BigBox crash while sitting idle doing attract mode

[Merlin]

44 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Yeah, crashing after 3 to 15 days with only 8 gigs of RAM is honestly a known issue that I can easily replicate. Unfortunately 8 gigs of RAM is just barely not enough when running Big Box for long periods of time with some themes and views, unless you crank down the quality settings, and even then it might eventually run into the same issue. I don't currently have a solution for that, but at least I can reproduce it. Simply adding more RAM should get rid of that specific issue.

MrSco's issue is completely different. I do know that underpowered systems (such as an Intel Nuc) can run into CPU and/or graphics card limitations and can cause attract mode to fall behind and eventually crash the app. I still don't understand why he would be seeing an issue on his more powerful machine though. Regardless, it can be incredibly difficult to identify sources of crashes like this, because they can come from anywhere, including OS or driver bugs, conflicting apps, or any number of other things. I'm really not trying to cop out of fixing these stability issues, and I'm always working on it, but unfortunately it's far from simple to even identify the problem in some cases. On top of that, it really doesn't help to draw conclusions, because it's almost never as simple as it seems.

Still, I'll keep working on stability. I do regular stability testing for each new version, running Big Box attract mode with various themes on multiple systems for days on end, and I never release without stable results. That said, of course it's impossible for me to test with every hardware and software combination out there, so I can never be certain that there won't be an occasional crash on certain systems. All to say that we're doing the best we can here, guys. We'll keep working on it.

Seems like a lot of memory for just 82 mame games and default theme Critical zone. I'll see how much a memory upgrade is.

[wallmachine]

14 hours ago, Merlin said:

Seems like a lot of memory for just 82 mame games and default theme Critical zone. I'll see how much a memory upgrade is.

I have 32gb ram and it crashes on the default themes as well as custom are you gonna go 64 or 128gb ram? Id like to here your results.

Also i ended up setting the hdds to not go to sleep however in attractmode it still stops working randomly until i press a button, then it starts again so probably nothing to do with that any other suggestions?

Edited July 15, 2020 by wallmachine

[Jason Carr]

Not all crashes are due to RAM issues, as stated previously. But if the log files are saying that it's running out of RAM, then it clearly is, and there's probably a memory leak in whatever theme is being used if the RAM on the system is more than 8 gigs.

2 hours ago, wallmachine said:

I have 32gb ram and it crashes on the default themes as well as custom are you gonna go 64 or 128gb ram? Id like to here your results.

Addressed this earlier; please stop drawing ridiculous conclusions.

[Baby Yoda]

On 7/6/2020 at 12:39 PM, Jason Carr said:

You can enable debug logs under Tools > Options > Debug in LaunchBox, and then the debug logs will show up under LaunchBox\Logs. That should help us going forward to figure it out.

The mechanical USB hard drive might actually end up being the culprit here, because I really don't do any testing that way currently (maybe I should). The four systems that I test on regularly all use internal SATA SSDs and/or mechanical drives. They're all stable and can run for days on end, so that may be the difference.

I am running into the same attract mode crashes and am glad to hear I'm not the only one. I am running an 8700k/16GB/980Ti/internal mechanical hard drive on a brand new Windows 10 install with all updates.

These 4 systems you test with that are stable in attract mode - what exactly are they? I will literally buy the exact same hardware you are using if it prevents these crashes - cost is no object at this point.
I would be thrilled to not have to run such extreme hardware for Bigbox. If any of your 4 systems are this powerful I would be surprised, but I could easily return this system back to PC gaming duty and replace it with your exact spec'd machine. I have a 3TB mechanical drive so maybe if you could please post one of your stable mechanical HDD setups that would be helpful. I want stability over all.

This would be an outstanding tool to use to export every aspect of your hardware and software environment for duplication by others - power settings, software installed, patches, etc. .made by the devs of CCleaner - Piriform and best of all it's free!
https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy

After reading this thread, it's clearly been going on a long time for others as well and the troubleshooting steps have been really thorough! but at this point I would much rather buy exactly what you're using and not worry about it one bit. Hardware and software environment - whatever it takes we can duplicate your exactly as long as we know what it is. Thanks!

