LaunchBox for Android New Version - Beta Testing

[Jason Carr]

32 minutes ago, Nora said:

nope but now is displaying a read only file system error

I see, thanks. At least that points us in the right direction. Before those errors popped up, were you prompted to allow reading and writing to the file system? Android should be showing you a popup requesting those permissions.

[Nora]

Just now, Jason Carr said:

I see, thanks. At least that points us in the right direction. Before those errors popped up, were you prompted to allow reading and writing to the file system? Android should be showing you a popup requesting those permissions.

I got a storage permission but that’s it

[Jrami223]

Nice!!

[dragon57]

Do I need to uninstall the original version before I side load the latest beta?

[Jason Carr]

1 hour ago, dragon57 said:

Do I need to uninstall the original version before I side load the latest beta?

To be honest, that's been unclear (seen different results on different devices). Can you test on your device and see if it works to install it without uninstalling the previous version? If the install errors, then you'll probably need to uninstall the previous version first. Make sure you do a backup because Android of course will delete the entire app folder, if your data is underneath the Android folder.

3 hours ago, Nora said:

I got a storage permission but that’s it

Okay, that should be what's happening. If you allow the permission, the device should grant write permissions as well. I've heard that there are some third party devices that don't behave as they should, however. There might be a setting on your device somewhere to enable writing to files and folders in the root of external storage.

One thing that we changed with this new version is that by default we're using a folder in the root of internal or external storage, called LaunchBox, instead of Android's convoluted default folder paths under /Android/data/com.unbrokensoftware.launchbox. The problem with using those folders is that newer versions of Android don't allow one app to read another app's data folder, which ruins the potential for firing up an emulator pointed to that folder. So I'm not sure what else we could do at this point. We may be able to revert to the old method as a failsafe, though.

[dragon57]

15 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

To be honest, that's been unclear (seen different results on different devices). Can you test on your device and see if it works to install it without uninstalling the previous version? If the install errors, then you'll probably need to uninstall the previous version first. Make sure you do a backup because Android of course will delete the entire app folder, if your data is underneath the Android folder.

 

OK, tried to install over the top, but that didn't work. No real error message, just didn't seem to do it, although the install process seemed to finish as expected. After I uninstalled, the beta installed fine.

BTW, running Android 10 here on an LG G8.

[cleverest]

Were we supposed to get an email for the latest beta? Last email I got was for Beta 2

[dragon57]

9 minutes ago, cleverest said:

Were we supposed to get an email for the latest beta? Last email I got was for Beta 2

Same.

[Jason Carr]

3 hours ago, dragon57 said:

OK, tried to install over the top, but that didn't work. No real error message, just didn't seem to do it, although the install process seemed to finish as expected. After I uninstalled, the beta installed fine.

BTW, running Android 10 here on an LG G8.

Thanks, sounds like it's probably going to require an uninstall.

2 hours ago, cleverest said:

Were we supposed to get an email for the latest beta? Last email I got was for Beta 2

There's an automatic update process now, so we haven't sent new emails out after beta 2. You can upgrade to the latest by checking the box to update to betas in the options. You should prompted on startup to update.

[dragon57]

The last beta I got an email for was beta 2. When was the update code inserted into the betas? Beta 2 isn't seeing any upgrade out there. I made sure I turned on check for beta releases under options, then I restarted the app. Nothing seen.

Also, it takes a really long time for the app to start now, and this is with no media or roms imported. I have a totally clean system.

Just wondering if anything I am seeing abnormal?

[bundangdon]

@Jason Carr Thanks a lot for the prompt reply to my earlier request. I've got the latest Android version up and running now, and it's working pretty smoothly so far. Just wondering, will you be adding in the ability to allow users to place their own images in the appropriate directories? The online scraper works pretty well, but there's a few games which it couldn't find and sometimes it would be nice to have my own custom images. Also, the ability to use screenshots in the background (instead of fanart) would be quite nice too.

[Jason Carr]

7 minutes ago, dragon57 said:

The last beta I got an email for was beta 2. When was the update code inserted into the betas? Beta 2 isn't seeing any upgrade out there. I made sure I turned on check for beta releases under options, then I restarted the app. Nothing seen.

