Big Box - Crashing while in attract mode

[vrocco]

Any progress on this issue. I found this thread as I am new to BigBox and have noticed after being in attract mode, the videos first start to lag behind (I.e. The video won’t match the game selected or the graphics on the screen) and then eventually just freezes altogether. I must then restart BigBox.
 

Running the latest version with the CoinOps Redux theme. Tried all suggestions (no flv videos, using VLC, image quality medium, no transitions) to make it run better but nothing seems to help. 

I love the ease of the program. After transitioning from HyperSpin, I was set up and running in no time. Bought the lifetime subscription to support development. I really hope I don’t need to find a new front end again. Thanks in advance. 

[arcademode]

On 11/15/2024 at 7:49 PM, vrocco said:

Any progress on this issue. I found this thread as I am new to BigBox and have noticed after being in attract mode, the videos first start to lag behind (I.e. The video won’t match the game selected or the graphics on the screen) and then eventually just freezes altogether. I must then restart BigBox.
 

Running the latest version with the CoinOps Redux theme. Tried all suggestions (no flv videos, using VLC, image quality medium, no transitions) to make it run better but nothing seems to help. 

I love the ease of the program. After transitioning from HyperSpin, I was set up and running in no time. Bought the lifetime subscription to support development. I really hope I don’t need to find a new front end again. Thanks in advance. 

Just emailed back and forth a bit with Brian again, my crash has returned - kind of?  I updated to the newest version, then experienced the Attract crash, then reverted to my last stable install but the crash remains. The weird thing is I have an older PC upstairs and when I put my BB drive in there it will still run for days.  So there's some hardware conflict of some kind happening somewhere.  For now I'm just leaving attract off when I want to run it for long periods.  Sucks that you don't get the attract mode but it's much better than having no front end active when you want to walk up and play. 

[QuincyR]

Hi Everyone, I recently purchased the lifetime Big Box license and started migrating my library over from CoinOps & Hyper spin. I started with by only downloading videos from Emu movies and I've also run into the attract mode crash a number of times. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes it takes minutes. I'm using the latest version of Launchbox/BigBox and there are no FLV videos, only Mp4 in my collection. I'm partly thinking it might be audio related and not a video specific problem, probably switching between 5.1 and 2.1 stereo videos is causing a problem.

I'm hoping to try this out a bit more and see if there is a connection, but it would be great to find this issue so I can use the shell feature.

[QuincyR]

I have another thought, could this be caused by the resuming of videos during Attract mode? I just noticed that the videos don't start from the beginning each time the same game comes up ( which i actually like btw). However, I'm willing to bet the crash occurs when the video has played though fully, and needs to start over, or on the second attempt to start the video from the beginning.

Edited April 7 by QuincyR

[QuincyR]

This is getting frustrating. for whatever reason, its crashing more frequently after importing about 8000 games. Big box has crashed 7 times today. I don't think its been running for more than 1.5 hours, The fastest was 15 minutes after I started it while exiting a menu category. So I don't think the issue is possibly connected to attract mode, it may be something else as it has occurred when I was simply navigating myself/ I'm really disappointed, I can't import my game library with this stability issue. 

Edited April 7 by QuincyR

[tlallen29]

Now I'm starting to get crashes in attract mode. Before it would do it every blue moon. But it happened 3 times yesterday within 3 hours. . I just turned the arcade off. I hope someone can figure this out.

[MrSco]

crashes have started happening very frequently in attract mode now. even with default theme. within minutes or an hour at most. It used to at least run for some hours before crashing. I can't believe this has been busted like this for so many YEARS!

In an effort to get to the bottom of it, I asked chatgpt for some incite based on the event viewer errors (not very descriptive most of the time). I also wrote a powershell script to test all the video files for corruption... it found two corrupted videos even though the videos played fine... I'll attach the script and the busted videos in hopes it will shed some light...

Application: BigBox.exe CoreCLR Version: 6.0.3624.51421 .NET Version: 6.0.36 Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception. Exception Info: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at SharpDX.XAudio2.VoiceShadow.VoiceVtbl.OnVoiceProcessingPassStartImpl(IntPtr thisObject, Int32 bytes) Faulting application name: BigBox.exe, version: 13.18.0.0, time stamp: 0x670d0000 Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000 Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x00007ffccad25773 Faulting process id: 0x2154 Faulting application start time: 0x1DB5B7A6AF92289 Faulting application path: H:\Arcade\LaunchBox\Core\BigBox.exe Faulting module path: unknown Report Id: 13e25831-29f3-4802-83a5-84da61c57c95 Faulting package full name: Faulting package-relative application ID: The program BigBox.exe version 13.20.0.0 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Security and Maintenance control panel. 

i'm getting these errors randomly while bigbox is running in attract mode idle... just randomly stopping on different games to play their videos and display their artwork


It appears that BigBox is encountering an unhandled exception within its audio processing code—specifically in the SharpDX.XAudio2 layer—while it’s in attract mode. The error message:

> **System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.**  
> **at SharpDX.XAudio2.VoiceShadow.VoiceVtbl.OnVoiceProcessingPassStartImpl(IntPtr thisObject, Int32 bytes)**

suggests that something in the audio “voice” processing for your media playback isn’t being properly initialized or is being prematurely disposed. In practical terms, when BigBox rotates through the various games and their associated videos or artwork, an audio callback (or a resource that the callback expects) is missing, leading to a crash with an access violation (0xc0000005).

I'm gonna run another attract mode test and see if it crashes now. will report back.

