Lahma
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Posts posted by Lahma
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Just wanted to let you guys know I got the plugin fixed and 100% working with Steam stable and the Steam beta. I just need to cleanup my code a bit and compile a new release. I will try to get it pushed out later today (tomorrow for me.. it is 5am and I still haven't gone to bed) if possible.
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If you search online, you will find that there are very mixed reports. Some people such as yourself are seeing absolutely no problems while others are experiencing boatloads of issues. Actually, it might be useful to get some info from you @JedExodus... Approximately how many non-Steam shortcuts do you currently have in your Steam client? How many normal Steam shortcuts (Steam games)? It would actually be super useful to me if I could get you to run a little Steam API troubleshooter utility that I made to see if you experience the same issues with the Steam API that I am seeing. If you wouldn't mind helping me out for a min when you have some free time, hit me up on Steam. It should only take a few min.
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Well I'm glad to hear that it is not just me... I mean, it is such a broken mess that it is utterly laughable. Any changes made to the library through the API properly update the shortcuts.vdf file as they should, but those changes aren't reflected in the interface AT ALL, period... even after restarting Steam!! I don't even know how that is possible... Steam should have to read the shortcuts.vdf file to build the library UI when it is starting up, but its like it just completely ignores it and is getting its data from elsewhere. It is super bizarre...
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Thanks for the kind words gentlemen. I finally got back home yesterday, but now I have family in town staying at my house until tomorrow. I'm hoping to be able to get something pushed out tomorrow after they leave, but I don't want to make any promises.
P.S. One of the problems I'm still dealing with is this new Steam Library is buggy as hell.. like really bad.. I can't even scroll down my games list without the interface soft crashing, turning black, and reloading. It seems like it does this every time if I scroll too fast, whereas if I scroll really slowly, it seems to happen less often. And that is just one of many other problems..
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For the time being (until I get the update pushed out), I think it works as long as you launch the game twice (it launches the correct game the 2nd time).
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So @cammelspit just notified me that the new Library update came out of beta so I imagine many of you are having problems with the plugin since I haven't released a new update yet. I have the plugin mostly fixed for the new library, but I just haven't had time to release an update yet. I'm out of town right now, but I should be home tomorrow. I'm going to try to get an update pushed out asap. Sorry about the long delay on this update. I'm really kind of ashamed how long I've taken on this one... but I promise a fix is coming.
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25 minutes ago, JedExodus said:
Ah bummer. Have not upgraded to the beta yet. Hoping it doesn't take too much to figure out what they've changed. This plugin is the cornerstone of my setup, couldn't imsgine being without it anymore??!
I don't think it is going to be any big deal (I certainly hope not), but honestly it was kind of the last thing I was expecting. I thought after I had FINALLY figured out a reliable, update-proof method of finding the pointers/vtable offsets I needed that would not have to be worrying about updates too much anymore. Definitely didn't expect Valve to be implementing a complete redesign/overhaul of the game library functionality... I think I probably rely on my own plugin just as much as anyone else though so it is imperative for my own use that I fix it
I've been a bit busy, but I think I'm going to look at it tonight. I'll keep the thread updated.
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New Steam Beta Causing Issues with SteamLauncher
A new Steam beta client has been released which completely overhauls the Steam 'Library' API/GUI and because it has significantly changed the way that some things work internally, it is causing some weird issues with the plugin. I don't entirely understand what is going on yet but the behavior that I'm seeing is that whenever I launch a game, the correct game name (name of the game I just chose to launch) will be shown in my 'Currently Playing' status but instead of that game actually being launched, the previous game that successfully launched will be launched instead. It appears that if you close the incorrectly launched game and try to launch the correct game again that it will then work on the 2nd try... Again, I don't understand why this is happening yet, but I am looking into. Until I get things fixed, your best bet is to just switch to the non-beta Steam client. I will update this thread when I know more.
P.S. Just wanted to say thanks to @ZinoPrimo for contacting me on Steam and helping me troubleshoot things. He has been very patient and willing to spend time time helping me troubleshoot things. Now that I've figured out that the issue is not related to his setup but is instead related to using the new beta, hopefully I won't need to bug him anymore.
