Xpendable

That did the trick, Retro! I was using the Colorful Theme (beta 0.7). Refreshing the platform image cache did nothing. Switched back to the Default theme. Platform image was incorrect in the default theme as well. Did the Refresh platform image cache again, this fixed the Default theme. Switched back to Colorful, and now Colorful shows the correct platform image. Seems like there's a bug where refreshing platform images has no effect on custom themes!

I had previously created a platform called "AAE" and setup AAE as the emulator, and set the "Scrape As" to Arcade and have about 20 some games here. I also have a separate Mame platform just to complete the picture. I've changed the platform Clear Logo in \images\Platforms\AAE\Clear Logo\ to something of my liking (an actual AAE logo). LaunchBox shows this correctly in the thumbnails for the Edit platform. But... Big Box always shows the platform image from my Arcade platform and not the one that is sitting there in the AAE folder. This is frustrating as heck because my platform wheel has TWO Arcade logos on it, and it confuses the living daylights out of my kids. Why is this happening? EDIT: I also did the "Refresh Platform Images..." in the Image Cache options in BigBox. It did not fix the problem.

I just went through this last week. I decided to manually update to .NET 4.8+ utilizing Windows Update (on Windows 7, btw) before upgrading to the latest release version of LaunchBox. This worked great, and fixed the launch crash I had documented with earlier versions of LaunchBox in another thread here months ago.

I just checked my scheduled daily reboot task and I am calling "shutdown.exe /r /f". The /f = force which I believe will keep the .NET app from properly completing the exit events. I just did a test with removing the "/f" option. I'm positive I left BigBox in the Nintento NES platform, and I had previously exited BigBox using the Exit option built-in to BigBox while on the Arcade/Mame before reloading BigBox and navigating into the NES platform. Upon reboot, it still came up into Mame and ignored the fact that I had previously been in NES. So... something is still not working right here. Perhaps the XML is not being triggered to save when the app is shutdown in this manner? Note that it works fine if you use the built-in Exit function, but if the operating system tells the app shutdown, it doesn't appear to be saving.

With regards #1, that is why I wrote the issue. It is clear that BigBox is not able to save the current platform when the OS is rebooting. It's clear that it does do this if I manually exit BigBox. The OS generates a app-close event to all applications when a shutdown or reboot is executed. All .NET programs are designed to handle this event by default, and the programmer can put code in several different event handlers that get triggered as a result of the app being closed. If one of those event handlers takes too long, it could cause the OS to think the program is hung (not responding), and on a scheduled reboot, I believe the OS will forcefully kill the app. Maybe if Big Box is taking too long to execute the code to handle the app exit, it's being killed before it gets a chance to flush the changes to the XML file. This could be solved maybe in a couple of different ways: 1. The app could save the Last Platform as soon as a platform selection change occurs, thus ensuring that this is persisted to the XML config immediately 2. Maybe there's a way to give BigBox more time to complete it's exit events before the OS forcefully kills everything? I have to research this, I don't know if that's something that can be adjusted. With regards to #2, yes, I have Remember Last Platform checked, which is what I want. I want it to remember the last platform it was in. Instead it's always showing the last platform for when BigBox was manually exited. I could go through 20 different platforms, but on reboot it will ignore all that and go to whatever the platform was when I manually exited BigBox through BigBox's Exit menu option.

I wanted to report this issue: If the computer running BigBox is rebooted (for example, by a scheduled Windows Task) without BigBox being shutdown first, BigBox will remember the wrong platform it was on when it is started (I have BigBox set to auto-start). Recreate steps: 1. Launch BigBox. Select any Platform (such as Arcade). 2. Close BigBox. (BigBox appears to save this as the currently selected platform). 3. Launch BigBox. Select a different platform from step 1 (I'll use AAE in this example). 4. Reboot Operating System (without shutting down BigBox). 5. Launch BigBox. BigBox will show Arcade as the currently selected platform. It would be nice if showed AAE. Workaround: Select the platform you intend to show on reboot, then exit BigBox normally (without reboot), then restart BigBox. The next time the OS is rebooted, it should show that platform. What I would like to happen: Whenever a platform is selected by a user, BigBox should update the config so that this platform is shown on restarts, rather than saving it only on BigBox user-selected exit.