 

[Jason Carr]

21 minutes ago, Baby Yoda said:

I am running into the same attract mode crashes and am glad to hear I'm not the only one. I am running an 8700k/16GB/980Ti/internal mechanical hard drive on a brand new Windows 10 install with all updates.

These 4 systems you test with that are stable in attract mode - what exactly are they? I will literally buy the exact same hardware you are using if it prevents these crashes - cost is no object at this point.
I would be thrilled to not have to run such extreme hardware for Bigbox. If any of your 4 systems are this powerful I would be surprised, but I could easily return this system back to PC gaming duty and replace it with your exact spec'd machine. I have a 3TB mechanical drive so maybe if you could please post one of your stable mechanical HDD setups that would be helpful. I want stability over all.

This would be an outstanding tool to use to export every aspect of your hardware and software environment for duplication by others - power settings, software installed, patches, etc. .made by the devs of CCleaner - Piriform and best of all it's free!
https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy

After reading this thread, it's clearly been going on a long time for others as well and the troubleshooting steps have been really thorough! but at this point I would much rather buy exactly what you're using and not worry about it one bit. Hardware and software environment - whatever it takes we can duplicate your exactly as long as we know what it is. Thanks!

 

My systems are pretty straightforward; Intel CPUs and nVidia graphics at various levels of performance. This day and age, though, you do not want to be running LaunchBox off of a mechanical drive, so if you're looking to spend money, that's where to spend it. Get a 1TB Samsung SSD, and you can throw everything but the games themselves on the SSD. That will make an extreme difference in performance, though I have no idea whether it will affect stability or not.

Just to be clear, it's not like Big Box *never ever* crashes on my test machines. My typical tests run for two or three days, and every once in a blue moon, I do get a crash, but it's very rare. So if you're testing for 2 weeks on end, I would not expect it to be perfect, but I have no idea what you're currently running into.

Again, I'm working on improving the stability, but even Microsoft's own code isn't necessarily stable enough to run attract mode in a WPF app for 2 weeks straight with zero issues. That is the goal, but it's a pretty lofty goal.

[Baby Yoda]

Thanks for the quick response. Maybe some insight into your systems that are more stable would help us - I'd be ok spending $300 on a 2TB SSD but there is nothing to indicate that it will still not crash. My OS/Boot drives are all SSD but everything runs off of the mechanical drive.
So maybe something like your mention of SSD could be changed...do you run Bigbox from C on these systems with games on another drive or is everything on one, including the OS? Would portable version be ok? A lens on what you recommend based on your testing would be great! I don't have access to that many systems, which is why I asked if I could just buy exactly what you have. But, now it seems based on what you are saying that even that would not help?

Previously, you mentioned that you have over 12,000 games...are you able to run attract mode without crashing for, say, a week? Why stop testing at just 2-3 days if you have 4 systems to play with - could you test what we are doing to see if the same thing happens to you as well?

At one point you mentioned that you can run for days without issue but now (above) you say that you would not expect anyone to be able to run attract mode for 2 weeks...is that right?
I am trying to get a handle on whether *anyone* (including your test systems) can run untouched in attract mode in a casual environment such as a game room at home for, say, a couple weeks. If your own systems and testing are unable to achieve that (which is a longevity it seems I and others are expecting), then I won't bother chasing this any longer unless more troubleshooting logs would help. Can any of those test systems run indefinitely without crashing? If not than this thread dies right here it seems and the future is TBD..

Thanks again!

[MrSco]

I am using a workaround currently with AutoHotkey to automatically relaunch Bigbox when closed.

It will show a dialog with a cancel button and a 5 second countdown. Once the countdown is reached BigBox is relaunched.  Not ideal, but better then no attract mode running at all.

I also included most of the rest of my startup scripts in case someone finds them helpful. There may be others out there, but I had some unique issues with an always connected XinMo controller as P1/P2 and swapping to wireless xbox 360 controllers on the fly  when connected.

(i didn't include xpadder.exe or controllercompanion.exe as those are paid apps. you can just comment those lines out with a ; if you don't have/want those or any other steps to run)

(and in case you're wondering, I've tested BigBox.exe directly without launching via my ahk script and it still crashes the same way.)