Also, it takes a really long time for the app to start now, and this is with no media or roms imported. I have a totally clean system.

Just wondering if anything I am seeing abnormal?

The auto-update code is in beta 2. Just make sure you check the box to update to beta releases, and then restart the app. Multiple people have tested that functionality without any issues, so I'm doubtful that it wouldn't be working. If it doesn't have a stable connection, though, then it will just silently fail.

As far as startup time, sometimes Android will just on one-off occasions take longer to start new apps, but the startup time should be exactly the same as the previous version, because nothing changed in that regard at all. So yes, I would say that's abnormal if you're getting that issue regularly. What device are you using?

5 minutes ago, bundangdon said:

@Jason Carr Thanks a lot for the prompt reply to my earlier request. I've got the latest Android version up and running now, and it's working pretty smoothly so far. Just wondering, will you be adding in the ability to allow users to place their own images in the appropriate directories? The online scraper works pretty well, but there's a few games which it couldn't find and sometimes it would be nice to have my own custom images. Also, the ability to use screenshots in the background (instead of fanart) would be quite nice too.

Thanks, good to know. Yes, we will be adding features to manually add media here soon. The new Export to Android functionality will also allow you to achieve this by editing things on the desktop first. Good to know about screenshots as well.

[dragon57]

OK, my mobile network must have had an issue earlier. The app was probably silently failing like you mentioned. I just tried it again and it updated.

I still have random slow startups. Nothing in the log file. When it starts quick, it is almost instant. When it is slow, it takes between 10-15 seconds. I have a large amount of space on the internal memory. I'm stumped.

Running Android 10 on an LG G8.

 

[Mulder83]

thank you so much If I can test the launchbox in my Nvidia thanks

[SupaGrova]

I am getting a "read only file system" error on my NVidia Shield TV(2015 model). If I click OK, I then get a "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" error.

I tried:

Installing to both internal and external storage

Re-download the apk. 

Making sure storage permission is enabled in the app.

PS: The app installs and works on my Samsung Galaxy S10 plus.

 

[Jason Carr]

49 minutes ago, SupaGrova said:

I am getting a "read only file system" error on my NVidia Shield TV(2015 model). If I click OK, I then get a "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" error.

I tried:

Installing to both internal and external storage

Re-download the apk. 

Making sure storage permission is enabled in the app.

PS: The app installs and works on my Samsung Galaxy S10 plus.

 

The Nvidia Shield TV is unique in that it only allows you to write to the "NVIDIA_SHIELD" folder in the root of external storage. Where is your LaunchBox folder? It should be under "/NVIDIA_SHIELD/LaunchBox" for any Nvidia Shield TV devices (and it should default to that if that "NVIDIA_SHIELD" folder exists).

[Jason Carr]

7 hours ago, dragon57 said:

OK, my mobile network must have had an issue earlier. The app was probably silently failing like you mentioned. I just tried it again and it updated.

I still have random slow startups. Nothing in the log file. When it starts quick, it is almost instant. When it is slow, it takes between 10-15 seconds. I have a large amount of space on the internal memory. I'm stumped.

Running Android 10 on an LG G8.

I assume the slow startup happens before any text messages show up at the bottom of the screen? If so, unfortunately that's pretty much out of our control. It's just Android's magical loading mechanism before any of our code is really run. It might help to reboot the device to see if there's just too much running in background on the device and not enough free RAM left.

[Retro_Rage]

So I sent an email an got a response with the license but it appears as if the link to download is dead

[Jason Carr]

2 minutes ago, Retro_Rage said:

So I sent an email an got a response with the license but it appears as if the link to download is dead

You should have received two emails, one with a link to download, and one with your license. The download is not public yet, and the website isn't all there yet, which is why that link doesn't work (yet).

[foleyjo]

I've just noticed this thread. I previously purchased the app from play. Do I need to email my details or is that only to test the beta version, ie will you be sending out license keys for everyone who purchased the app after beta testing is complete?