I ran this tool and it didn't change anything. My .NET version is 4.7.2. This morning LaunchBox auto-installed 10.0.0.3 which is also crashing with the same error. Because of the error, I'm guessing this is a BUG... I don't know why it's not happening on Windows 10... it's probably not related to Windows 10 versus Windows 7 at all... It's probably there's something in my MY configuration that causes a crash. Something that Jason changed between the last version of 9 and any version of 10. I mean, it's pretty clear that it's a null reference exception. Missing a Try Catch somewhere?

Yeah, I doubt it's the version of .NET, because I'm pretty sure if you run a .NET program that requires a newer version of .NET, it will tell you that. That's not what's happening here, at least I don't think so, and I've done a fair amount of .NET programming in my career.

Windows 7.

That worked. 10.0.0.2 is no longer auto-installing and I'm back in business with 9.11 beta 1.

I am going to rename the 10.0.0.2 setup.exe to see if that prevents it from autoinstalling.

The.NET error is: System.NullReferenceException. Also LaunchBox crashes with the exact same error. I attempted to reinstall the previous version, but as soon as I launch BigBox or LaunchBox, it reinstalls 10.0.0.2 without asking. How do I prevent that?

Actually I misspoke. It's actually a 970GTX. Even if it was a 770GTX, that is way overkill for the front end and mame. I know this because I previously used a 10+ year piece of crap $49 gt card and this all worked fine. Absolutely no difference. You aren't leveraging much of the graphics card to be honest. No shaders or meshes, right? I used to code for both openGL and DirectX, so I actually have some experience here. Yep, get this is a lower priority.

I will try setting up a scheduled task to reboot the computer nightly. That should more or less resolve my issue since it appears to take at least a day for things to go south. Worst case scenario I could do it twice a day.

1. Ok, memory issue occurred using the default theme & vertical wheel 2 as well. On startup, BigBox is using around 800-900 mb. After < 24 hours, it's using > 2 GB of RAM. Shutting down BigBox and all the memory comes back. 2. I did just renew my license for another year (had expired a couple of days ago) and updated to 9.4 Beta 10. 3. I confirmed that I was indeed using Windows Media Player for video playback. I switched back to VLC and noticed video corruption right away in many of the game videos. I believe this is why I switched to WMP in the first place. I just did some searching, and I see a recommendation to install the K-Lite codecs which supposedly resolves the issue. I just downloaded and installed that and I'm trying it now... Nope, this does not seem to resolve the issue. The animations (on top of the video) are also sluggish with VLC. By the way, I have a pretty beefy graphics card in this system... Nvidia 770GTX. Did some more testing and BigBox in general has gotten sluggish as hell with VLC. I can hear the hard drive thrashing like mad, which doesn't happen when I use WMP. When I switch to WMP, those problems go away entirely. Why is VLC the recommended video engine? A quick search and it looks like I'm not the only one who has problems with VLC. Here's a YouTube video I made showing the difference in performance between VLC and WMP on my computer:

My fault, I misunderstood what CoverFlow meant. I thought that was a theme name, but that's not correct, right? Does CoverFlow refer to certain view types? The theme I am using was "Unified" and the view I was using has a vertical wheel on the right. So I guess I am not using CoverFlow at all, I'm using a clear logo wheel. Again, my bad. If memory serves, I am using Windows Media Player for the video playback. When I first installed LaunchBox, I recall that I couldn't get the VLC to work... I'll take a look at that again and confirm.

So after running for more than a day, BigBox RAM usage increased to 2.62GB (from 2GB). That sort of proves there is a memory leak before it taps out at the max .Net allows. At this point Windows reported that it was low on memory and recommended that BigBox.exe be stopped. I caught it before memory was exhausted so no crash occurred. Also I was using the Unified theme, if that helps. I'm trying a new test with the Default theme to see if I have the same problem. Also, I have always used the game clear logos. And a reminder that this problem never occurred until after an update within the last few months.