Also, as a side/related note, i'm sure there is another thread for feature suggestions, but since @Jason Carr has been watching this one, maybe LaunchBox/BigBox could get some startup/exit script features when starting up or closing down bigbox? ... then I wouldn't have to roll my own like this.

Thanks!

launchbox-startup-scripts.zip

[MrSco]

On 7/16/2020 at 2:57 PM, MrSco said:

I am using a workaround currently with AutoHotkey to automatically relaunch Bigbox when closed.

It will show a dialog with a cancel button and a 5 second countdown. Once the countdown is reached BigBox is relaunched.  Not ideal, but better then no attract mode running at all.

I also included most of the rest of my startup scripts in case someone finds them helpful. There may be others out there, but I had some unique issues with an always connected XinMo controller as P1/P2 and swapping to wireless xbox 360 controllers on the fly  when connected.

(i didn't include xpadder.exe or controllercompanion.exe as those are paid apps. you can just comment those lines out with a ; if you don't have/want those or any other steps to run)

(and in case you're wondering, I've tested BigBox.exe directly without launching via my ahk script and it still crashes the same way.)

Also, as a side/related note, i'm sure there is another thread for feature suggestions, but since @Jason Carr has been watching this one, maybe LaunchBox/BigBox could get some startup/exit script features when starting up or closing down bigbox? ... then I wouldn't have to roll my own like this.

Thanks!

launchbox-startup-scripts.zip 8.86 MB · 1 download

Looks like I had a bunch it crashes over the weekend but my Auto-relaunch script worked like a dream. @Jason Carr maybe you can build the auto-relaunch in bigbox as a feature since stability seems to be a known issue...at least until you get it running stable. Also, I think the reason the more people aren’t experiencing these crashes is because they aren’t TRUELY leaving BigBox in attract mode for long stretches of time. The issue only occurs if attract mode is left UNTOUCHED for hours/days. If you interrupt the attract mode but moving joystick or launching a game or back grounding bigbox so it pauses all videos and animations, then you didn’t really do a true attract mode stability test. I believe people (I have one friend who has this issue) are also experiencing bigbox randomly losing foreground focus (which pauses attract mode and animations); in that case attract mode really isn’t “running” during the non-foreground time and can’t be counted toward it’s time of stability... which would make it “appear” to be running for long periods of time. 

[Jason Carr]

We are currently in the process of upgrading to the latest .NET backend, which could address some of these issues for some people if we're lucky. We'll come back to this after upgrading everything to .NET Core 3.1 to see where we're at.

[MrSco]

On 7/21/2020 at 11:50 AM, Jason Carr said:

We are currently in the process of upgrading to the latest .NET backend, which could address some of these issues for some people if we're lucky. We'll come back to this after upgrading everything to .NET Core 3.1 to see where we're at.

I tested the latest version of LaunchBox/BigBox 11.4 with the .NET Core 3.1 update and BigBox still crashes the same way while in attract mode.

 

I figured I'd try installing windows 7 64bit on my NUC to see how bigbox likes that environment... it doesn't seem to like it very much. The video performance in bigbox is awful and full of artifacts unless switched from VLC to windows media player in options and even then the wheel scrolls so laggy and slow. at least in windows 10 the wheel and videos play ok for the most part... any idea why windows 7 is so laggy?

[Jason Carr]

1 hour ago, MrSco said:

I tested the latest version of LaunchBox/BigBox 11.4 with the .NET Core 3.1 update and BigBox still crashes the same way while in attract mode.

 

I figured I'd try installing windows 7 64bit on my NUC to see how bigbox likes that environment... it doesn't seem to like it very much. The video performance in bigbox is awful and full of artifacts unless switched from VLC to windows media player in options and even then the wheel scrolls so laggy and slow. at least in windows 10 the wheel and videos play ok for the most part... any idea why windows 7 is so laggy?

Windows 7 isn't optimized with the latest drivers or Microsoft optimizations, so that makes sense. Running Windows 7 at this point in time is definitely not recommended.

It's back to the drawing board then with those crashes, which I still have not been able to replicate with any consistency. I was able to get Big Box to crash once after running attract mode for 4 or 5 days straight a couple weeks back, but that's all I've seen since. Unfortunately I didn't get any leads on what caused that particular crash, but we'll keep our eyes open for anything new to look into.

