12.7 Beta Testing

[The Papaw]

Maybe more of a question, but something I just noticed. If I add a Windows game manually, it will have the "Installed" checkbox checked. But it will not show the Badge for it after selecting OKAY unless I go right back in to edit the game, uncheck, then recheck the "Installed" checkbox. I wouldn't think it should do that, would it? Shouldn't it display the badge without all the extra steps?

Edited January 10, 2022 by The Papaw

[layne81]

so how do you download the 17.1 beta?

[Retro808]

47 minutes ago, layne81 said:

so how do you download the 17.1 beta?

Do you mean 12.7 beta?

You have to turn on beta options in LB.

>Tools >Options >Updates

[faeran]

Hi Everybody,

Beta 3 is now out with the following changes:

• New Premium Feature: Compatibility options have been added in Big Box for various types of wonky marquee screens that cut off or stretch the image (see the new Marquee Screen section in the Big Box options)
• New Premium Feature: Big Box users now have the option to stretch marquee images to fill the screen or keep their image aspect ratios (also in the new Marquee Screen section of the Big Box options)
• Improvement: Big Box will now use platform clear logos with fanart backgrounds on marquee screens if no marquee image exists (just like the games views previously already did)
• Improvement: Big Box marquees are much lighter to run and should have less performance bottlenecks on lower-end hardware
• Improvement: Clear logos and fanart backgrounds will no longer occasionally flicker behind marquee screen images during transitions
• Fixed - Restored ability to delete rows from the Drag and Drop ROM import wizard
• Fixed - Corrected some Tools menu items from always being disabled

 

For Users on Beta 1 or Beta 2:
There's the potential that your update will not initialize after it downloads. If this happens to you, there are 2 workarounds to get you up and running on Beta 3.

1. Go into Options > General > Updates and turn on the option Automatically Download Updates in the Background, and press Okay. Once LaunchBox has downloaded in the background, it will prompt you to install it.
2. Check your Updates folder for the following file and run it: LaunchBox-12.7-beta-3-Setup.exe. During installation, double check your install path is correct (It is common to mistakenly install a second version of LaunchBox inside of your LaunchBox folder, creating a LaunchBox\LaunchBox folder scenario).

If you do require a manual link to Beta 3, please use the following: https://www.dropbox.com/s/44fixb7cmdhx3fr/LaunchBox-12.7-beta-3-Setup.exe?dl=0

[JaysArcade]

Nice to see Marquees getting some love!

[Jason Carr]

13 minutes ago, JaysArcade said:

Nice to see Marquees getting some love!

I was finally able to get a hold of a marquee screen myself. I'll post details on that here soon in a separate post.

[RULLUR]

What about a way to make Banners act as Marquees or the other way around? I love the Background with Clear Logos idea too. I at times have thought about if we could ever make Marquees be used as Clear Logos too since there are cases where there isn't a Clear Logo made for a title yet

[JaysArcade]

1 hour ago, RULLUR said:

What about a way to make Banners act as Marquees or the other way around?

Can be done in the community theme creator already. The problem with banners though is there is no standard size, where marquees are mostly all in a similar size/ratio. Not a huge problem if you grab the right media. On the flip side, there are no platform marquee images. This requires platform banners to be used as platform marquees. Not a deal breaker, but it does make theme creation with platform marquees interesting. Below are a few marquee views I've been working on.

 

Platform Marquees

 

Games View Marquees with Video marquees, image marquees, and Platform Banner/marquee fallback if neither image or video exists

[JaysArcade]

Sorry, I don't mean to hijack the thread with my stuff. I'm just excited for marquees!

[RULLUR]

Yeah, I was just thinking about even though Banners come in various sizes from something about Marquee size to just as small as the binding of a box that the whole fit or stretch thing may do it a bit of justice, but I'm loving that animated video Marquee stuff though.

[RULLUR]

So it looks again like I'm coming across a Bug Report whenever I try to Update the Metadata. I've closed it and restarted the PC, and even let it be shut down for a few hours. Any idea why it does this and how I can work around it until it gets fixed in a later Beta?

[C-Beats]

On 1/16/2022 at 9:11 AM, RULLUR said:

So it looks again like I'm coming across a Bug Report whenever I try to Update the Metadata. I've closed it and restarted the PC, and even let it be shut down for a few hours. Any idea why it does this and how I can work around it until it gets fixed in a later Beta?

Can't even begin to guess the cause for what you're seeing without you posting the error message you are seeing.