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Just an FYI, if anyone is having any issues with the Steam overlay not showing up and/or your Guide/PS button not bringing up the overlay, take a look at your Steam client settings and make sure that your settings look like this:
This is probably more applicable to those running dInput controllers (such as Playstation/DualShock controllers), but I'm not 100% sure. Thanks to @The_Keeper86 for messaging me about this problem. It took a couple of days to figure out what the problem was, but thankfully we were finally able to narrow it down to this. I think one of these settings was added/changed/reset a couple of Steam updates ago.
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17 hours ago, JedExodus said:
Thanks for looking into it @Lahma, I feel the problem is a software/driver issue. I opened a thread in troubleshooting for this as I suspected it may be a more general issue.
@HTPCei I'm not running dual monitors, I'm running just on a big cheap 60HZ 4K television. Are you running any programs in the background that could potentially interfere? My suspect for my issue is Touchmote but haven't had time to test thoroughly yet.
Do you ever get an issue where the taskbar is showing over windows that should be in exclusive full screen whilst LB is running btw? Started observing this behaviour when the screens began playing up
I've experienced the taskbar issue frequently on Windows 10 and as far as I'm aware it is a Windows 10 bug that still has yet to be sorted out. If you Google the issue, you will find tons of threads on the issue. Personally, I've never figured out what circumstances cause it on my machine... Although if I'm being completely honest, I don't see the issue very often.
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On 8/3/2019 at 3:57 PM, HTPCei said:
I think last time I tested (my setup is changing constantly btw, so makes it harder to pin things down) everything worked fine when I used a single-monitor setup. Plugin, startup/shutdown, pause screens, steam overlay,.. since then I've been messing with displayfusion a bit (I suspect certain taskbar settings might affect which target monitor is used etc), as well as altering the setup by switching back to dual-monitor. The plugin itself seems to be working great when theres nothing else to "confuse" it.., thanks again!
@HTPCei, if you get a chance to do some more testing and can narrow down or better describe the issue you are having, I'd be glad to help if there is something I can do. As I just explained to @JedExodus however, I did a bunch of testing today and couldn't reproduce any of the issues either of you were describing. I'm on the latest version of Steam and LaunchBox, and I'm running MSI Afterburner (including RivaTuner) and DisplayFusion. Additionally, I'm running a rather unconventional triple monitor setup (see picture below) and besides the rare occasion when I see the issue I described in my previous post, everything seems to be running well on my end. Perhaps you could check your startup/shutdown/pause screen settings to see if they match the screenshots I provided in my response to @JedExodus?
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On 7/27/2019 at 10:35 AM, JedExodus said:
Heya, thanks for your input. Didn't get testing last night (started work at 6am this morning so was early doors for me) but done some checking today and found that disabling the startup screens fixed the issue for me. It may not be SteamLauncher at all in this case and maybe an issue specifically for my software setup that was introduced in version 9.10. Apologies for the libel and slander
Plugin still kicks arse
So I did some testing with LaunchBox and BigBox @JedExodus and unfortunately I'm not able to reproduce the problem you were experiencing. I have startup/shutdown/pause screens enabled with default settings. I tried a bunch of different emulators+rom combinations, as well as PC games, with both LaunchBox and BigBox, and in all cases, the startup and shutdown screens were working exactly as intended (no weird behavior with shutdown screen being out of place in window order and such). Have you had a chance to mess around with the problem any more (outside of just disabling startup screens)? One thing to be aware of is that every time LaunchBox updates, for some strange reason it completely resets your startup/shutdown/pause screen settings... This has already caused me problems on multiple occasions, so if you started having problems immediately after updating LaunchBox, it could definitely be related to that. FYI, here are my startup/shutdown/pause screen settings (although I'm pretty sure these are just the default values):
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22 hours ago, HTPCei said:
I think last time I tested (my setup is changing constantly btw, so makes it harder to pin things down) everything worked fine when I used a single-monitor setup. Plugin, startup/shutdown, pause screens, steam overlay,.. since then I've been messing with displayfusion a bit (I suspect certain taskbar settings might affect which target monitor is used etc), as well as altering the setup by switching back to dual-monitor. The plugin itself seems to be working great when theres nothing else to "confuse" it.., thanks again!
`I am an ardent DisplayFusion user so that could be related to the issue I was describing as well.
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23 minutes ago, HTPCei said:
I think I've been having this issue too, I thought it was something to do with my dual-monitor setup. I'll do some testing in a few hours and let you guys know if I find anything relevant. @JedExodus are you using dual-monitors too?
