Problem with steam and battle.net games not counting playtime.

[Stoneworld]

Hello everybody

Here's my problem. I have downloaded an addon for launchbox called "Playtime tracker": Playtime Tracker - Third-party Apps and Plugins - LaunchBox Community Forums (launchbox-app.com) and so far it's working well with any emulated game. NES, genesis and everything work well. The thing is counting my playtime flawlessly, nothing else to say.

Now the problem come when i want the thing to count my playtime with steam or battle.net games. It simply doesn't work... It's not counting and i suspect that launchbox isn't even aware the game is running. To be sure, i... well ok, i downloaded a pirated license off the web just to test the feature "minimize launchbox when the game is launched" and yep, as predicted Launchbox minimize for like a second and immediately come back before steam or battle.net finished loading the game. Before you bring your pitchfork at me, i deleted the fake license since then and i'm running on the free version again. I don't have much money (and i'm happy with the free version) and if the dev want it, i can give him the place where i found the pirated license. Now down bellow is a short video of my problem.

As you can see too, just in case you're doubting me, the words "version gratuite" can be seen on top of launchbox. Translating to "Free version".

Now, is there a way for launchbox to realize that a game is still running like it does for the emulator one? Because i searched for solutions to this before, and found nothing, hence why i'm writing here.

Thanks in advance.

[Grila]

Hi, I am the author of the plugin. If you follow the hyperlink you posted above to the actual download page of the plugin, you'll see a "Known Issues" section in the description that describes exactly what you are asking about.

TLDR: It's an API issue and no way around it for certain platforms, ie Steam.

[Stoneworld]

Right... but i still believe it's something worth looking for. Because if somebody pay for a license, activate the "minimize launchbox when a game is launched" and see launchbox not minimizing with any steam or battle.net game, i think this person will be a bit disapointed.

Just my 2 cents. Otherwise if it's really a non-issue, i guess there's nothing else to troubleshoot.

[neil9000]

1 hour ago, Stoneworld said:

Because if somebody pay for a license, activate the "minimize launchbox when a game is launched" and see launchbox not minimizing with any steam or battle.net game, i think this person will be a bit disapointed.

Third party plugins are nothing to do with Launchbox or whether you have a license or not. We offer the plugin system, but that is it, none of the available plugins are vetted or maintained by the Launchbox devs, they are wholly maintained by the plugins author, it makes no difference if you payed for a license or not. Also you accepted this agreement when you downloaded any "Third Party" plugin or program.

13 hours ago, Stoneworld said:

Now, is there a way for launchbox to realize that a game is still running like it does for the emulator one? Because i searched for solutions to this before, and found nothing, hence why i'm writing here.

This is likely due to the fact that the store launchers are launched, and then minimized, so that is the window being tracked. I'm not sure about Battle.net off hand, but steam has it's own built in playtime tracker anyway. At the end of the day these features are not officially supported by Launchbox, hence they can be a little wonky, they are added by users and are not our code, plugin creators can only work with the tools they have been given by us, if those tools dont cater to specific uses there is nothing the plugin creators can do about that.

[Stoneworld]

8 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Third party plugins are nothing to do with Launchbox or whether you have a license or not. We offer the plugin system, but that is it, none of the available plugins are vetted or maintained by the Launchbox devs, they are wholly maintained by the plugins author, it makes no difference if you payed for a license or not. Also you accepted this agreement when you downloaded any "Third Party" plugin or program.

I agree, except that the "minimize launchbox when a game is launched" is not a third party plugin, it's part of the core program.

I know there's no way for this plugin to work with steam and such, i get that. My point is that is someone pay for a license and see one of the core feature not working with certain platforms (Minimize launchbox when a game is launched is a core feature not working with steam, battle.net and most likely origin and uplay, didn't tested those), this person is gonna get confused as to why it won't work and sooner or later will come here for an explanation.