mcfilmmakers

Importing games isn't working right. As you can see from the screenshots, I can grab 5 files for split MAME (all the same game). Drag them into launchbox and select combine same title games. Launchbox is reporting 4 games found (WTF?). It then finishes saying 2 games succesfully imported. However, only 1 game shows up in the games list and there are only 3 in the additional apps. It seems like the 2nd game (Undercover Cops - Alpha Renewal Version) doesn't import at all (two of the 5 rom files are of this version and those are the 2 missing from the additional apps). This happens no matter what group of roms I import. If 2 games are "successfully saved", only 1 shows up. Launchbox is set to show hidden and broken files so that's not the issue. As for why the 5th file didn't import at all, I have no idea, they were all dragged together. PS. Thank you so much Jason and C-Beats for your work!

The second alternative I found is to create an "All Games" playlist and/or an "other games" playlist for every single platform but this is just as messy: Secnario 1 (desired but doesn't work): Arcade (category) - > Konami (platform) -> playlists + games <- shows only the playlists. Games not in any playlists won't be shown. Arcade (category) - > Atari (platform) -> playlists + games <- shows only the playlists. Games not in any playlists won't be shown. Scenario 2: Arcade (category) - > Konami (platform) -> All Games (playlist) <- Shows all games in the konami platform Arcade (category) - > Konami (platform) -> Platformers (playlist) <- shows only platformer games in the konami platform Arcade (category) - > Konami (platform) -> Fighting (playlist) <- shows only fighting games in the konami platform Arcade (category) - > Konami (platform) -> Other Games (playlist) <- shows only games not in platformers or fighting playlists in the konami platform Arcade (category) - > Atari (platform) -> All Games (playlist) <- Shows all games in the Atari platform Arcade (category) - > Atari (platform) -> Platformers (playlist) <- shows only platformer games in the Atari platform Arcade (category) - > Atari (platform) -> Driving (playlist) <- shows only driving games in the Atari platform Arcade (category) - > Atari (platform) -> Other Games (playlist) <- shows only games not in platformers or fighting playlists in the Atari platform Hopefully this clarifies WHY I want to be able to see games alongside playlists within the platform wheel. Is this at all possible?

The first alternative I found involves moving all the playlists from within the Platform into a different category but this means more clutter: i.e: Scenario 1 (desired, but doesn't work): Arcade (category) - > Platformers (platform) -> playlists + games <- shows only the playlists. Games not in any playlists won't be shown. Scenario 2 (works): Arcade (category) - > Platformers (platform) -> games (no playlists in the platform) <- shows all games in the Platformers platform including those not in any playlists Arcade (category) - > Playlists (category) -> 3rd person platformers (playlist) <- Shows all games in the 3rd person platformers playlist. Arcade (category) - > Playlists (category) -> 1st person platformers (playlist) <- Shows all games in the 1st person platformers playlist. etc... Notice how the workaround requires more wheel space and it only gets worse if I need to further clean up the playlist wheel to add subcategories which match the platform names (I don't want to mix konami with Atari for example): Scenario 1 (desired, but doesn't work): Arcade (category) - > Konami (platform) -> platformers (playlist) + Fighting games (playlist) + games <- shows only the playlists. Games not in any playlists won't be shown. I want to be able to see all Konami games along with the playlists. Arcade (category) - > Atari (platform) -> platformers (playlist) +/ Driving games (playlist) + games <- shows only the playlists. Games not in any playlists won't be shown. I want to be able to see all Atari games along with the playlists. Scenario 2 (works): Arcade (category) - > Konami (platform) -> games (no playlists in the platform) <- shows all games in the Konami platform including those not in any playlists Arcade (category) - > Atari (platform) -> games (no playlists in the platform) <- shows all games in the Atari platform including those not in any playlists Arcade (category) - > Playlists (category) -> Konami (platform) -> platformers (playlist) <- Shows all games in the konami platformers playlist. Arcade (category) - > Playlists (category) -> Atari (platform) -> platformers (playlist) <- Shows all games in the atari platformers playlist. etc... See how it requires two sets of Konami Platforms and Two Sets of Atari platforms? So while the workaround does allow me to get what I want, it comes at the price of finding the different lists in a different place AND make the Launchbox tree confusing to navigate. The "include this playlist with platforms" option doesn't seem to change a thing in Bigbox or Launchbox.