I run a triple monitor setup and I have occasionally noticed a very strange behavior where LaunchBox will move its "blackout" window over to my left side monitor post-launch (as opposed to my center monitor where LaunchBox is at). It only happens occasionally and it doesn't seem to have any rhyme or reason. The strange thing is, this can't be caused directly by the plugin as it doesn't implement any type of function that would move this window... Seeing as I only use LaunchBox with my plugin enabled, I wouldn't know whether this happens without my plugin enabled or not (although I suspect it doesn't). If this does only happen with the plugin enabled, then there is something strange going on in regards to some type of interaction between LaunchBox and the plugin, as I can assure you that my plugin is definitely not directly moving this window between monitors. Perhaps this behavior is totally unrelated to what you guys are talking about though... I just thought I would mention it since it sounds like it could be somehow related. Honestly, its surprising to me that I got the startup/shutdown screens to work with the plugin as well as they have been (I've literally spent probably more time dealing with these window-related and/or startup/shutdown screen issues than the time spent on development of the entire plugin)... There are just so many conflicting things going on between the plugin and LaunchBox (it is doing everything it can to manage window focus and window switching while I'm trying to negate what its doing to handle it in the plugin)... and that is only one side of the coin... The other big issue is all of the different full screen, borderless full screen, hybrid full screen, etc modes that any given game or emulator can be using and the truly strange implications those can have when calling standard Windows API functions to manage their windows.
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13 hours ago, JedExodus said:
Heya, thanks for your input. Didn't get testing last night (started work at 6am this morning so was early doors for me) but done some checking today and found that disabling the startup screens fixed the issue for me. It may not be SteamLauncher at all in this case and maybe an issue specifically for my software setup that was introduced in version 9.10. Apologies for the libel and slander
Plugin still kicks arse
Lol, no worries man. It is entirely possible that it is a problem with the plugin. I've unfortunately been too busy to look at it yet, but I will let you know what I found out as soon as I get a chance.
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1 minute ago, JedExodus said:
Thank you v much. It could well be a software conflict for me. The programs I suspect are MSI Afterburner and Touchmote. Moreso Touchmote than Afterburner. As the problem is intermittent testing is a slow task but will try some more this evening and get back to you if I learn anything.
Thanks for all the hard work!
I'm running the most recent release of MSI Afterburner/RIVA Tuner, so I doubt that is part of the problem. I don't use Touchmote, so I'm not sure on that one. It is kind of strange that you are seeing problems with BigBox only... The launch process with the plugin is essentially identical between LaunchBox and BigBox, so I'm trying to think of what could cause issues with only one and not the other...
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18 hours ago, JedExodus said:
Hey @Lahma unfortunately it seems to be broken for me (not sure when it happened or if there's been a Steam update) Launching games is fine, but in BigBox closing them presents problems as focus is not returned correctly to BB. I may have to tab to the Game Over screen from BB or it'll be on the desktop or in a browser window I had open before launching. Doesn't seem to be linked to any one emulator (tested using Retroarch and PCSX2)
Everything works grand when running without SteamLauncher in my testing. Is anyone else experiencing the same?
Hey @JedExodus, I haven't heard about problems from anyone else yet, but I will try to investigate the issues you are having sometime today if I can. I have a bit of a busy day, but hopefully I should have a bit of free time tonight. I will let you know what I find out. By the way, have you checked your global LaunchBox/BigBox startup/shutdown screen settings? One frequent issue I have is that every time LaunchBox updates, my startup/shutdown/pause screen settings get reset. Then again, I almost never use BigBox, so it is entirely likely that a problem with BigBox specifically could easily escape my notice. I'll let you know what I find out.
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I just wanted to note here that we did resolve the problems that @Krovash was having (or rather he resolved the problem while we were trying to troubleshoot the issue). Turns out the issue was Acronis True Image 2019 (Build 17750). It has a feature called "Acronis Active Protection" which was preventing "SteamLauncherProxy.exe" from being able to start. As soon as he disabled it, the plugin started working.
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31 minutes ago, Krovash said:
I've completely removed the steam launcher directory and replaced it, checked emulator paths and they are correct, doesn't help, i still get the same problem.
I've also ran through the LB directory to see if i might've left a copy of the previous version of the plugin and that is not the case, so i really have no idea why it doesn't work.
