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@AstroBob It looks like a new database look and structure has been put live, but isn't fully functional? The replace image function is broken. It's currently impossible to do it, since they system asks to "make a change" to the entry before you can write a reason for that change and proceed with the update. Just replacing an image is currently not considered a change, but a change of image type would activate the comment field (which is not what should be done in my case). Could you please fix as soon as possible? It's a really bad bug, I'm upgrading the image quality of my local collection (using some of my own scans) and I'm uploading in parallel to the online database so other users could use them as well, but I might stop doing it if I'm just unable to do it. Could you also look at my previous bug report also: Thank you!

For some reason if a game has "Year only" data it will not go through anymore. For example with this game, which I already have in my local LB database (with the year data intact): https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/20682-10th-frame-pro-bowling-simulator If I go to launchbox (13.19), edit metadata and press the red cross (remove database ID) and then do a search again and click the game it will wipe out empty the "release date" field. Same thing happened with some new entries I submitted to the database. The "year only" field will not reach my local game entry even if the year can be found on the online database, it will give me an empty release date instead. Maybe this is related to the new database format? Could you please check, thank you!

@AstroBob no improvement with 13.19 - the bug still follows.

I can also confirm for cases where there's already an existing Bandai Super Vision 8000 platform in their launchbox built, works great! I just made a search for media/metadata and it gave all the entries their IDs and also when editing the platform it had automatically selected the correct platform for scraping. And all data and images I had manually put there a long time ago are still intact. Looking forward for more platforms!

@AstroBob just found out something new: I just added, as an additional app, a strategy guide PDF to one of my PS1 games and when I try to open it from the drop-down menu it behaves just as launching the game: really odd delay (slight 4-5 seconds freeze before opening the PDF). I do not have any program attached to it just the path to the PDF and in the pop-up menu it is under "additional documents". But then, "view manual" doesn't do any delay, it opens the manual PDF right away (I assume there's no integration plugin/dependency check in that code when launching a manual). Have you had any success in finding out the gremlin? The freeze only occurs with the latest launchbox updates (not with 13.15 and below).

Hi @AstroBob I did Step 1 & 2 with a very light setup with just PlayStation games involved and I used LB 13.15 from my backup folder. So I tried that first : - no delays at all, using the 100% same Retroarch folder with all of its content as before. I did not let Launchbox install Retroarch. - I then used help = check for updates, then LB updated to 13.18 After it reloaded with the latest LB, I tried the same game: - really bad delay which I've been experiencing. So something happened in those latest updates. I can confirm that 13.15 works just fine, with no delays. I'm really busy right now with work, so I don't have time to troubleshoot that much, so hopefully you'll catch the ball and try to figure out what happened between those updates. It's a really annoying situation with that delay with certain retroarch cores. And Retroarch is on the latest version (no difference with the older one either, it also worked just fine with LB 13.15). Thank you!

That's funny. I've been doing this too the past couple of weeks I thought that for some consoles that are more or less the same, but named differently and has regional differences (Mark III/SMS, Genesis/Mega Drive, NES/Famicom, TGX16/PCE etc.) I would prefer to have them as their own platforms, especially since they have slightly different cartridges and different logos and emumovies has separate videos for them as well. And to be honest some Japanese covers are just so much cooler than the Western ones. And third, it's easier to go through games when they are not mixed up. Anyway. Like you I had to think what to do with the games that were available in all regions. The way I managed to do it was to use the "batch remove additional apps" plugin to remove all those automatically added regional version (ie. having in the US entry JP/EU versions as additional apps). With that, LB didn't think them as duplicate when importing to the "newly created" platforms. Then I just imported the roms and selected *japan* for example in the search field to get only those I wanted. Maybe that could work for you too? So short story: you have to import them as new entries to the other platforms. I don't recall there being a "copy" option.

@AstroBob have you had the time to check this case from December 1st, which is also related to performance: The issue remains after the latest Launchbox update.

