LaunchBox Beta Testing

[kmoney]

VLC is working great on my setup so far! As a side note I am still not getting asked to update to the newest beta in BB in the New Wheels view. It works in LB and the Default BB view.

[Jason Carr]

Thanks guys, I'll have a new beta out tonight that hopefully addresses these issues. @Justified, what version of Windows are you using? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit? Thanks!

[Jason Carr]

And I'm blind...sorry @Justified. I can read, I promise. :P

[Bedwyr]

emko said testing out VLC so far "System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Meta.Vlc.Wpf.VlcPlayer.VideoDisplayCallback(IntPtr opaque, IntPtr picture)" happened while i was going up and down a games list VLC is looking very good now :) you went from thinking to get rid of it to making it work just as good as WMP Thanks spektor56

Just got the -12 update and made the report before I checked the beta thread: https://bitbucket.org/jasondavidcarr/launchbox/issues/886/null-exception It's the same message. Certainly the same issue. Sorry if I duped. Good old null pointer exception. How I missed thee. I haven't programmed in Java in forever; for me mostly segfaults and self-inflicted memory idiocy when mucking around with multi dimensional pointer arrays (to pointer arrays of pointer arrays....).

[CADScott]

Just tested the latest beta on my 32bit Win10 machine, and VLC seems to work okay in BigBox, though it seems a lot slower to start the video than WMP. It takes a good few seconds before anything happens, whereas WMP is pretty much instant. There does seem to be an issue with videos in the sidebar in LaunchBox though. I get no playback at all when using VLC (WMP works fine), and nothing I do seems to start the playback. I also seem to get a few instances of LaunchBox completely freezing when navigating between games when using VLC as the playback engine with the sidebar open and autoplay video checked on. I get no error messages at all for any of these issues, and the only way to recover is to kill the process.

[Jason Carr]

Alright, new beta is out that should hopefully address the VLC issues, or at least the ones I could reproduce. @Justified, let me know if this solves your DLL error. The various other errors should be fixed as well. @CADScott, I'm seeing that now as well in LaunchBox. I set up a 32-bit virtual machine (finally) to test it all in a 32-bit environment. Big Box does indeed seem to be working fine, but LaunchBox is still not working properly with the VLC engine on 32-bit Windows. This is a strange one so I'll have to revisit it. Pretty sure it's always been the case, though. @wallmachine Not exactly sure what you mean, but assuming you're talking about the sidebar not remembering its size, that's just an unrelated bug that I need to fix. Thanks all; I'll be back at it tomorrow morning in a live session on Twitch. Probably going to start with the games wheel. https://www.twitch.tv/jasondavidcarr

[SentaiBrad]

I think he also means when they open up in small boxes in the corner of the screen.

[Bedwyr]

The null error does appears to be fixed.

[Justified]

@jason still getting the same result on BB 6 b13. It only works OK, if I switch to cover flow mode. So it seems that the problem comes up, whenever a video should be displayed. I switched to WMP and got the same error as soon as I selected a game. Also I notice that transitions on menu are slower or lagging (when using VLC as default player), if you go to options, and then to platforms view, these transitions seems to be on slow motion. The speed of these do improve if I swith to WMP as default, but still keep on getting the error mentioned above. Not sure if this helps but on other forum somebody mentioned that this error "I believe this is a MinGW/gcc compiler issue, rather than a Microsoft Visual Studio setup." and the solution is to use "-static-libgcc while compiling", maybe worth a look. here are the links to those posts http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12921911/mingw-libgcc-s-sjlj-1-dll-is-missing http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4702732/the-program-cant-start-because-libgcc-s-dw2-1-dll-is-missing

Justified said Got an ddl error "Libgcc_s_sjlj-1.dll" on BB 6 b12 while using game list horizontal boxes with details. The message appears as soon as you select a game, if I hit OK the message keeps appearing, or BB freezes, the only option is to force close with task manager. On the other hand, inside LB, videos seem to be working fine. Not sure if this is a VLC ddl related or directX. I'm using Win7 Ultimate x64, this was not happening with previous betas (b9 was the latest I was using).

[SentaiBrad]

Ah @wallmachine that is a new one actually. I don't think I've ever seen that. Jason will take a look at it when he's available. As far as a video showing up after 7 seconds, when you click a game (even when LB is caching) it shouldn't take that long. Not to mention, we don't cache the video or the cache files would be more insane for larger libraries. Where do you have them stored? Are they on a USB2 external? Over a network? How old is the drive? I wonder if that has something more to do with the location of the video than anything. Is the video with the LaunchBox install? That could explain some of the slowness you've been having. Caching should only activate when you download new images for a platform, refresh those images in the options, clear the cache files in the LB folder, or use the clear cache option in BigBox.

[polygonslayer]

Getting the same error in Big Box mode as well, normal Launchbox work fine though :)

[Bedwyr]

Just got a new error in the latest beta (13).

