Updated to latest launchbox and now all my games are not launching

[3dlollo]

Just renewed my license last night, since I had a 2018 version and wanted to get the updated version, and after installing launchbox I copied all the games, images, data and videos folder over to the new installation location.

Then after doing that I removed the old folder (it was on an external drive) and renamed the launchbox folder as the original folder with the older version, so all the paths are exactly the same as before.

Now when I run any platform; nothing start.

I can run the emulator no problem, by right clicking on a game and starting the emulator; and I triple checked the paths and they are fine for the games and for the emulator; but when I double click on any game on any platform; the loading image appear, then nothing happens.

This is happening with Retroarch; I have the latest retroarch version and everything was working fine while I was using the old Launchbox version from 2018.

How do I fix this? I can see all the games and playlist; I can see images, boxarts and videos; I can launch the respective emulators but when I start a game nothing happens. Is there a log I can check to see what is going on?

[Retro808]

There have been a lot of changes since 2018 and the latest version. When you update the easiest thing to do is just run the update and let it install over top of the existing build. Doing it how you did can cause issues, not always, but it can.

I would first say confirm emulator path and game path in LB. In LB > Manage Emulators edit Retroarch and confirm the path it is showing for the exe is the correct path to it. I would also, just to be safe, check the Associated Platforms tab and make sure the platform names listed there match your LB platforms and the cores associated are correct. Then pick a game, right click and edit it. Check the path to the game is the correct path as well as make sure it is using Retroarch.

[3dlollo]

Thanks, I did as you suggested and I am getting the same issue.

I see no logs created; there is no error, nothing. Neither in retroarch nor in the logs folder of Launchbox; so I am clueless about what went wrong.

I kept from the data folder the xml files for platforms, emulators and inputbindings; since those are the ones I am using for the existing platforms; on top of the playlists and platforms folders.

I tried to delete all the games in a playlist and add them again; and it does the same. At this point  I have no idea about what is going on. Launchbox starts fine; it can find the images, movies, music and playlists; if I right click on a game to show the game folder it can find it no problem; the paths are all correct and if I run retroarch by itself it launch, but it refuse to run any games.

I just wish I kept the previous install folder from the working directory; because now my arcade machine is basically stuck in this state Possible that there is no log whatsoever anywhere?

[Retro808]

40 minutes ago, 3dlollo said:

Thanks, I did as you suggested and I am getting the same issue.

I see no logs created; there is no error, nothing. Neither in retroarch nor in the logs folder of Launchbox; so I am clueless about what went wrong.

I kept from the data folder the xml files for platforms, emulators and inputbindings; since those are the ones I am using for the existing platforms; on top of the playlists and platforms folders.

I tried to delete all the games in a playlist and add them again; and it does the same. At this point  I have no idea about what is going on. Launchbox starts fine; it can find the images, movies, music and playlists; if I right click on a game to show the game folder it can find it no problem; the paths are all correct and if I run retroarch by itself it launch, but it refuse to run any games.

I just wish I kept the previous install folder from the working directory; because now my arcade machine is basically stuck in this state Possible that there is no log whatsoever anywhere?

There will not be any logs as technically LB does not see an error. It sends the command line to RA to run the game and it does not register if it RA does run it or not. The best thing to do is determine if it is a disconnect in LB or actually something in RA directly. So let's start from the beginning then.

Without using LB at all. Can you run a game directly in Retroarch and it work?

If the answer is yes that usually means a disconnect in LB. The most common culprits are:

1. Wrong paths (games or emulator or both).

2. Missing or misnamed Associate Platforms.

3. Missing or incorrect cores.

Can you post a few pics:

1. >Tools > Manage Emulators and share 2 pics. One of the Details Tab and one of the Associated Platforms tab.

2. Edit a game and share 3 pics. 1). the Launching Tab 2). the Emulation Tab 3). The metadata tab

[3dlollo]

Hi,

I tried with retroarch by itself and it works fine; I can right click on "decathlon" for Atari 2600 and select "open retroarch" and it open retroarch no problem.

I then tried to run the game by double click on it and it didn't start.

I then opened retroarch and loaded the same "decathlon" game and it runs correctly.

triple checked the paths; they are correct;

- Games folder in the root of the Launchbox folder contains my roms

- Retroarch is in its folder, in the Launchbox root folder; this is how I had the previous Launchbox set up and has been working fine for all this time, until I updated

I tried with a different emulator (mame) and it does run fine; I just had to change the permissions so it can run as admin. I tried the same with retroarch.exe but it does not run; so the issue does not seem to be permissions.