[C-Beats]

On 1/14/2022 at 8:35 PM, RULLUR said:

What about a way to make Banners act as Marquees or the other way around? I love the Background with Clear Logos idea too. I at times have thought about if we could ever make Marquees be used as Clear Logos too since there are cases where there isn't a Clear Logo made for a title yet

We honor your Marquee Image Type settings in our default marquees. If you want to utilize a banner image AS a marquee simply add them to your image priorities (it is already added by default) and it should be utilized by the Default Marquee View

[mdreffet]

On 1/16/2022 at 8:11 AM, RULLUR said:

So it looks again like I'm coming across a Bug Report whenever I try to Update the Metadata. I've closed it and restarted the PC, and even let it be shut down for a few hours. Any idea why it does this and how I can work around it until it gets fixed in a later Beta?

I was having this problem too. I reinstalled launchbox on top of my build and it fixed it. I have no idea what caused it.

[Sbaby]

I had to cancel the update, it crashes

[Rincewind]

1 hour ago, Sbaby said:

I had to cancel the update, it crashes

Yes @faeran mentioned that above, If you were on a previous beta version then there was a chance it would not install after downloading so just go into your updates folder and run the newest version which will install over the top (just remember to check the install path is correct).

[RULLUR]

7 hours ago, mdreffet said:

I was having this problem too. I reinstalled launchbox on top of my build and it fixed it. I have no idea what caused it.

Yeah, that totally fixed it. Sorry I was unable to get time to post the Bug Report so that @C-Beats and others on the Dev Team can permanently resolve it too. I'll try to make sure in the future to get them posted

Edited January 18, 2022 by RULLUR

[Drybonz]

Same problem with the auto-install of the latest beta hanging at, apparently, 100% progress.

[faeran]

1 minute ago, Drybonz said:

Same problem with the auto-install of the latest beta hanging at, apparently, 100% progress.

You can check the first post out:

Also, another way I missed is to update via Big Box. That should work too if you have access.

[The Papaw]

On 1/7/2022 at 6:39 AM, The Papaw said:

v12.7.1 - When I use the "Games Missing Media", allow it to check the metadata, then trying to update what it finds, say box fronts or 3d boxes for the 400+ games, it just hangs on "Initializing process" for me. Cancel isn't working right either. I can close LB and try again, does same thing. Anyone else? 

 

I posted about this a week or so back concerning the "Update Metadata and Media Wizard". I have spent many hours this past week trying to figure it out and still haven't found a solution. I have learned more about the problem and thought maybe if I shared more info, especially the video, someone might be able to help figure it out. 

This time all the testing done was using v12.7.3, v12.6, v12.5 (12.7.3 was used in video) with on a external SSD with Launchbox and ALL paths using default folders. So I have eliminated the NAS side of it

PC Specs:
Intel 8086k
32GB Ram
Nvidea 1080ti FTW
Launchbox installed on 256gb External SSD with nothing but it and media.
No major changes in system in past month or so and all drivers are current.
Win 10 with current updates

I ran into this with beta 12.7.1. (all my media is stored on mapped NAS drives). I hadn't tried using the option for finding "Update Metadata and Media Wizard" feature in a while, and when it failed (just hung on "Initializing"), I went back and tried installing 12.5 and 12.6 over it and got the same results.

I found a copy of my LB folder (v12.3) I made as a backup when I was doing something and I tried it and it works just fine (even using paths to media on NAS drive).

Here is what I am finding with v12.5, v12.6 and all the 12.7 betas. If I select 304 or less games, it appears to works as expected, If I select 310 games or ALL games via <CTRL> + <A>, it just gets stuck on "Initializing". I have even let it sit all night.

I also noticed that if I let it Refresh images, I will come up with a number (notice "Games missing Boxes" in the video finding 481), then after selecting 300 games and running "Update Metadata and Media Wizard", the number will drop to 465. I can close LB, go right back into it, let it refresh again and it will show 481 again. Something isn't updating, downloading or refreshing correctly.

I included logs and the video below (log 1. showing it working with 300 games and log 2. showing it hung on Initializing when I selected 310 games).

1.Debug 2022-01-19 09-27-20 AM.log

2.Debug 2022-01-19 09-34-09 AM.log

I've tried deleting LB Cache, the ListCache.xml file, using Data folder from the working v12.3 copy and all kinds of other things.

Any ideas or help is much appreciated

 

Edited January 19, 2022 by The Papaw