Big issue that started in 9.X. Games often don't launch property after startup.

[twobucks]

I tried loading a 202 mame rom in bigbox right after booting and i did run into a few minor issues. The first time the loading screen opened it timed out and dropped back to bigbox, then a few seconds later the game started. This maybe added a few seconds but not minutes.

The second time i loaded a rom right after startup ledblinky did not light the controls. Ledblinky threw an error "timeout waiting for primary instance handle".

In both cases the roms opened with a little added delay and closed fine when exiting. The subsequent rom i opened had no problems and ledblinky worked fine. Keep in mind these same issues do happen with earlier versions of mame.

Sounds like you may have some kind of major startup delay causing your issue. Have you checked the windows event viewer for any application or system errors that happen anytime between windows startup to just after force closing mame?

Which version of launchbox are you running? 9.7 is what i tested with and i am also on windows 10.

 

[Arcade1993]

On 5/22/2019 at 6:39 AM, twobucks said:

I tried loading a 202 mame rom in bigbox right after booting and i did run into a few minor issues. The first time the loading screen opened it timed out and dropped back to bigbox, then a few seconds later the game started. This maybe added a few seconds but not minutes.

The second time i loaded a rom right after startup ledblinky did not light the controls. Ledblinky threw an error "timeout waiting for primary instance handle".

In both cases the roms opened with a little added delay and closed fine when exiting. The subsequent rom i opened had no problems and ledblinky worked fine. Keep in mind these same issues do happen with earlier versions of mame.

Sounds like you may have some kind of major startup delay causing your issue. Have you checked the windows event viewer for any application or system errors that happen anytime between windows startup to just after force closing mame?

 Which version of launchbox are you running? 9.7 is what i tested with and i am also on windows 10.

 

I am just so glad to see it's not just me. Thank you so much for checking it out for me. 

I tried the latest version of LaunchBox, as well as the latest 8.X release. I checked to see in task manager if any high CPU or RAM usage was going on during this time, but nothing was. I did not use any system logs, though. 

What do you think the culprit is, since you have the same issue as me? LaunchBox, or is MAME to blame? Or both? 

Thanks again so much. 

[twobucks]

The problem is similar but not exactly the same as yours. In my case the problem may cause a couple second lag but not to the point of it causing a system lockup. Ledblinky sometimes getting confused on the first rom has been happening for a while.

 Checking the windows event log as i suggested might help and should be running by default. Just type "event viewer" in the OS search bar. Open it and look at both the application and system events from time of system boot to bigbox locking up. You might get clued in on the problem.

Did you update windows 10 when you updated bigbox? I am running version 1709. If you did update maybe a new windows feature is causing a conflict.

If its not windows maybe something got messed up during the mame upgrade. Try doing a full reinstall of mame and regenerate the mame.ini

Edited May 26, 2019 by twobucks

[Arcade1993]

6 hours ago, twobucks said:

The problem is similar but not exactly the same as yours. It may cause a couple second lag but not to the point of it causing a system lockup. Ledblinky sometimes getting confused on the first rom has been happening for a while.

By the way you should be able to view the windows event log. Just type "event viewer" in the OS search bar. Open it and look at both the application and system events from time of system boot to bigbox locking up. You might get clued in on the problem.

 Did you update windows 10 when you updated bigbox? I am running version 1709. If you did update maybe a new windows feature is causing a conflict.

 If its not windows maybe something got messed up during the mame upgrade. Try doing a full reinstall of mame and regenerate the mame.ini

Thanks, yeah I did update Windows 10. I tried to uninstall all the updates but it only let me go back so far.

 

What is needed for a full reinstall on MAME? Kind of a confusing verbiage only because MAME just kind of gets extracted to a folder.

[Arcade1993]

So I did a bit of research on this. It appears a LOT of people have this issue with either the 1803 or 1809 update to Windows 10. Unfortunately I see no way to downgrade to 17XX without losing all of my settings/reinstalling an old Windows 10 disc. 

Some people said that they fixed it by turning off a feature that has to do with not allowing notifications to interrupt a game window (a new "focusing" feature). Unfortunately turning that off did nothing for me. 