You will find the images as requested below; please let me know if there is anything I can try. Thanks

[3dlollo]

I think I solved it.

For some reasons; when I updated; the option "don't use quotes" was selected; I removed that and now retroarch is working again.

This is insane to be honest... spent 6 hours trying to figure out what was wrong; and it did end up being an option reset (I assume that value is set as default somehow, but it was not default in my 2018 version of Launchbox?).

Just for the records; it would be good to have that option off by default for retroarch; in this way if someone else is experiencing my same issue; they know what to try to solve their issue.

Also can you please tell the devs to add a logging for launching emulators? In mame it takes me 5 minutes to figure things out because I can see the logs; but with Launchbox I have no way to tell what is going on; even turning on the logging debugging in the options (which BTW show a lot of exception "FIRST CHANCE"; no idea what is the context since it is referring to ImageSourceConverter; posted the full line here)

2021-03-14 10:16:17 PM FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: ImageSourceConverter cannot convert from (null).
   at System.ComponentModel.TypeConverter.GetConvertFromException(Object value)

Logs are vital to figure things out; I've been writing code for more than 20 years and every time I am troubleshooting anything, I almost always rely on logs.

Thanks for the help; now I can finally update the arcade machine and get back to business. Cheers

[neil9000]

5 hours ago, 3dlollo said:

Just for the records; it would be good to have that option off by default for retroarch

It IS off by default. I'm not sure what happened here but that option is off, if the Emulator entry is just called "Retroarch" then Launchbox knows the correct settings and applies them, it does not check that don't use quotes box, so that is completely unrelated to you updating the program.

 

5 hours ago, 3dlollo said:

Also can you please tell the devs to add a logging for launching emulators? In mame it takes me 5 minutes to figure things out because I can see the logs; but with Launchbox I have no way to tell what is going on; even turning on the logging debugging in the options (which BTW show a lot of exception "FIRST CHANCE"; no idea what is the context since it is referring to ImageSourceConverter; posted the full line here)

The problem there is how do we know if a emulator has launched correctly or not (short answer, we don't) we cant create logs for another program like that, they have there own logging and we would have to code Launchbox to somehow understand the logging of every different emulator out there, and thats just not going to happen, it's a lot of work which honestly, is completely unneeded.

 

6 hours ago, 3dlollo said:

Logs are vital to figure things out; I've been writing code for more than 20 years and every time I am troubleshooting anything, I almost always rely on logs.

Of course, and Launchbox has logging itself, but we cant really be expected to log other programs that are not created by us, especially as in this case the other program wasn't even launching, so there is no log from the actual program, so how is Launchbox supposed to get a log if the program launched doesnt even create one? That's just not feasible. 

[3dlollo]

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It IS off by default. I'm not sure what happened here but that option is off, if the Emulator entry is just called "Retroarch" then Launchbox knows the correct settings and applies them, it does not check that don't use quotes box, so that is completely unrelated to you updating the program.

Well, I am saying what I saw: I had a perfectly functioning install of LB; I copied the files into the new install of LB; and I run it; the option was not selected  before, otherwise I could not use retroarch at all; or if that option was selected before, it means that something changed in LB in the new version, which would cause my retroarch to not launch. There is not much in terms of assumptions there; those are the facts I brought up; sadly I do not have your source code so I can't check nor debug the issue; so I am just reporting what I see, and leave to the developers the investigation part.

Quote

The problem there is how do we know if a emulator has launched correctly or not (short answer, we don't) we cant create logs for another program like that, they have there own logging and we would have to code Launchbox to somehow understand the logging of every different emulator out there, and thats just not going to happen, it's a lot of work which honestly, is completely unneeded.

Understood; I assume when you launch an emulator you are not communicating with the PID of the emulator and collect any data coming from it, since LB act as frontend.

I may disagree on the completely unneeded; since you want to know why something goes wrong when you trigger another app. I am not sure how it works in the frontend world, but in my company, you want to get data that show if your app is the source of a problem, and why; which is the reason why logs exist. I didn't try to deal with Retroarch or other emulators so can't say how hard it is to get its output and interface to it; but I am sure you have evaluated the efforts, so I rely on your evaluation of benefits vs efforts.

Thanks for your reply and for the help; I've learned the basics about what to look for when I hit an issue with LB. Cheers!