Unable to launch any games via Retroarch directly from Launchbox since upgrade to 11.9

[dearodie]

Hello,
I've tried a number of fixes for this but no success.
The xml files seem ok (I.E. emulator / platform GUIDs are consistent) but retroarch will not launch when double clicking a game icon.
This happens for all cores except Saturn (Beetle), which launches Retroarch, but then errors with "Failed to set last used disk" .
This works fine directly from Retroarch, with same cores, same ROMs/images.
I can also launch games fine when using other emulators inside of LB (I.E. I use native ppsspp and Dolphin and not the RA cores for these).
I can right-click a game in LB -> Open RA, load the game and core and that works fine as well.
This was working fine before 11.9, and before I loaded SNK Neo Geo AES platform + ROMs.
The logs have no info, or I don't which logging to enable.
I removed the "SNK Neo Geo AES platform", launching LB as Administrator, still same issue.

I'd rather not have to reload the entire library/art/vdeos...etc.

[mjandhj820]

I am running into a similar problem. Upgraded to 11.9 and been away for few weeks and now none of my games will launch in Big Box or LaunchBox using Retroarch emulator. Was working fine before. Is there some setting I have to update or change? Games work fine if I just use Retroarch. Very frustrating.

[mjandhj820]

OK I fixed mine after spending all night searching. Somehow in my settings in LaunchBox, when I went to Edit Emulators for Retroarch, this box was checked. I unchecked the box and all the games started launching again. Here are some articles I read through and eventually tried this suggestion. Hope they help someone else.

 

 

[dearodie]

Well mjandhj820, it was not that exact problem for me, I had found these articles and confirmed I did not have that box to use quotes checked.
But. I did have the box below checked to use filenames only, not the full path. I unchecked this box and tada ... all work now.
Not sure how it got changed, but I can see why it would cause problems.

In any case, you are a gentleman, thank you for posting your findings and screenshots!

Edited February 27, 2021 by dearodie

[harrisone]

So I have had this issue all weekend and it was driving me nuts. 

I bought a new HTPC for my bedroom to replace a micro gaming PC I had in there for the longest time. I went with a Lenovo M75Q Gen 2 (as recommended by ETA Prime on his youtube channel).

I have had NO issue in the past duplicating my main gaming PC's LaunchBox setup for my secondary machine. I am running 11.9 on my main machine, and was on the PC I was replacing as well. RetroArch 1.9.0 as well on both. 

Post Duplication

Instantly have the issues that everyone here was describing. However, I had one additional problem.... After the freeze in LaunchBox, I could no longer open in regular RetroArch either (without it freezing like it did when I launched with LaunchBox).

Fix - Delete RetroArch.cfg and I could at least launch in RetroArch solo again.

What worked for me

I tried all of the fixes above, but it still came back. I was about to scrap the whole project and go back to using a Pi4 in the bedroom. One last ditch effort worked for me.

Keep in mind, I was desperate to find the answer or scrap it because my retro game count is ~20,000 games. I did NOT want to re scrape all those titles and re download the art, etc.

Anyways, here is what worked...

1) Under manage emulators, selected RetroArch. Went to associated platorms and deleted ALL platforms I was using with RetroArch. 

Side note: I initially tried troubleshooting and tried this fix with JUST PS1, and it did not work. I had to remove all associated platforms for this fix to work.

2) Removed (deleted) RetroArch from LaunchBox

3) Re added RetroArch

4) Added each platform back with my preferred cores

5) Went to each group of games/platform, pressed CTRL +A to highlight them all, right click, Edit, bulk edit Emulator, select RetroArch

6) Repeat for each platform I was using with RetroArch

This, was the ONLY way I got it to go back to normal. If I did not complete step 5/6, the same issue came up.

Hope this helps those who were still having an issue.

[kidpenfold]

Fast forward three years and I too had this problem with Beetle-Saturn and the above suggestions all didn't work. However, launching directly from RetroArch did work so that meant the problem lies somewhere in LaunchBox.

And in my case, it's the new automatic rom importer. I noticed that every game that didn't launch listed all the constitute parts of the game as different versions: the data-containing ISO or BIN file; the other tracks (usually WAVs or other BINs); the CUE file and if there were multiple 'discs' so therefore multiple CUES linking to multiple other files, the M3U file. Could LaunchBox be attempting to pass the first of these files (usually the main BIN or ISO) to RetroArch and then failing?

Yes. Yes it does.

Now fortunately, the fix is to edit the metadata (select the game and CTRL-E), go to Launching and set ROM File to the CUE file of your single-disc game or the M3U file of your multi-disc game. Unfortunately, you have to do this for all your affected games.

Actually, no you don't.

Much easier is to delete the affected game from the platform list in which it appears. With this view still open, now drag either the CUE or M3U file of the game into it. The Import wizard should appear, the correct platform should be selected and go through the familiar steps to import the game. Once done, your game is back in the list, there are no extraneous 'versions' listed and the game should launch successfully. If it still doesn't, make sure your CUE file(s) list the correct filenames of the constituent parts and your M3U file lists the correct filenames of the CUE files, if such a file is required.