[MrSco]

15 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Windows 7 isn't optimized with the latest drivers or Microsoft optimizations, so that makes sense. Running Windows 7 at this point in time is definitely not recommended.

It's back to the drawing board then with those crashes, which I still have not been able to replicate with any consistency. I was able to get Big Box to crash once after running attract mode for 4 or 5 days straight a couple weeks back, but that's all I've seen since. Unfortunately I didn't get any leads on what caused that particular crash, but we'll keep our eyes open for anything new to look into.

gotcha. I'm back on windows 10 and bigbox performance is restored again... still crashing though of course.

 

I have a clone of the usb drive i'm using if you want I can mail it to you so you can test my actual build/theme/data/hardware and maybe you can shine some light... (i'd say I'd upload it and share a link but its like 2TB and would take a week or more to upload). I've already invested money into purchasing this program so i don't mind paying some shipping to get it working properly.

Let me know. thanks!

[Jason Carr]

1 hour ago, MrSco said:

gotcha. I'm back on windows 10 and bigbox performance is restored again... still crashing though of course.

 

I have a clone of the usb drive i'm using if you want I can mail it to you so you can test my actual build/theme/data/hardware and maybe you can shine some light... (i'd say I'd upload it and share a link but its like 2TB and would take a week or more to upload). I've already invested money into purchasing this program so i don't mind paying some shipping to get it working properly.

Let me know. thanks!

Unfortunately I'm doubtful that having the drive would really help here; we've done enough testing to narrow it down to an operating system or hardware configuration/performance thing. I've done some more testing today and I think what's really happening is that Big Box just starts to eventually choke and die when the hardware can't keep up with attract mode. Especially on something like a Nuc, the hardware can get overwhelmed and the software starts falling behind pretty quickly. Attract mode runs on a timer, so if it queues up enough operations, eventually it'll just overflow and die if the hardware can't keep up.

That's a serious challenge to fix, but the simplest thing to do would be to just slow attract mode down. It runs lightning fast currently, which may be the cause of crashes on lower-end systems. I'll look to add a setting for that here soon, which will hopefully help.

[MrSco]

1 minute ago, Jason Carr said:

Unfortunately I'm doubtful that having the drive would really help here; we've done enough testing to narrow it down to an operating system or hardware configuration/performance thing. I've done some more testing today and I think what's really happening is that Big Box just starts to eventually choke and die when the hardware can't keep up with attract mode. Especially on something like a Nuc, the hardware can get overwhelmed and the software starts falling behind pretty quickly. Attract mode runs on a timer, so if it queues up enough operations, eventually it'll just overflow and die if the hardware can't keep up.

That's a serious challenge to fix, but the simplest thing to do would be to just slow attract mode down. It runs lightning fast currently, which may be the cause of crashes on lower-end systems. I'll look to add a setting for that here soon, which will hopefully help.

you keep talking about the NUC like its an underpowered device... the thing is a beast... 6th gen i7 with 8gb ram with 30% ram free while bigbox has been running for hours. Plus I've already stated that I've tested on multiple machines, not just the NUC, one of which is a 8700 core i7 with 16gb and a 1080ti gpu... this isn't a hardware issue... its a software issue.

I appreciate the idea of attract mode going too fast causing the issue as that is a software issue and makes more sense. The attract mode setting as it is now has it waiting 30 seconds between scrolls... that seems like plenty of time to catch up.

Do you use clear logo images on your game wheels or just text? my wheels all have clear logos for the platform and game names... could bigbox not be able to handle scrolling that many clear logos at attract mode speeds?

I really feel like if you had my drive in hand you'd easily be able to reproduce on any machine you plugged it into... it has crashed on every machine i've ran it on, i've let friends borrow and test it on their various laptops and gaming rigs... from slow to super fast and with fresh win10 installs... OS/hardware aint it.

[Jason Carr]

40 minutes ago, MrSco said:

you keep talking about the NUC like its an underpowered device... the thing is a beast... 6th gen i7 with 8gb ram with 30% ram free while bigbox has been running for hours. Plus I've already stated that I've tested on multiple machines, not just the NUC, one of which is a 8700 core i7 with 16gb and a 1080ti gpu... this isn't a hardware issue... its a software issue.

