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Latest Bigbox MAME game exit problems


Lianad

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This seems to have just started after updating to the latest version the other day. It use to work just fine.

When I would try to exit a MAME game, either using ESC, or my controller hotkey (controller automation, hold key and hot key), the game would exit but I'd be stuck on a black screen. If I alt-tabbed, I'd see two Big Box windows open (one just black), if I tab over to the other it opens back up BigBox properly. Can't seem to figure out how to fix this.

After reading ideas, I tried disabling all of the new Startup screens that I believe came in the new version. This seems to somewhat fix the problem. Now using ESC or my controller hotkey it DOES bring me back to bigbox, but no input works. I have to ALT-TAB to make the window active and then it works again. So only a partial fix. It seems like it's successfully closing MAME, but not refocusing the BigBox window properly.

Anyone have any ideas?

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I know during beta,testing was pretty consistent in not showing exit issues with the new startup screens and me. I do not recall anyone really having issues with mame. I could be wrong though. What version mame are you using? Command line or something like MameUI or Arcade64?

Does this happen as well in Launchbox?

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Currently running Mame 0.197, and after more testing it's not just Mame, it's pretty much every game even SNES/NES games when launching from BigBox. Everything seems to work just fine if I launch through Launchbox. It's only with Bigbox as of the recent update that has issues. Is there any way to downgrade versions of BigBox? I wasn't having any issues before the recent update.

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

ditto here. not sure if ever worked prior as only just started using big box but roms in MAME and other emulators work fine outside of bigbox from launchbox and emulator itself but crashes when exiting out of big box. BB seems to be the issue. We're not imagining things here tis a real problem! ?

Edited by Swiddzy
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  • 4 weeks later...

I have the same issue, although I don't have a 100% repro rate for this.

I use BigBox exclusively and sometimes when exiting Mame, I get a black screen.
I read in some other thread that there are apparently 2 BigBox instances running (one running the legit BigBox and the other being the black screen) - However, I did not check if that is the case for me aswell.

This is very frustrating for me since I don't have access to a mouse and/or keyboard on my cabinet and have to restart my cabinet everytime this happens.
I did bind the "Close active window" binding in BigBox, but that never really did anything (don't know if it's broken or if I'm using it wrong).

Are there any news regarding this issue?

 

Edit: I'm running Mame .193

Edited by FelixK15
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8 hours ago, FelixK15 said:

This is very frustrating for me since I don't have access to a mouse and/or keyboard on my cabinet and have to restart my cabinet everytime this happens.

I know this isn't a solution to your issue but I would like to highly recommend you having some sort of keyboard / mouse combo for your cabinet. You are dealing with a PC after all and things are going to happen, it's just how things are with PCs. You can get a cheap Logitech keyboard and touchpad combo for around 20-30$ and they only take up one USB port, you can stash it away when not in use.

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i was advised to disable the startup screen and it worked! note there are 2 however and i think it was the one under "options/Game Start up" that did the tricks. the other is "options/general" which i disabled first but it didnt fix the problem. hope it helps too as its such a relief it not crashing constantly!

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4 hours ago, Swiddzy said:

i was advised to disable the startup screen and it worked! note there are 2 however and i think it was the one under "options/Game Start up" that did the tricks. the other is "options/general" which i disabled first but it didnt fix the problem. hope it helps too as its such a relief it not crashing constantly!

This doesn't work for me :-/ I mean, now I don't get a black screen anymore but now input in BigBox doesn't work anymore after returning from Mame (and a mouse cursor is shown). This still has the same repro rate as the black screen issue.

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Both. At first I've set the controller automation button combo for "Exit current application" in BigBox (or something like that, I don't know the exact wording). However, this didn't work at all for both Mame and Demul (that are the only emulators I'm using). For Demul I changed the AutoHotKey script to query the joystick input and for Mame I bound "Ui Cancel" to the same button combo as "Exit current application" in BigBox.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/2/2019 at 10:58 AM, Drtruffles said:

I am having the same issue. Using mame .207

I'm having the same issues here too.  It happens when using a keyboard to exit too.  I'll try adjusting some of the options but it works fine with LaunchBox, just not BigBox as others have said.  All of my settings are the defaults.

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1 minute ago, Lordmonkus said:

Did you setup a controller automation button combo to close out your emulators in BigBox ?

No I don't believe I have changed anything.  I am not using a controller yet to exit anything, just the escape key on the keyboard.  This is a new install of Windows and LaunchBox so I am just starting to set everything up.  I will look through the replies here and try to adjust settings.

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1 hour ago, Lordmonkus said:

Ah ok, the Escape key on the keyboard should work without issue and if it doesn't I don't know what to tell you since that is the default key in Mame and I have never had and issue with it.

I seemed to have figured out the cause at least on my setup.  If I open Windows Explorer and then open BigBox it will fail to load back into BigBox after exiting Mame.  But if I have no windows open except for BigBox, then it seems to close correctly.  I have tried this a few times, both with a Windows Explorer window open and with it closed and every time I have an open Window Explorer it fails.  I haven't tried with other programs but I would imagine that any program being opened could cause the issue?

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  • 4 months later...

I'm having a similar problem yet its completely different but thought I would post in this thread.

I spent November 18 through April 19 building out all my emulators, testing games, etc... within Launchbox and have everything working beautifully. This summer I built my arcade cabinet and recently finished the complete project last week but I'm dealing with a nerve racking problem that I cannot figure out.

Using Big Box I can launch all my games & emulators and everything works great! with exception of exiting MAME. (I use v.200) When I launch a game in MAME (via Big Box) the game loads and plays fine but when I exit (using the esc key) it returns me promptly to the Big Box interface as it should and then freezes my keyboard encoder rendering my control panel useless. (Hagstrom KE36 USB so its a composite USB keyboard device) Whats crazy is none of my other USB or PS/2 devices freeze (2x Aimtracks, 1x std USB mouse (non-Logitech), 1x cheap keyboard encoder that I rewired a Guitar Hero guitar with, 1x Ultimarc UltraStick 360, and 1x PS/2 Dell Keyboard) So to exit Big Box I need to hit the esc key on my PS/2 keyboard but once I'm in the Windows 7 interface the Hagstrom encoder still will not register any keys. Device Manager still see's the Hagstrom and says its "Working Properly", I can read and write to the Hagstrom encoder using its software and even after that Keystrokes still do not work. If I reboot the PC the encoder works again. If I unplug the encoder Windows beeps to disconnect the device and when I plug it back into the same USB 2.0 port it begins to work fine again until I play a game using MAME via Big Box and then exiting.

I've tried countless scenario's with various games with no luck. Using MAME directly in Windows works fine. Using MAME launching via Launchbox works fine so something Big Box is doing screws with the Hagstrom encoder upon exit and isn't properly handing off the USB device. This is problem is extremely frustrating and I need this forum's help!

Windows 7 64, GTI 970, Intel i5, 16GB RAM

@Jason Carr I have a feeling this issue may be something I need your input/support on.

 

Thank you All!!

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I know this isn't what you want to here but with your scenario and the hardware you are using I don't think anyone is going to really be able to offer up that many solutions. Hopefully I'm wrong so hang in there for an answer but be prepared to be disappointed also.

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