Shoot, I already have CoverFlow Image Quality set to Lowest (Fastest). One more thing... after a fresh reboot and after BigBox is started, total memory usage for Windows 7 + BigBox is about 2GB. Meaning, there's about 2GB free. It will be interesting to see what that looks like after 4 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, etc.

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

Some more information for you, Jason. I am indeed using CoverFlow. The crash occurs after running for several days. I have Attract Mode set to NOT cycle platforms. It always stays on my "Arcade" platform (MAME) which has about 1536 titles. I've captured the .NET crash below... it is the exact same error on every crash: - <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event"> - <System> <Provider Name=".NET Runtime" /> <EventID Qualifiers="0">1026</EventID> <Level>2</Level> <Task>0</Task> <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords> <TimeCreated SystemTime="2019-02-04T13:24:37.000000000Z" /> <EventRecordID>21005</EventRecordID> <Channel>Application</Channel> <Computer>HTPC</Computer> <Security /> </System> - <EventData> <Data>Application: BigBox.exe Framework Version: v4.0.30319 Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception. Exception Info: System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception at MS.Win32.UnsafeNativeMethods.RegisterClassEx(WNDCLASSEX_D) at MS.Win32.HwndWrapper..ctor(Int32, Int32, Int32, Int32, Int32, Int32, Int32, System.String, IntPtr, MS.Win32.HwndWrapperHook[]) at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher..ctor() at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.get_CurrentDispatcher() at System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BitmapDecoder..ctor(System.Uri, System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BitmapCreateOptions, System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BitmapCacheOption, System.Guid) at System.Windows.Media.Imaging.PngBitmapDecoder..ctor(System.Uri, System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BitmapCreateOptions, System.Windows.Media.Imaging.BitmapCacheOption) at DynamicClass.(System.Object) at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Wpf.Controls.CoverFlow.ThumbnailManager.Worker(System.Object) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean) at System.Threading.QueueUserWorkItemCallback.System.Threading.IThreadPoolWorkItem.ExecuteWorkItem() at System.Threading.ThreadPoolWorkQueue.Dispatch()</Data> </EventData> </Event> It appears to be loading content when the crash occurs. When the crash occurs, Windows is so exhausted of memory that it cannot even display Task Manager! In true .NET fashion, as soon as I kill BigBox.exe, Windows recovers and the memory that the .NET program had been using is returned. I believe that 4GB is simply NOT enough memory, at least for the number of ROMS I have in my arcade wheel. Probably as it's approaching all remaining free memory, the crash occurs because the OS does not have enough resources. You probably never see this because I'm betting a computer that has more than 4GB of ram will be capped at 4GB (possibly default limit on a .NET program... and since there is still plenty of ram left over for the OS, everything is fine.) I'm assuming you are compiling 64-bit and not 32-bit, but that would still be irrelevant in my case with only 4GB of RAM (and less than that would be available for BigBox). One final thought... this problem NEVER occurred for most of last year, I have not added any roms or changed any media. No other changes have occurred on this computer. That would mean a program change is causing a problem where one didn't manifest itself before. Food for thought.

Surprised that no-one else has this problem. I've contacted Arzoo and he's giving me some debugging tips which I haven't had a chance to do, but will soon.

I did disable the startup screens and the problem went away. I also think there is a memory leak. BigBox is crashing after a day (even if nobody plays anything on my machine) due to being out of memory. My computer unfortunately only has 4 GB of ram which I'm unable to expand due to something being wrong with the 2nd memory slot, so at the moment, adding memory isn't a solution for me. Others probably have more ram and aren't as likely to see this as often if at all.

I don't believe I am using retroarch for mame but I will try disabling screens to see if it fixes the problem.

I'm having major problems. After a recent update, BigBox is hanging on the second game launched. It doesn't matter what game you try to launch (only talking Mame at the moment), it launches the WRONG game and it get stuck and I can't get out of it. I have to forcefully kill BigBox via TaskManger and restart it after EVERY game. What is going on here?