I'm not an expert on NUC devices, but the NUC is likely an underpowered device when it comes to the GPU and RAM. 8 gigs unfortunately these days is rather underpowered for Windows 10. Even just Firefox as I'm typing this is taking up more than 4 gigs of RAM. I'm not sure what graphics it's running, but I would guess that they're fairly underpowered.

43 minutes ago, MrSco said:

I appreciate the idea of attract mode going too fast causing the issue as that is a software issue and makes more sense. The attract mode setting as it is now has it waiting 30 seconds between scrolls... that seems like plenty of time to catch up.

Usually the issue comes more from the wheel scrolling so quickly during moving operations, and image caching, not catching up between moves.

44 minutes ago, MrSco said:

Do you use clear logo images on your game wheels or just text? my wheels all have clear logos for the platform and game names... could bigbox not be able to handle scrolling that many clear logos at attract mode speeds?

Yes, pretty much everyone uses clear logos, myself included.

45 minutes ago, MrSco said:

I really feel like if you had my drive in hand you'd easily be able to reproduce on any machine you plugged it into... it has crashed on every machine i've ran it on, i've let friends borrow and test it on their various laptops and gaming rigs... from slow to super fast and with fresh win10 installs... OS/hardware aint it.

Come to think of it, could the issue be that the performance issues and/or crashes are caused by running it off of a slow-ish external drive? That might be worth testing.

[C-Beats]

@MrSco is it possible that the PCs you are plugging the external drive to have entered sleep mode? By default Windows shuts off external drives when entering sleep or any "low power" or "power saving" mode. Is it possible those have not been shut off and the OS is killing connection to the drive thus causing issues?

[neil9000]

23 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

@MrSco is it possible that the PCs you are plugging the external drive to have entered sleep mode? By default Windows shuts off external drives when entering sleep or any "low power" or "power saving" mode. Is it possible those have not been shut off and the OS is killing connection to the drive thus causing issues?

Agreed, partly.

[MrSco]

27 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

I'm not an expert on NUC devices, but the NUC is likely an underpowered device when it comes to the GPU and RAM. 8 gigs unfortunately these days is rather underpowered for Windows 10. Even just Firefox as I'm typing this is taking up more than 4 gigs of RAM. I'm not sure what graphics it's running, but I would guess that they're fairly underpowered.

Usually the issue comes more from the wheel scrolling so quickly during moving operations, and image caching, not catching up between moves.

Yes, pretty much everyone uses clear logos, myself included.

Come to think of it, could the issue be that the performance issues and/or crashes are caused by running it off of a slow-ish external drive? That might be worth testing.

We've been over this already... I've tested and also my friend using a clone of my drive on a different drive (

):

Different drives (internal/external), different machines (high-end/low-end/in-between), fresh window 10 installs ... they all crash... and the one constant is BigBox.exe. you're NUC hardware argument holds no water unless you have an explanation for BigBox.exe crashing on my 8700 i7 16gb ram 1080Ti GPU. (and my buddy's gaming rig mentioned in his post).

 

I've attached my data folder... ? I'm out of ideas... its gotta be related to the actual software on the drive(s) either the launchbox setup/settings/data or the images or videos themselvess? ... not the hardware though... that's clearly proven with the testing.

 

Data.zip

[MrSco]

29 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

@MrSco is it possible that the PCs you are plugging the external drive to have entered sleep mode? By default Windows shuts off external drives when entering sleep or any "low power" or "power saving" mode. Is it possible those have not been shut off and the OS is killing connection to the drive thus causing issues?

no, computer is set not to sleep as is the usb drive, plus this happens on internal drives as well and on many different high end machines. also the crash happens randomly... from hours to days sometimes and anything in between.

[Jason Carr]

@MrSco Alright, well, forgive me for forgetting about some of what we've gone over in the past. Unfortunately for legal reasons I can't have you mail me the drive. That said, your Data folder might have some clues in it, though I feel like you've probably sent it to me previously. I'll look.

At this point though, you might be right that the issue is caused somehow by the data on the drive, if that seems to be the culprit/common ground. Maybe try temporarily renaming media folders to see if you can figure out where the issue is?