Is there anything else I can try? Any way to get back to 17XX without losing all of my setting? 

[twobucks]

I dont know much about the windows problems since i have not upgraded yet. Maybe someone else can chime in on that part. Try turning off game mode in windows 10.

As for reinstalling mame there really is no installer just extract the files to a new folder and set it up. Download the mame 203 version from mame's website and extract to the new folder.optionally you can replace the exe with the no nag version.

Then from there generate a new mame.ini file and configure all your settings. Make sure to configure your paths for roms , chd, samples, to point to your existing rom set. Add your controller file if you have one.

When i tested mame 202 on my system i just added it as an additional emulator in launchbox and changed the associated emulator for the rom. I would suggest trying a few roms first then i believe you can batch edit the associated emulator for all of your roms. 

Now test it and see if the startup problem is gone.

Edited May 26, 2019 by twobucks

[fromlostdays]

This is all well over my head, and this may be an irrelevant observation but, personally I have all my roms stored on a separate drive (not C, or L(my launchbox drive). What I've noticed is that because there is no "startup" program accessing the drive with my roms, the hard drive stays "asleep" upon booting the PC, and it doesn't wake up until the first time I try to launch a game. So the first time I launch any game after reboot (or between long rests) sometimes even retroarch will blackscreen, only on the first launch, and over time I figured out its because it's waiting for my rom drive to wake up and something must be timing out in the interim. Mostly this causes a MUCH longer load time on my first game launch, but it'll crash it occasionally as well.

I don't know if it'll help or not, but might be something to consider.  

Edited May 26, 2019 by fromlostdays

[Arcade1993]

On 5/26/2019 at 3:44 PM, fromlostdays said:

This is all well over my head, and this may be an irrelevant observation but, personally I have all my roms stored on a separate drive (not C, or L(my launchbox drive). What I've noticed is that because there is no "startup" program accessing the drive with my roms, the hard drive stays "asleep" upon booting the PC, and it doesn't wake up until the first time I try to launch a game. So the first time I launch any game after reboot (or between long rests) sometimes even retroarch will blackscreen, only on the first launch, and over time I figured out its because it's waiting for my rom drive to wake up and something must be timing out in the interim. Mostly this causes a MUCH longer load time on my first game launch, but it'll crash it occasionally as well.

 I don't know if it'll help or not, but might be something to consider.  

I appreciate that, however I am using the same drive I have always been using and never had an issue before.

[twobucks]

couple other things to try:

1.seems like microsoft released a patch that caused severe game performance issues. make sure you have the patch installed that adresses the problem kb4489889.

2. try disabling fullscreen optimizations in the compatibility tab for mame64.exe. 

3. make sure the new focusing feature is completely off in windows 10. try turning off game mode in windows 10.

4. make sure you dont have any video card driver utilities running that may be conflicting like geforce experience etc. try disabling or uninstalling.

Edited May 30, 2019 by twobucks

[Arcade1993]

OK so I can with 100% confidence say it's something with launchbox and MAME. 

I got rid of my spinny HDD and bought a 2TB SSD (not cheap!)

I reinstalled an old version of Windows 10; a 2016 release that is LTSB meant for things like ATMs and such, and it has absolutely zero bloat. It doesn't even come with the Edge browser. 

After all that, and setting EVERYTHING up all over again (took FOREVER), I still have the issue. There is no way it's anything I am doing and this is really starting to make me give up on this whole thing. Is it MAME? Is it Launchbox? Is it the way BigBox is launching MAME?

[Arcade1993]

Anyone?

[neil9000]

11 minutes ago, Arcade1993 said:

Anyone?

What exactly is the issue now? I thought we got you running back on the first page when you were having VLC issues.

[Arcade1993]

9 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

What exactly is the issue now? I thought we got you running back on the first page when you were having VLC issues.

