Pausing game crashes BigBox?

[Johnny T]

I've got a strange problem at the moment. When I 'pause' a MAME game in BigBox then the screen goes black and I can't unpause the game. 

I've set the pause theme to 'default' in both LB and BB (previously I was using the instruction card pause theme).

I've tested launching a MAME game from LB and pausing and it works correctly - it brings up the Resume menu with a graphic.

However, in BB it just freezes and I end up having to restart BB?

Anyone got any ideas on how I can diagnose what the issue is?

Thanks ?

[Your Friendly A.I Overlord]

On 5/31/2021 at 12:12 PM, Johnny T said:

Anyone got any ideas on how I can diagnose what the issue is?

in BigBox, maybe you are using a hotkey to bring up the pause menu that interferes with Mame?

Or in LaunchBox > Tools > Manage Emulators > Mame > Pause Screen tab, you could try ticking/unticking "Suspend Emulator Process While Paused" and "Forceful Pause Screen Activation". (I have them both ticked for the Pause Menu to work correctly with Mame.)

Edited June 2, 2021 by Koroth

[Johnny T]

3 hours ago, Koroth said:

in BigBox, maybe you are using a hotkey to bring up the pause menu that interferes with Mame?

Or in LaunchBox > Tools > Manage Emulators > Mame > Pause Screen tab, you could try ticking/unticking "Suspend Emulator Process While Paused" and "Forceful Pause Screen Activation". (I have them both ticked for the Pause Menu to work correctly with Mame.)

Great advice. I'll give that a go! Thank you ?

[curtis-r]

I'm having the same issue with MAME.  Pause Theme works in LB just fine, but in BB brings up a black screen & freezes.  Task Manager or reboot is the only way out. 

If I untick 'suspend emulator' in LB, The Pause Theme then works in BB but the game continues to run in the background.  I've tried using 'p' for Pause in BB and MAME, but also changing MAME to another key.  Also tried just unticking 'forceful' in LB but either same problem of not pausing MAME occurs, but also unpausing sometimes brings me back to the BB menu and I can still hear MAME running in the background.

A basic question is that is it ok (recommended) to use 'p' in BB/LB but also leave 'p' as pause in MAME?  Also, why in options is there a Pause in Keyboard and Keyboard Automation?  I have them both set as 'p' but don't have Use Keyboard Automation checked.

BTW, when I first started playing with Pause Themes days ago I had it working fine.  Not sure what I could have screwed up.

[Johnny T]

13 hours ago, curtis-r said:

I'm having the same issue with MAME.  Pause Theme works in LB just fine, but in BB brings up a black screen & freezes.  Task Manager or reboot is the only way out. 

If I untick 'suspend emulator' in LB, The Pause Theme then works in BB but the game continues to run in the background.  I've tried using 'p' for Pause in BB and MAME, but also changing MAME to another key.  Also tried just unticking 'forceful' in LB but either same problem of not pausing MAME occurs, but also unpausing sometimes brings me back to the BB menu and I can still hear MAME running in the background.

A basic question is that is it ok (recommended) to use 'p' in BB/LB but also leave 'p' as pause in MAME?  Also, why in options is there a Pause in Keyboard and Keyboard Automation?  I have them both set as 'p' but don't have Use Keyboard Automation checked.

BTW, when I first started playing with Pause Themes days ago I had it working fine.  Not sure what I could have screwed up.

I'm not sure about your issue - but, for me, unticking that Suspend Emulator Process While Paused seemed to do the trick.

It sounds like the answer is in there somewhere (i.e.. a combination of those settings you mentioned) as you've had it working and now it's stopped. 

If it was me, I would maybe just write out those different settings on piece of paper and put a cross on all the different combinations and then just rattle through them and tick-off whether it works or not on each combo?

I'm assuming your MAME and LB is fully up-to-date etc... 

Also worth checking if your Pause key works directly in MAME itself.

[halothereoj]

Any resolution to this? I have the exact same issue and have tried different options as well. Launchbox pause works with MAME but Big box does not. I even default all my controls thinking maybe I removed an important key and still having the same issues.

 

=====UPDATE 

 

so I finally came to a work around. Being that the pause function only works for me when I uncheck suspend emulator process it still does not pause the acutual game. I went ahead and made automation keys for the pausemenu. P will pause mame, and holding p and pressing escape brings up the menu. Only way I found a way around this was to uncheck that suspend emulator process in launchbox and do keyboard automation in bigbox. Let me know if this helps.

Edited April 18, 2022 by halothereoj

[hawkfanz]

I'm having this same black screen issue with MAME pausing.  I did have it working for a little but it seems to keep coming back.  Unticking and ticking options fixed short term but I can't make it consistently work.  I've got the most recent, MAME and launch box installed of course.  Any other option other than making a 2 button hotkey?  2 button hotkeys won't work in my setup as I'm using it on a cabinet that a lot of people will use and not know how to do that.  Both MAME and launchbox are set to P as pause but I wonder if there's a disconnect between launch box and big box settings somewhere.  I did adjust the AHK area to match the save a load keys I use but that seemed to break it also so I set those back to the defaults.  Wonder if it's a AHK crash.