I've sent lahma a friend request on steam, hopefully we'll find out what causes the problem.No worries, we will get it resolved. Damn Steam chat... It just randomly signs you out of chat with no good reason and it stays logged out until you eventually realize its signed out (which in my case could be days) and manually hit the button to sign back in... Back to the topic at hand, I'm on Steam and I am not seeing a new friend request. Maybe double check that you actually sent it? Is your Steam alias the same as your forum name?
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8 minutes ago, JedExodus said:
Hey @Krovash I'm no expert, however when moving my LB install to a new Hard Drive I encountered a similar issue. Going in to manage emulators showed that the path was pointing to the SteamLauncher exe and not the emulator. I deleted the folder for the Plugin altogether, changed the emulator paths back to what they should be and put a clean install of the Plugin back in place, all working without issue now.
So maybe a fresh install of the plugin (deleting the SteamLauncher folder and all in it) and a check of emulator paths if you haven't done so already is worth a look. If no luck try enabling the logging feature to post here so @Lahma can have a look when he has a chance. He's a sound lad and no doubt when he sees your post will get you back on track
Cheers!
As always, I appreciate you offering up your help @JedExodus. A bit coincidental I was unknowingly replying at almost the exact same time you were. I suspect that your short, concise piece of advice might end up being more valuable than my long rambling post. Hopefully one of our posts can help @Krovash figure out what the problem is.
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On 6/29/2019 at 10:44 AM, Krovash said:
Hello, first of all thanks for making this amazing plug in, i've been using it for a while now and it was working great, but it broke recently.
It seems that as soon as you've introduced the new version that gets rid of the need to use the "Launch with Steam" option, the plugin stopped working for me.
I've downloaded the recent version as i understand some Steam compatibility issues were present.....and it still doesn't work.
The only way how i can make it work is if i disable this new automatic mode and just launch the games using the "Launch with Steam" option.
So here's what actually happens when i try to launch a game with the latest version of the plugin: i start the game and i get a standard windows loading ring animation for about a second and that's it, nothing happens after that.
I've noticed an interesting thing though, if i launch the SteamLauncherProxy manually and then try to launch the game from LaunchBox, it actually works, but instead of launching the game, it launches the emulator, but steam detects it as an actual game being played, displaying the correct name.
Is there anything that can be done to solve this?@Krovash, sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I've been out of town for work and just got home. I suspect the problem you're having can be solved very easily with a little bit of careful troubleshooting. Let me start by saying that using the old context menu option "Launch via Steam" is deprecated and no longer supported. Its functionality is still present and while I'm sure it still technically works, there is simply no longer any valid reason to use it as the new "automatic mode" (as you called it) is easier, more extensible (works with non-default emulators), and MUCH more technically adept. The legacy context menu option will probably be removed entirely on the next update. So, with that being said, we clearly need to get the new launching method working for you, and I would be happy to help you troubleshoot the problem.
Most issues can be resolved by carefully reading the notes and instructions present on the download page so it might be worth looking over that info again just to make sure you didn't miss anything. For example, is your plugin installed in the correct location ("LaunchBox\Plugins\SteamLauncher\SteamLauncher.dll") along with all of the other files that come in the rar file? I suggest that you first try completely deleting your SteamLauncher directory and then reinstalling the newest version of the plugin by exactly following the install instructions.
Another very common issue (despite very explicit warnings about it on the plugin download page) is people having multiple copies of the plugin present in the LaunchBox directory. This happens often when people are updating to a newer version and want to backup their old version. Instead of moving their old SteamLauncher directory to another directory on their hard drive (such as the desktop), they instead rename their old "SteamLauncher" directory to "SteamLauncher.OLD", they move the "SteamLauncher" directory into their root LaunchBox directory, they move it into another folder they've created such as "LaunchBox\Plugins.OLD\SteamLauncher", or they simply rename their old "SteamLauncher.dll" to something else such as "SteamLauncher.OLD.dll". Simply stated, if you simultaneously have 2 copies of the plugin dll ANYWHERE within the LaunchBox directory structure (inside of the "LaunchBox" root directory or any of its subdirectories), the plugin will NOT work and you will have VERY strange problems.
If the new launching method still isn't working for you after trying all of the above, you'll need to turn on debug logging so that the plugin can output info to a text file for troubleshooting purposes. There are clear, easy-to-follow instructions on the plugin download page that explain how to do this (look under the section titled 'Debug Logs'). Although you are free to post your debug log in this thread (don't directly copy/paste it into the thread.. instead use https://pastebin.com), it will probably be much quicker and easier for me to help you directly through Steam chat. At the top of the plugin download page I've provided instructions for how to contact me on Steam. Shoot me a friend request and as soon as I see it, I will respond, and hopefully we can get your problem sorted out in a jiffy.