I don't remember saying I had VLC issues, haha

My issue is that the first time I load any game, LaunchBox starts LEDBlinky and MAME refuses to load the first game unless I sit there and wait for 2 minutes. If I press any button on the cabinet, instead of skipping the button instructions and starting the game, LEDBlinky just keeps repeating itself, and eventually MAME tries to open like half a dozen instances of MAME, making the computer completely lock up for 2-3 minutes. When I exit out of everything and try again, everything works fine. But this is obviously not an enjoyable experience for a MAME cabinet to have to do this every time I turn it on. 

Thinking it could be a Windows 10 issue, I completely wiped Windows 10, and reinstalled a bare-bones issue called Win 10 LTSB that has zero bloat (and is on a very old version of the OS, so the blame can't be put on a Windows update.). When that didn't work, I spent $200 and put all of my ROMs on an SSD because I figured maybe my spinny hard drive was getting slower with age. Unfortunately this too did not work. 

Here is the video of what happens so it makes more sense:

 

Edited June 22, 2019 by Arcade1993

[neil9000]

2 minutes ago, Arcade1993 said:

I don't remember saying I had VLC issues, haha

My issue is that the first time I load any game, LaunchBox starts LEDBlinky and MAME refuses to load the first game unless I sit there and wait for 2 minutes. If I press any button on the cabinet, instead of skipping the button instructions and starting the game, LEDBlinky just keeps repeating itself, and eventually MAME tries to open like half a dozen instances of MAME, making the computer completely lock up for 2-3 minutes. When I exit out of everything and try again, everything works fine. But this is obviously not an enjoyable experience for a MAME cabinet to have to do this every time I turn it on. 

Here is the video of what happens so it makes more sense:

 

Ok, well i have MAME running just fine here on the latest 9.10 beta 2(the most recent beta build), when i choose a game the game immediately loads, as it should. The only difference is that i do not and have never used LEDBlinky, so maybe the issue lays there on your system.

Have you tried disabling LEDBlinky and seeing if your issue persists when its just Launchbox>MAME?

[Arcade1993]

6 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Ok, well i have MAME running just fine here on the latest 9.10 beta 2(the most recent beta build), when i choose a game the game immediately loads, as it should. The only difference is that i do not and have never used LEDBlinky, so maybe the issue lays there on your system.

Have you tried disabling LEDBlinky and seeing if your issue persists when its just Launchbox>MAME?

Yep, I mentioned earlier in the thread that getting rid of LEDBlinky made no difference. 

Basically LaunchBox refuses to load the game properly after a reboot. It will eventually load it, but after a really long wait. And if someone presses a button either on purpose or by accident while it is trying to load MAME, LaunchBox will try to load the ROM again, each time the button is pressed. Then the cabinet is trying to load a bunch of MAME instances at once, which makes everything go insane. 

This does not happen again after the first time it happens. It's always only after the first boot. 

[neil9000]

7 minutes ago, Arcade1993 said:

Yep, I mentioned earlier in the thread that getting rid of LEDBlinky made no difference. 

Basically LaunchBox refuses to load the game properly after a reboot. It will eventually load it, but after a really long wait. And if someone presses a button either on purpose or by accident while it is trying to load MAME, LaunchBox will try to load the ROM again, each time the button is pressed. Then the cabinet is trying to load a bunch of MAME instances at once, which makes everything go insane. 

This does not happen again after the first time it happens. It's always only after the first boot. 

Does LEDBlinky auto load at boot, or is it only loaded when you load a game? Just wondering if on first load after a boot that the program has to load up, but then stays running as a process in the background until a reboot.

[Arcade1993]

23 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Does LEDBlinky auto load at boot, or is it only loaded when you load a game? Just wondering if on first load after a boot that the program has to load up, but then stays running as a process in the background until a reboot.

You have to add LEDBlinky to the startup folder for it to load automatically. When I removed LEDBlinky, I also removed its entry in my startup folder.

[Arcade1993]

Anyone? Please? 

[Arcade1993]

I give up. Thanks anyway to anyone who at least tried to help.

[twobucks]

kind of a longshot but have you tried launching games using just a keyboard and bypassing the keyboard encoder(assuming your using an ipac of some sort)? do you still have the mame startup issue using just a standard keyboard with no other controls plugged into the pc?