@AstroBob how you checked the "help & support" cases? from the navigation menu or is that now obsolete? Like: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues/6461/adding-missing-platforms-to-the-games That one is from 2021 for example and we've been told to forward all requests there. So now the forum is the place to do this? I'm a bit confused... but also happy to hear that there is finally some activity on this front! I've written quite good reasons why those should be added. I don't think I have much time anymore than what I did in 2021 to add more games (I've added thousands of missing games during the corona years, 291923 changes to the database... ). In the other hand I already did add those platform and games including all media files (covers etcs.) into my local database... if that could be used. Not keen on doing it game-by-game.

adding some facts according to the community FAQ: Launchbox version: 13.17 (portable, installed on SSD) Windows 10 Number of titles in my setup: over 75 000 Launchbox Theme: Old Legacy Default (still visually and practically the best theme for me) Bigbox theme: Old Default (by Jason) HW: PC Intel i7 3.2GHZ, RAM 16GB, LB installed on SSD, RTX 4060 If necessary I can provide a video of the Retroarch startup delay (because of LB/BB force-checking some bios etc. files even if it doesn't need to). Let me know. Pretty sure this issue is because of the Dependency File check. The solution would be to disable that check (at least from BigBox!) to make things normally fast again. EDIT: And to reproduce the issue on your computer it would probably help to know that my Retroarch System folder is 2,73GB big and has 3931 files and 515 folders in it. I have no other plugins in my plugin folder except for the ones the new LB versions are adding. BTW would deleting "RetroArch LaunchBox Integration" folder help my case, would that disable the dependency files check? PS. Talking about integrations, I also had issues with the ScummVM integration, for some reason the LB-version is messing up the settings and not reading them correctly (ie. forcing the "extra" path to be the game path). But I have solved this by making my "own" ScummVM emulator script and just using the game ID's as ROMS and it work perfectly now - finally able to use Roland MT-32 sounds and so on from LB/BB. EDIT 2: I spent a bit more time to figure out more details and the same issue is with Launchbox, so it's not just with BigBox. Loading a game from the platforms below takes many seconds before they even start loading retroarch and its core: 3DO (opera_libretro) NEC PC-FX (mednafen_pcfx_libretro) PC-Engine CD (mednafen_pce_fast_libretro) Sony Playstation (mednafen_psx_libretro) Sega Saturn (mednafen_saturn_libretro) And when I choose those cores in the Dependency files window they are just as slow (the window gets stuck for a few seconds) as when trying to start a game from those platforms. The drop-down menu cannot be selected until it has somewhat refreshed(?) and not stuck anymore. And that is the main reason I suspect something is wrong with the dependency file check (hopefully it's just a bug that can be fixed) - there is no delay issues with other cores I'm using: EDIT 3: Confirming that Launchbox 13.18 has still this issue.

Hi, Any way of disabling or uninstalling dependency file check? For example when I try to start a PC-Engine CD game with my controller it usually just makes the start sound immediately after I press the button and loads Retroarch. Now with the dependency check in the background it takes at least 3-5 seconds before it even starts to load Retroarch. Extra wait is not the best user experience, and I've been using BigBox for years. Besides, all of my dependency files are "green" and none are missing, there is absolutely no need for BigBox to check each time a game is about to load if it has the necessary bios/files. What can be done to improve the situation so I can have that same fast and pleasant experience I had before this feature (which would be great as an optional "check if I have all the files needed when I want to" instead of "check everytime without asking me". I tried to find in options in both Launchbox and BigBox but couldn't find anything to change settings.

Well, if you finish your moderation queue you will then know if the entry (in this case Luigi 2) has been submitted for moderation or not. But as I said, the best/fastest way would be to see pending entries while adding new games.

Most efficient way to avoid this, when you try to add a missing game, would be to see if the same game is being processed for approval on top of the games that have already been approved/are on the database. Otherwise it probably can't be avoided (unless the submitter first moderates the queue until the end to see there is no same entry already in the pipe). My guess is that none of the entries have been approved and there is no entry for Luigi 2 HD until someone tries again - but it might end in the same result 😅

of course, sorry should have put it first https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/403158-esprits-maths-cm1-cm2

Hi, It looks like the connection/update from the online DB to LB local DB is perhaps not working? Could you please check that all is "green". This has happened before - I have an approved new entry (from many days ago) that is not found in LB even with force updating metadata. Thank you!

