Add/Edit Game page New Feature: A new Game Progress options page has been added under Tools > Options > Data > Game Progress, introducing optional automated progress. Users can define rules (e.g., "Over 'x' minutes played" sets status to "Active / In Progress"), toggle the system on/off, and customize their values Improvement: The Progress On-the-fly Filter button options are now grouped by category, with values listed underneath. Clicking a category filters by all its values. Sort order reflects the settings from the Priorities page Improvement: The Progress dropdown in the Add/Edit Game interface now follows the custom sort order from the Priorities page Improvement: Auto-populate filters can now be created using the new Progress field. A new "Starts With" comparison type has been added for filter creation Improvement: The Progress sidebar filter section now displays Categories and Values in a tree structure, sorted according to the Priorities page Improvement: The following mappings are now fully functional in Hybrid View: Set Star Rating, Page Up/Down, Show Achievements, Show High Scores, Show Game Details, View Images, View Model, Play Music, and Random Game Improvement: Videos using the WMP Video Playback engine are now properly centered in Hybrid View, matching other views Fixed: Playing a game directly from the thumbnail lists in Hybrid View now correctly launches the intended game Fixed: Resolved an issue in Hybrid View where background platform videos and foreground game videos could play simultaneously, causing playback conflicts Fixed: You can no longer enter a Game's section in Hybrid View before bindings are loaded. Previously, this resulted in an empty section that stayed blank until exited 💡For people wanting to help test more Hybrid Views, there's a new theme for users on the beta called Aetherial, and should be available for download from the Theme Manager inside of Big Box. With Beta 3, the new Game Progress system is now considered feature complete, and there are a few things existing Beta 1 and 2 users will need to do to make sure everything migrates properly. Open LaunchBox, go to your All Games section. Select all games, open the Bulk Editor, and set Progress to blank (ie. empty). Close LaunchBox and wait for the background save process to finish completely. Navigate to: LaunchBox\Data\Settings.xml Open the file in a text editor and delete any of the following lines if they exist: <HasMigratedToProgress> <HasSetAutoProgressDefaultValues> Now reopen LaunchBox. It should migrate your data again with the new default structure correctly in place. If you're signed into RetroAchievements but your games aren’t showing a "Done / Beaten" progress status, you’ll need to: Go to Tools > RetroAchievements > Scan for Achievements Scan all your games Why? This triggers a rescan to pull in the new "Beaten" status, which the Progress system now uses. Not Seeing Any Progress Badges? This likely means you’re using a badge set that doesn’t include the new Progress badge designs. The Nostalgic pack (included with the update) contains all the new badges. The White - Filled and White - Outline packs need to be updated or downloaded to include the new Progress badges. To update or install badge sets, go to: Tools > Manage > LaunchBox Themes and Media... Beta 4 will address this by falling back to the Nostalgic pack when no badge exist in your current pack If you would like to learn more about the new Game Progress feature, you can find details here: https://feedback.launchbox.gg/help/articles/6612691-game-progress-tracking-feature

Yes. New Feature: Added a new hybrid view in Big Box that combines platform and game views for smoother transitions and theming potential

It's essentially just another platform view. So, load up the Default theme, and in a root view when you open up the Switch View menu, you'll see it in there.

😉

Curious how you got Windows shortcuts to import using the auto-import system? Mostly because Windows is exempt from the auto-import system as it's not yet supported. We do have on our list to support it in the future for shortcut links like this, but it's not yet turned on for reasons you somehow uncovered. If you would like to import shortcut files for Windows games, you'll want to drag and drop the shortcut files overtop LaunchBox and choose the option "None of the Above".