So I noticed a difference between Launchbox and Bigbox in that they don't display Platform Ctaegories the same way and realized this can cause an issue of missing games in BigBox. Allow me to demonstrate: Launchbox will display Platform Categories as follows: Clicking the playlist shows all games in that playlist Clicking the platform shows all games in all playlists in that platform, toggle the platform to show all the playlists in that platform which you can click to show only games within that playlist within that platform. Clicking the category shows all games in all playlists and in all platforms (and all games within in playlists within) in that category, toggle the category to show all platforms and all playlists in that category, which you can click to show all games within that platform/playlist and child playlists if it is a platform within that category. BigBox instead displays Platform Categories as follows: Clicking the playlist shows all games in that playlist Clicking the platform shows only all playlists within that platform. You must select a playlist to show games, but you will only see games belonging to that playlist. Clicking the category shows only all platforms within that category. You must select a platform to show games but if that platform contains a mix of games and playlists, you must select a playlist to show games but you will only see games belonging to that playlist. So here's my issue: Say I have a Category Arcade. That Category contains a bunch of platforms: Shooters, Platformers, etc. So far, simple. Now I have 7 games: A,B,C,D,E,F,G I assign games A,B,C to platform Shooters. I assign games D,E,F,G to platform Platformers. I then select games D,E,F and assign them to a manual playlist "3rd person". Game G is not a 3rd person platformer so I don't put it in that playlist. In Launchbox, I can always see game G in the Platformers platform. However, I have no way to know that it isn't part of any playlists. In BigBox, I cannot see Game G. If I navigate to Platformers, I only see the 3rd person playlist option. I can select that and see games D,E,F. I can back out and look at the Shooters platform and find games A,B,C. Game G is nowhere to be found. If I go back to Launchbox and assign Game G to a new playlist, Game G will appear in BigBox in that new Playlist. If Game G is not in any playlists, it will never be seen. Now, I could change the view to Platforms, but that removes both Categories and Playlists, which eliminates the point, but I can see games D,E,F,G in the Platformers category. If we extrapolate this to thousands of games in the library, there is no way in either Launchbox ro Bigbox to know that game G is not assigned to a playlist and I may never realize that game G is actually never showing up in Big Box. So my question: Is there a way to make game G show up in BigBox WITHOUT assigning it to a playlist while still being able to show Catgories, Platforms and Playlists (just as is possible in Launchbox?

Last post, promise. I narrowed down the issue: Manage Emulators -> Associated platforms - > default. Avoiding that completely avoids all of my issues. The problem is Launchbox trying to go through 800+ platforms and setting the emulator as default for each one. For some reason, it takes a LONG time for Launchbox to do that, and fractions of seconds to do everything else. My methodology: edit 1 game metadata. close launchbox. -> background process closes instantly. edit 1 platform parent. close launchbox -> background process closes instantly. edit 100 game metadata. close launchbox -> background process closes after 20-30 seconds. edit 100 platform parent. close launchbox -> background process closes after 20-30 seconds. Any combination of the above yields similar results. Open Manage Emulators -> Associated platforms. do nothing. All the popups open confirming defaults. close launchbox. - > background process takes FOREVER. To be fair, 99% of users won't have so many platforms and won't be setting them all as defaults for the same emulator. That said, this is the only process that is time intensive. So while I don't expect this to be resolved particularly for that reason, it does raise an opportunity to look there for a chance at improving performance in the future. Secondly, the issue is caused by the following reason: in 10.14 these defaults were all already established and confirmed. I could enter the associated platforms without the popups showing up because launchbox knew all the associations. When I updated to the beta (now beta 10), Launchbox is now checking the additional applications in each game and platform for those default associations and needed to reconfirm them. All 800+ of them. Since it takes a long time to save that association in the background x the sheer number of associations to make, there's your problem. So in short: Launchbox IS doing it's work as it should be, it just takes a long time to do it and it has to do it because it is checking for associations it never made in 10.14. Edit: After Launchbox finally got through all the platforms in the background process, the issue no longer occurs. This is definitely the source of the problem. I'm curious to know whether the others having "another instance is currently running" issues may be having those issues because they made edits on associated platforms.

Totally fair. It's my estimation that it the number of platforms causing the issue. I can't fathom how it's a PC performance issue given that none of my resources max out. I'll stop monopolizing the thread now. I'll pop in once the platform list is reduced to let you know how performance is at that point. Also holy crap. I didn't realize I had that many platforms. Not cool. I seriously thought it was closer to 100.

That's a totally fair question! It's temporary. I'm re-sorting the MAME platform into subgroups so there's a temporary explosion of platforms. Not efficient, I know, but I had no choice because playlists won't let me sort things out the way i need them to for the moment. I have no intention on keeping anywhere near that many platforms for long. I have never manually edited my xml files or used third party tools.

So after an hour and 10 minutes I got fed up and killed the launchbox background process. Reopened launchbox and into the emulator associated platforms... It's asking me to confirm default platforms starting from the letter "i"..... So, it is saving things but it's taking a DAMN long time to do so. I'm going to rename my images folder and see what this does for the background process.

hm, odd since everything was drag and dropped. Glad you're finding things though. As for the images, everything was imported via launchbox wizard too so we should track that down if at all possible.