Nevermind, I was just trying to continue on the topic of transparent media files that it would be nice to have the spinning disc animation on all Disc media for all platforms. Currently I think it's only on a limited amount of platforms.

If you read the overview it says: " The Famicom version by Sunsoft is considered superior to the US release by Tengen. Sunsoft cleaned up the game to remove the flicker, enhanced the music, and changed the color palette." Enough changes to merit a unique entry I'd say. I think the idea of having 1 entry is to avoid creating "duplicate" entries of the game that is identical in all countries on the same platform - that's why we have region tags for images (unfortunately there are none for publishers). I think common sense and looking into details from multiple sources are your best guides with "grey areas" in the guidelines and the forum is a great place to find out about the general "unwritten rules" also. And yes, the guidelines on the first page should still be accurate (except for the superscript breaking scraping - haven't had any technical issues with that, I would say that one is obsolete).

Hi, Is the connection broken again? I've added a huge amount of missing C16/Plus 4 and Dragon 32/64 games (finished yesterday but started a week ago). Many of them have been approved quite some time ago, but LB can't find all of the approved ones from its local database (which I've also forced to update).

The point of an overview is that is should be short and not have too many details (it's not a full product description, or otherwise we would have a separate features field or something). So personally I would reject a change like that and we have wikipedia links to anyone wanting to know more about the game... https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/overview "a short description of something that provides general information about it, but no details" EDIT: Maybe limiting the amount of text the overview can have with a hard code? Just a suggestion

Works fine now, thank you!

@faeran or @C-Beats how you had time to check this? The issue is still ongoing:

I have a similar issue with a Pinball game I submitted days ago that was also approved days ago, but cannot be found with the launchbox's app's search function so it could be added manually (even after using the "force update game database data" option: https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/395128-the-games

I think you answered your own question https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/376101-the-elder-scrolls-iii-morrowind-game-of-the-year-edition is a duplicate entry lacking a lot of media and data and wrong original release date. Steam is a marketplace, not a platform. For some reason that version was added to the database as the "2009 Steam version" ... weird stuff (I'm also seeing people adding MS-DOS games in the Windows platform just because they are available on Steam/GOG etc. and running on DosBOX...). There's no point of adding all marketplace releases in my opinion: https://www.mobygames.com/game/11430/the-elder-scrolls-iii-morrowind-game-of-the-year-edition/releases/windows/ If a game has a specific (even if incorrect) name on Steam/GOG etc. it can always be added as an alternative name to the original entry...

Very nice, happy to see nice progress on the database and big future plans ahead! One question that came into mind right away: Why are games titles and platforms in capital letters now? It's quite hard to see if a title is correctly written. For example: The Secret of the House in the Cave. Might be written "The secret Of The house In THE CAVE." I was also wondering what does the database say about the SNES game "Ballz 3D: Fighting at Its Ballziest" shouldn't it be "at its" instead of "at Its". Yes, I know I could just remove the LB ID and search it again and see if there's any change. There is one way I can see the letter case of the game title directly from the website database: from the browser tab, but it's not a very practical way, especially if you have multiple tabs open you can only partially see the title. I would still recommend prioritizing practical ways of displaying information from a database instead of prioritizing modern visual look. And I also noticed the list view doesn't remain in memory when switching into the next page.

Looks to be the same game released in different years in different regions: http://www.atarimania.com/game-skindiver_s7227.html. I would suggest to delete Skindiver and keep Sea Hunt with more media https://gamesdb.launchbox-app.com/games/details/28818-sea-hunt and just change the release year from '87 to 1983 (even if the American title, which is prioritized as the default title name over other regions, was released later - database rules says we need to have the first release date on the same platform, regardless of region)