Errors during ROM import and long import times

[xM0RKx]

Hello there friends,

I'm new to LaunchBox and I'm having an issue importing my games.  I'm starting with my NES ROMs of which I have over 2000.  I ran the import for about 5 hours and when I checked on it I was only to the D's.  I was also showing over 500 errors.  I've attached a screenshot of some of there errors I was getting.  They all seem to follow the same two formats...

Could not download image http://images.launchbox-app.com/<filename.png> for <game name>: RushDownloader failed to download file.

Could not download image http://api.gamesdbase.com/<filename.png> for <game name>: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not... (the error message goes on)

The only think I could think to do was make sure all communication from both launchbox and bigbox was allowed through windows firewall.  I added those rules and I'm still having the same issue.

My system information:   Lenovo m700 tiny, intel i3 3.2 Ghz, 8 Gigs RAM, 1 Tb Samsung 870 EVO SSD, Windows 10

Are these errors just typical?  If not, does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?  I'd like to be able to import my games without it taking multiple days per system platform.

Thanks buds

Edited April 8, 2021 by xM0RKx

[C-Beats]

Could you get me the entire message of "A connection attempt failed because the conneted party...". It looks like your internet connection is cutting out during the import process.

[xM0RKx]

I'm re-importing right now to get that full message.  I'm using a wired connection and don't normally have issues with my internet service.

[xM0RKx]

18 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

Could you get me the entire message of "A connection attempt failed because the conneted party...". It looks like your internet connection is cutting out during the import process.

The full message for the second error type is...

Could not download image http://api.gamesdbase.com/<filename.png> for <game name>: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.

[C-Beats]

Yeah. That error typically means one of two things. You lost internet connection or your connection isn't stable. You are sending requests but not receiving the response, whether it be because your net cut out or the packet was some how dropped.

[xM0RKx]

1 hour ago, C-Beats said:

Yeah. That error typically means one of two things. You lost internet connection or your connection isn't stable. You are sending requests but not receiving the response, whether it be because your net cut out or the packet was some how dropped.

Does anyone know of a test I could run to see if my internet is indeed dropping out?  Though I doubt that is the issue.  I work remotely via an RDP connection to my computer at my office.  If my internet was dropping out I would think that would also kill my RDP connection.  Or at least cause issues with my work connection.

[C-Beats]

52 minutes ago, xM0RKx said:

Does anyone know of a test I could run to see if my internet is indeed dropping out?  Though I doubt that is the issue.  I work remotely via an RDP connection to my computer at my office.  If my internet was dropping out I would think that would also kill my RDP connection.  Or at least cause issues with my work connection.

RDP is a lot more resilient than HTTP/S. There are built in mechanisms into RDP that allows it to simply delay or queue messages until net connection resumes, and then it pushes them all to keep you in pace. HTTP/S and the processes we use do not have that redundancy. I would assume that it is either a routing issue, or you are having issues with packet loss. I doubt it's a complete network disconnect, but I suppose it's possible.

[C-Beats]

Curious @xM0RKx if you are still having this issue or not. If you are could you turn on debug logging if not already and try the download again and send me the log when it fails.

[xM0RKx]

@C-Beats I found a work-around though I imagine that this would still be an issue for many.  When I was testing my internet connection I ran a trace-route through my router's networking tools.  This tool gives me the locations off all of the hops.  I realized that the LaunchBox and EMUMovies websites are hosted in the Netherlands and Russia respectively and that my issue might simply be due to geography.  I turned on my VPN and connected to a server in the Netherlands and then everything worked fine.  So I would expect for a lot of people like me in the Midwest USA, importing media might be a big issue if you don't have a VPN.

[neil9000]

Just now, xM0RKx said:

@C-Beats I found a work-around though I imagine that this would still be an issue for many.  When I was testing my internet connection I ran a trace-route through my router's networking tools.  This tool gives me the locations off all of the hops.  I realized that the LaunchBox and EMUMovies websites are hosted in the Netherlands and Russia respectively and that my issue might simply be due to geography.  I turned on my VPN and connected to a server in the Netherlands and then everything worked fine.  So I would expect for a lot of people like me in the Midwest USA, importing media might be a big issue if you don't have a VPN.