@Jason CarrWindows 10 and fully up to date on everything including drivers. I'll send you my logs but there's nothing unusual that i can find in them

... the background process is still running now on 47 minutes. I've been looking though my logs and noticed this error in about half of them: 2020-05-15 04:48:40 PM FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: The process cannot access the file 'Visited Links' because it is being used by another process. at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath) 2020-05-15 04:48:40 PM FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: The process cannot access the file 'Visited Links' because it is being used by another process. at System.IO.Directory.DeleteHelper(String fullPath, String userPath, Boolean recursive, Boolean throwOnTopLevelDirectoryNotFound, WIN32_FIND_DATA& data) 2020-05-15 04:48:40 PM EXCEPTION IGNORED: The process cannot access the file 'Visited Links' because it is being used by another process. at System.IO.Directory.DeleteHelper(String fullPath, String userPath, Boolean recursive, Boolean throwOnTopLevelDirectoryNotFound, WIN32_FIND_DATA& data) at System.IO.Directory.Delete(String fullPath, String userPath, Boolean recursive, Boolean checkHost) at (MainViewModel , Object , EventArgs ) 2020-05-15 04:48:40 PM FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: A task was canceled. at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task) 2020-05-15 04:48:40 PM FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: The operation has timed out. at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.InvokeImpl(DispatcherOperation operation, CancellationToken cancellationToken, TimeSpan timeout)

I ran another test: made ONE edit. closed launchbox cleanly. it took 3 minutes for the launchbox process to end. Reopening launchbox confirms that the change was saved. Next test: Only thing I did was open Manage Emulators, edit MAME, go to associated platforms and clicked ok. The "confirm default" popups came up. Said yes to all of em. Closed launchbox cleanly. And waited for the launchbox process to end... officially just passed 20 minutes and it is still running. I'll let it sit as long as it takes and report back... That said, the issue is significantly worse under the beta than it was under 10.14, but Launchbox itself is far more responsive (faster menus) than 10,14.

Yeah, I expected to see that happen due to force quitting.. however: Following the above, I made a tiny handful of changes and exited launchbox cleanly. 20 minutes later, I open Launhcbox to encounter the "another instance of launchbox" message. another 10 minutes later, still the same message. I force quit the launchbox process, open launchbox, and lo-and-behold, none of the changes were saved. Probably expected as well, but i'm not the only one running into the launchbox process issue as you know. The issue appears worse in the beta than in 10.14. My machine is clean: 0 viruses in a scan run yesterday.

Well, this is a new one. Tried importing a rom that was missed and Launchbox is stuck on the Finish screen in the wizard. Task manager isn't saying that Launchbox is non-responsive and CPU usage is fluctuating between 20-40% but I had to force quit since it wasn't doing anything after 10 minutes. Task manager was showing CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess at 0% cpu and 8.6mb Ram When I reopened launchbox NOT A SINGLE CHANGE was saved since I updated the the beta from 10.14. This includes the MAME associated platforms default popups. HOWEVER, new platforms added to the bottom of the associated platform list were saved. So to reiterate: No edited game meta data was saved at all. Newly created platforms were not saved at all. Reassign parent platforms were not saved at all. MAME associated platform defaults were not saved at all. New platforms (which hadn't been saved) were in fact saved in the associated platforms list under MAME. <-- weird!!! Why weird? because I only add the new platforms tot he emulator associated list AFTER that platform was created.

Can confirm that the game list sleep issue happens in the latest beta.

lmao granted. Just saying that it happened. Thing is I didn't edit anything before updating so that association should have been already made and I certainly didn't touch every single platform associated to MAME. Maybe my data was fudged up, who knows. Things appear far more responsive at the moment however.

I just updated to the beta and it's asking me to reconfirm that Mame is the default associated platform for EVERY SINGLE ONE of the platforms it is associated with.... that was a lot of clicking yes...

Heard loud and clear. I'll do so and report back.

Will do ... and done

Associated platforms in emulator settings always seems to save, even if it's the last edit made before closing. Game metadata doesn't always seem to (I've only been editing the platforms so that's what isn't saving for me). Platform category parents doesn't always seem to save either. Again, it's only the last dozen or so edits that don't save (thank god!).

I just noticed something: If I edit game metadata, platform sorting (move a platform into another category), emulator associated platforms, delete games and add games, the only thing that doesn't get saved is the platform sorting regardless of what order I do the edits in. Even then, only the platform sorting done closer to closing Launchbox gets forgotten. I.e. I move the platform into another category, edit emulator setting to associated that platform to the emulator and then close Launchbox. When reopening, if I get the Launchbox is already open error, the platform will be back to where it was initially but the emulator settings are saved. I.e. I edit emulator setting to associate a platform to the emulator then move that platform into another category, and then close Launchbox. When reopening, if I get the Launchbox is already open error, the platform will be back to where it was initially but the emulator settings are saved.

Same thing again. Launchbox failed to save changes done about 5 minutes before it was closed initially. It seems the background process gets stuck but fails to actually do what it is supposed to be doing after launchbox closes. Launchbox hung around longer with task manager open and I can see CPU usage go from 0-0.5% and ram staying at a solid 1.45GB so it was doing something, but not saving.

I just got this with Launchbox. Been editing metadata all day. Closed Launchbox. 10 minutes later, tried opening Launchbox again and it said the Launchbox session was still open, check task manager, etc. Computer was idle, CPU and RAM nowhere near being full use. Tried again 5 minutes later, still the case. Opened task manager, Launchbox appeared as a background process and disappeared from task manager on it's own after 2 seconds. Launchbox opened fine afterwards.... but none of my changes were saved since the last emulator edit. Using 10.14

Care to share? You can send me a PM.

But doesn't that mean you have as many emulators as you do games? That doesn't strike me as practical unless your batch file is universal...