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Not found: Videos\Super Nintendo (SNES)\Ultima VI - The False Prophet (USA).mp4 File name: 'Videos\Super Nintendo (SNES)\Ultima VI - The False Prophet (USA).mp4' at Meta.Vlc.Wpf.VlcPlayer.LoadMedia(String path) at (<>c__DisplayClass4_0 ) at BigBox.Views.ImageVideoView.<>c__DisplayClass4_0.<PlayVlcVideo>b__0() at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherOperation.InvokeDelegateCore() at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherOperation.InvokeImpl() --- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown --- at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task) at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task) at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherOperation.Wait(TimeSpan timeout) at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.InvokeImpl(DispatcherOperation operation, CancellationToken cancellationToken, TimeSpan timeout) at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.Invoke(Action callback, DispatcherPriority priority, CancellationToken cancellationToken, TimeSpan timeout) at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.Invoke(Action callback) at BigBox.Views.ImageVideoView.PlayVlcVideo(String filePath, ChildViewModelBase parentViewModel) at (ImageVideoViewModel , Object ) at BigBox.ViewModels.ImageVideoViewModel.set_VideoPath(Object value) at (ImageVideoViewModel , String , String , Transition , ChildViewModelBase ) at BigBox.ViewModels.ImageVideoViewModel.Init(String imagePath, String videoPath, Transition transition, ChildViewModelBase parentViewModel) at (GamesViewModelBase ) at BigBox.ViewModels.GamesViewModelBase.<selectionChangedTimer_Elapsed>b__99_0() at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state) at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()

The video in question does exist and I grabbed it from EmuMovies. And it does play in BB, but has occasionally not consistently played. Perhaps there's some encoding shenanigans going on in the file that VLC choked on? For reference the file I'm using is located on the server at /Official/Video Snap Packs (480p)(HQ)/Nintendo SNES (Video Snaps)(HQ-480p)(EM 20160209). Toss this in the bugtracker?

[SentaiBrad]

Yea Jason let me know that that is something that he needs to fix. Without extra info those were my questions. :P

[Bedwyr]

Also in beta 13, getting continued audio from videos after navigating away from that entry.

[CADScott]

Bedwyr said Also in beta 13, getting continued audio from videos after navigating away from that entry.

I am also getting this issue in BigBox, on Win 10 64bit, seems to also play the audio from previous videos over the top of the next entries video.

[Soundtrackgeek]

I'm getting a strange thing whenever I delete a game and right after that tries to edit another game. I get this message: I have to click OK and then go CTRL+E again on the file I wanted to edit. Any way to remove that? It would make sense if the game I was going to edit wasnt actually in there anymore, but it is.

[Antropus]

wallmachine said anyone else find the site slow to load?

Most of the time. Not worse than the Arcade Controls forum when it comes to loading speed, but sometimes pretty close :)

[Jason Carr]

Alright, I'll go through all the comments above in a few guys. New beta is up. I'm hoping it fixes the remaining issues with the new Big Box VLC implementation. So far it seems that the videos playing in the background issue is fixed, and I'm hoping that the libgcc crash that some users were seeing is fixed as well. Please let me know if anyone runs into any further issues with the new VLC implementation. Also new in this beta is the games list wheel that we started working on in the development live stream yesterday. I wouldn't say it's perfect (yet) but seems to be working well enough for a beta. ;) I also made games without any images to use for the background default to using the platform's backgrounds if they exist. Thanks guys, let me know what issues you run into. Other than bug fixes, tomorrow it's onto the next view with CoverFlow and details.

[Jason Carr]

With the new VLC implementation, it does indeed take a few seconds the first time you load up a video for the VLC engine to load up. It also sort of freezes the interface while it loads, so I do have some work to do to somehow make that more performant. That is on my list to tackle before the official. Per LaunchBox (not Big Box) resizing to only a small portion of the screen, this is an unfortunate side effect of screen resolution changes. When a game or an emulator changes the screen resolution, Windows unfortunately does a poor job of resizing windows properly to match. I have struggled with this in the past, but I haven't given up on a solution yet. Not sure if there's a Bitbucket ticket in there for that yet, but we should add one if not.

[Jason Carr]

wallmachine said @Jason and @Sentaibrad This is what I mean't so when selecting a new option in the Options menu in LaunchBox it would minimize the entire LaunchBox then re-open it, this is the same case for BigBox when first opening it or when pressing the Windows key. The following images below is what happens... I'd like to provide a video but can't. On a side note when I go to Tools -> Manage Emulators -> Then select the emulator and pressing Edit is the only way to create the necessary folders inside the "Images", "Videos" and "Platforms" folder unless I create them manually. (I didn't tick any of the boxes to download from emumovies, because I already have the files so I'm assuming it would of automatically created them if I downloaded the files through the parse.) Also when clicking on a game in LaunchBox it takes a while to load the video, maybe 7 seconds? then after that they all load so I'm assuming its caching?

The window needs to be refreshed after changing the options for various reasons. Having the window minimize, restore, and refresh/repaint is by design. However, if it's getting stuck without finishing painting itself then we might have an issue. That isn't typical behavior, though, so I'm more inclined to believe it's a glitch with video drivers or something of that nature. It also could be that it only happens on Windows 7; the Windows graphics engines have come a long way since Windows 7 so it could be that we're hitting a glitch that got fixed in a later OS. Does it eventually finish painting itself? Or do you have to close and reopen? Per the delay when loading a video in LaunchBox, it's the same deal as in Big Box. The VLC engine has to be loaded before any videos can be displayed. I assume you are using the VLC engine. The Windows Media Player engine will likely load much quicker, if that is an option for you. I can "trick" the user into thinking that the VLC engine is loading quicker by preloading it on startup or doing it in the background, but beyond that there's nothing I can do to make the VLC engine load up any quicker.