Plugin Download Page:
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Thanks for the feedback gentlemen. I'll have to think about this a bit more before I make a decision either way. Concerning your idea about having a GUI to make changes to the config.xml in a more user-friendly manner, it is something I've already thought about. It actually wouldn't be too difficult to implement. The only thing that makes it a bit tricky is implementing a GUI/Window from a class library (DLL)... It isn't something that is done too often mostly because it doesn't make a lot of sense for most things, but it is most certainly possible to do... Should just a be a matter of referencing the correct .NET libraries and adding a bit of initialization code. I could technically probably even get LaunchBox/BigBox to spawn the window for me, but I'd have to do a bit of testing to see how feasible that is... The only real advantage I could see in doing it that way is that LB's controller input might work in my custom window that way without me having to duplicate all of that code myself (which I am definitely not going to do right now). I'll have to do some testing... I'll definitely let y'all know what I find out.
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On 6/25/2019 at 5:15 AM, JedExodus said:
I ONLY WENT AND BLOODY SLOVED IT! For MAMEs Launch Parameters in LB take out the default that was added to enable the pause screens and replace with
Then everything should work hunky dory, including the pause screens. Seems that the issues is to do with Steam and MAME fighting over the controller assignment as far as I can tell.
WOOP WOOP
Wow, great job @JedExodus! Your persistence and dedication to solving the problem is probably going to be helpful to a lot of people. I'm thinking on the next plugin update that perhaps I should add a new entry/variable type to the "config.xml" file to help prevent people from running into this problem in the future. The entry would silently inject additional launch parameters into the existing parameters, and I could add these Mame parameters to the default SteamLauncher config.xml. The config.xml entry might look something like this:
<InjectParameters>
<Inject EmulatorName="Mame" Parameters="-joystickprovider xinput -keyboardprovider win32" Position="end" />
<Inject GameName="Doom" PlatformName="Windows" Parameters="+r_renderAPI 1" Position="start" />
</InjectParameters>I don't know... Perhaps it isn't even worth the effort since there probably won't be many cases such as this (that require modification of launch parameters to work when launching through Steam). What do y'all think?
Note: I modified the plugin download page to provide information concerning the MAME compatibility problem and fix. Obviously, I gave proper credit to both @cammelspit and @JedExodus for their efforts in tracking down a fix for this problem (as well as credit to @JedExodus for ultimately resolving the issue).
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3 hours ago, JedExodus said:
@Lahma That's magic! Will edit the config.xml when I get in from work and let you know how I get on.
@cammelspit Thanks buddy, good to know you're as determine as myself (albeit with some actual knowledge to back it up compared to me) Researching the matter led me to a Steam forum post where the only help was from yourself (and the OP was an ungrateful tube) So I consider you the world's foremost expert on MAME and Steam Overlay now
I'll keep trawling and poking around myself. Someone on Reddit reckons it could be to so with Big Picture being very aggressive with handling controller assignment. I don't know how to get MAME to log events which would be useful tho.
Anyways thanks guys, LB community is stellar and you're both testament to that
@JedExodus, just to be clear, the "<IgnoreDefinitions>" config.xml entries I mentioned in my post were theoretical. I was asking if something like that would work for you if I implemented it in the next plugin update. If you add such entries to your config.xml file right now, they won't do anything. The actual implementation will probably look a little different but as long as something along those lines will work for you, I would be happy to implement said feature in the next plugin update.
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I've been a bit busy, but I think I'm going to look at it tonight. I'll keep the thread updated.
Plugin still kicks arse
SteamLauncher
in Third-Party Applications and Plugins (Released)
Posted · Edited by Lahma
Guys, I swear I haven't forgotten about y'all lol... Life has been crazy these last few weeks... Seeing as getting an official update out is taking a, quite frankly, ridiculous amount of time, please use this temporary release in the meantime. I compiled it the other day for someone specifically, but as far as I'm aware, it is working perfectly. Again, I'm really sorry for taking so long with this... I'm doing my best given the craziness life has thrown at me in recent days. It would be super useful if y'all could give me any feedback with this unofficial release before I actually post the official one. Please let me know if you have any problems.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=14MKAQ-nAi4g9LaDnGHCY13i0U-J1Z6sj