The thing is though our server has been in Holland for a long time now, that is not something that is new. Also it shouldn't matter where a server is based, you can still connect to it, just because its not in the same country as you doesnt mean that you cant use it, unless your specific ISP is trying to limit or block your connections to other country's. I am in the UK and can connect to both Launchbox and Emumovies with none of these issues at all. So i would lean more towards Router/ISP interference than anything else.

[C-Beats]

9 minutes ago, xM0RKx said:

@C-Beats I found a work-around though I imagine that this would still be an issue for many.  When I was testing my internet connection I ran a trace-route through my router's networking tools.  This tool gives me the locations off all of the hops.  I realized that the LaunchBox and EMUMovies websites are hosted in the Netherlands and Russia respectively and that my issue might simply be due to geography.  I turned on my VPN and connected to a server in the Netherlands and then everything worked fine.  So I would expect for a lot of people like me in the Midwest USA, importing media might be a big issue if you don't have a VPN.

Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if there was some net hub some where along the path that was causing the issues, and using a VPN would alleviate that because it forces use of a different path. I live in the Midwest though and I haven't ran into the issues being reported. It very well could be ISP related, or have to do with how the ISP is routing the traffic.

[neil9000]

Also, and not wanting to start a country flame war here, the US is notorious for having really poor internet infrastructure, some of the worst in the developed world depending on where you are located. So as @C-Beats said bad nodes along the way are a big possibility as to the issues being seen. By "average speeds" you are 13th in the world, but thats not a truthfull statistic if the major cities have GB fibre, and elsewhere has less than 10Mb/s.

[rexryan]

4 hours ago, neil9000 said:

Also, and not wanting to start a country flame war here, the US is notorious for having really poor internet infrastructure, some of the worst in the developed world depending on where you are located. So as @C-Beats said bad nodes along the way are a big possibility as to the issues being seen. By "average speeds" you are 13th in the world, but thats not a truthfull statistic if the major cities have GB fibre, and elsewhere has less than 10Mb/s.

How would you know this being from the UK? Did you copy  facts from an article? Sometimes your post and help are just straight out wrong.. Stick to what you actually know and not try to get the i have thousands of post award it's more beneficial to alot of people.. Just scroll the last 3 days of your post not alot of help more critizing than anything...

[Retro808]

1 hour ago, rexryan said:

How would you know this being from the UK? Did you copy  facts from an article? Sometimes your post and help are just straight out wrong.. Stick to what you actually know and not try to get the i have thousands of post award it's more beneficial to alot of people.. Just scroll the last 3 days of your post not alot of help more critizing than anything...

This type of post is not helpful either. It lacks any form of help and makes assumptions. So let's all take this as the warning and leave well enough alone. Anything further thread will be locked and warning/possible temporary bans given.

[FrankEire]

Hi Guys,

I'm in the same boat although I have not tried a VPN.  any game I select and download metadata, images will all fail to download.

Example here is body count for Sega, fails to download cover, I can click the link from a browser and see the image is there https://images.launchbox-app.com/31d9dae0-80c8-4dd4-b8be-29d652e60d87.png

Traceroute has no issues

While testing all this I have a continuous ping running on both google and images.launchbox-app.com and neither are dropping packets.

Running ver 11.10

any help would be much appreciated

[xM0RKx]

Update...

I was messaging with C-Beats about my issue.  They suggested I clear my DNS cache in order to be able to import media without using my VPN work-around.  I flushed my DNS cache on my computer and tried to import a new system of ROMs and I received the same errors.  However, the next day I gave it another shot and it worked.  Not sure why the delay but so far I've imported multiple new ROM sets and so far so good.  To clear your computer's DNS cache follow these steps (copied and pasted from google)

1.) Select the “Start” button, then type “cmd“.
2.) Right-click “Command Prompt“, then choose “Run as Administrator“.
3.) Type ipconfig /flushdns then press “Enter“. (be sure there is a space before the slash)

Though I can't say for sure if this is actually what fixed things for me

[EMUDL082]

I am having similar issues, 24+ hours to import Full Mame Set, plus errors.  I think the problem is at EmuMovies.

 

Edited April 17, 2021 by EMUDL082