Beta 2 is out with the following changes: Improvement: The RetroAchievements options page will now prompt you if your credentials are incomplete or invalid when attempting to leave the page Improvement: Added support for importing VR compatibility data from Steam; Steam VR-supported games are now auto-tagged with a PC-VR controller in the VR Support category Fixed: Hybrid Views now load game items more efficiently than in Beta 1 Fixed: Custom Themes no longer falsely indicate that Hybrid Views are available Fixed: Horizontal wheels in Hybrid View now properly support the alpha-numeric index Fixed: Search and filter buttons on the alpha-numeric index now function correctly in Hybrid Views Fixed: Resolved a crash that could occur in Hybrid View when navigating with a controller Fixed: Game Completion data now migrates more reliably into the new Progress field Fixed: Opening List View no longer causes a crash Fixed: "no achievements available" no longer incorrectly shows on some LaunchBox theme's Game Details pane (for real this time) Fixed: Release Date field no longer stores time zone data, which could cause the date to shift based on user location Fixed: Rare crash that could occur when rapidly clicking the Favorite or Completed buttons under certain conditions Fixed: Game description could occasionally get stuck on a previous game instead of updating properly Things to keep in mind: For anyone that experienced the issue in beta 1 where your completed status didn't migrate properly to the new Progress field, you will need to close LB and open the settings file and change the HasMigratedToProgress setting to false. Then open LaunchBox back up and report back to us on how it went. The List View should be fixed, but if you are using a custom theme, an update to the theme will be required to see the new field as a column. The Big Box default theme only has Hybrid View 1 currently available. Expect more updates to the Hybrid View, including theming changes, extra views, and performance passes The new game Progress field will be undergoing a major revision that is slated to come in beta 3

For the 3D Model, yeah, looks like that's what's being used, which explains it. If you want it to stop using them you'll need to edit the platform, go to the 3D Model Settings, turn on Overrides and uncheck the option: Enable Full Scan Images.

Thanks for the feedback so far guys. @Rlad What there anything in-particular you were doing in Big Box? The Theme you were using, the view you were using, the section you were on. Were you using a keyboard, mouse, or controller? All details about exactly what you were doing would help in tracking this down. Also, I tested both TurboGrafx-16 and Sega Genesis and they both seem to find achievements just fine. You may need to run through your own sanity checks there to see if your game's hashes are ones that match properly to their database. You could open a separate thread if you need help for that. @Retrofrogg @Drybonz We did spend a considerable amount of time on this already in internal testing and nobody was able to recreate this. So, while it sucks when it happens, we can safely narrow it down to a very specific set of circumstances on a user's computer. What we know is what we attempt to do during shutdown that makes the process stay there. We save your data files from memory to the Data folder, and we save a copy of the data folder to your backups folder. If either of those steps run into issues, that process could get stuck. The main reasons we've seen either of those steps get stuck is when LaunchBox asks to do one of those things and Windows basically says no. Things like the files being locked by another program, permissions issues, insufficient disk space.. things like that. Turn off backups to rule at least one of those out. This type of thing can be discussed outside of this beta in its own thread, or over on featurebase. @salofan @JoeViking245 @snarfo67 Thanks guys. Easily enough to reproduce. Should have it fixed in beta 2. @rocksinboxes Thanks for the image, as it shows it happening in Old Default. This would be a theme specific issue here (this wouldn't happen in the Default theme, for example). What is likely causing it is a binding not updating between game details binding updates. We'll take a look and see if we can better help this situation for beta 2. @hkr Thanks. Obviously this shouldn't be happening, as we have code in place to transfer over people's completed statuses to the new system, but sounds like it needs some work. We'll look into this for beta 2 at the same time as our enhancements to it.

The way the RetroArch download works is that we download the RetroArch.apk from their own buildbot, which is a type of dynamic apk which is packaged with both the 32bit and 64bit versions. The idea is that it's supposed to be dynamic enough to pick the correct version to install on the device it's trying to install onto. I don't have an Nvidia Shield to test with right now, but if it's not installing on your particular flavor of that device, installing another version from their buildbot might be the only answer for now. LaunchBox does support other versions of RetroArch, including all their side-loaded and play store versions. You will have to manually download and install each core you want to play, and you'll have to switch the emulator in LaunchBox to the version of RetroArch you end up using.