Check-VideoCorruption.zip corrupted_videos.zip corrupted_videos_found.txt

[MrSco]

that didn't take long... crash again...

 

The program BigBox.exe version 13.21.0.0 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Security and Maintenance control panel.

 

[jestermgee]

Have also had the same happening, new install, dedicated system for BigBox. 

I have it setup on my test bench running while I work.

It was running attract for about an hour and I noted the screen was frozen, could not CTRL+ALT+DEL either but keyboard numlock I could toggle on and off. The PC fans were also running high so seemed something was working the CPU. 

I left it alone for another few minutes and eventually the screen switched to another screen but the whole system then locked up and became unresponsive. 

I am a new user, only setup BB 2 weeks ago and this is the 4th freeze this has had, usually when I have it connected to the TV and switch to our apple TV to watch something, switch back to play some games with the family and the thing is again frozen. I would honestly just disable attract however then you are left with a game stuck on screen constantly looping the same demo video which in some cases can make you go insane. Was almost going to build a dedicated cab but can't have it locking up. 

Probably more of a FR, but I would LOVE to have an attract mode that didn't scroll through lists and instead just faded inout between different games (from a selection of pre-selected playlists). This is how my vpin does attract, it runs all day sometimes and has never crashed or frozen in 2 years (running pinup popper). Does deflate me a little since I invested in this solution based on a recommendation from my brother so I hope there is some focus happening to investigate the stability of attract mode.  

[MrSco]

16 minutes ago, jestermgee said:

Have also had the same happening, new install, dedicated system for BigBox. 

I have it setup on my test bench running while I work.

It was running attract for about an hour and I noted the screen was frozen, could not CTRL+ALT+DEL either but keyboard numlock I could toggle on and off. The PC fans were also running high so seemed something was working the CPU. 

I left it alone for another few minutes and eventually the screen switched to another screen but the whole system then locked up and became unresponsive. 

I am a new user, only setup BB 2 weeks ago and this is the 4th freeze this has had, usually when I have it connected to the TV and switch to our apple TV to watch something, switch back to play some games with the family and the thing is again frozen. I would honestly just disable attract however then you are left with a game stuck on screen constantly looping the same demo video which in some cases can make you go insane. Was almost going to build a dedicated cab but can't have it locking up. 

Probably more of a FR, but I would LOVE to have an attract mode that didn't scroll through lists and instead just faded inout between different games (from a selection of pre-selected playlists). This is how my vpin does attract, it runs all day sometimes and has never crashed or frozen in 2 years (running pinup popper). Does deflate me a little since I invested in this solution based on a recommendation from my brother so I hope there is some focus happening to investigate the stability of attract mode.  

I wouldn’t hold your breathe. It’s been busted like this for many years now and across many devices. Lots of others having the same issue. The only workaround is to use a theme that has attract mode not play any videos. Super lame in 2025 we can’t play some videos without crashing. 

[C-Beats]

11 minutes ago, MrSco said:

I wouldn’t hold your breathe. It’s been busted like this for many years now and across many devices. Lots of others having the same issue. The only workaround is to use a theme that has attract mode not play any videos. Super lame in 2025 we can’t play some videos without crashing. 

AttractMode using WMP and the default theme should be stable. Changing theme or video playback can make your mileage vary pretty considerably since theme's can be made in a way that is known to have issues with memory stability. VLC in current build also is known to bring down the app faster because of a leak in the process.

[MrSco]

23 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

AttractMode using WMP and the default theme should be stable.

Tested many variations over the years. Even this one. Crash city. Such a shame cause it’s an amazing app otherwise. It just can’t play videos for shit

[C-Beats]

4 minutes ago, MrSco said:

Tested many variations over the years. Even this one. Crash city. Such a shame cause it’s an amazing app otherwise. It just can’t play videos for shit

There have definitely been times where the app hasn't be as stable, but as of the current release our internal testing last I knew is showing it is. I'd try to update to latest and try again. If you're not seeing it as such let us know via the bug report system.

[MrSco]

1 hour ago, C-Beats said:

There have definitely been times where the app hasn't be as stable, but as of the current release our internal testing last I knew is showing it is. I'd try to update to latest and try again. If you're not seeing it as such let us know via the bug report system.

This has been happening for years. Tested after every update and on multiple systems. Always running the latest version. You can see the history in this post and others 

 

[C-Beats]

Just now, MrSco said:

This has been happening for years. Tested after every update and on multiple systems. Always running the latest version. You can see the history in this post and others 

Yeah, it comes up again pretty regularly, as stated there have been some ups and downs with Attract Mode stability, but there have been quite a few releases where as long as you were using a theme built correctly that attract mode worked just fine. The migration to .NET 9 admittedly stirred up a lot of old ghosts we had previously rid ourselves of and so there was a recent version or two where it was pretty bad, but the large majority of that should have been corrected by now when using the correct settings. Why I wanted to make clear, if you're still seeing it let us know because it's news to me that people are stilling having issues on current version.

[MrSco]

On 6/3/2024 at 10:12 PM, C-Beats said:

If you're not already, use VLC as the media player. WMP is fairly unstable comparatively. Also what version are you on? I know we had code changes fairly recently to help with stability.

so I guess i switched my bigbox video setting to use VLC a year ago as directed by @C-Beats ... and more recently when I checked the setting, I only checked in LaunchBox settings, not also in BigBox and BigBox had it still set to VLC from last year's testing... So now BigBox AND LaunchBox are both set to WMP for video playback and I've had BigBox attract mode running for over 24hrs and no issues or crashes. Its the longest it's ran without crashing in a long time. I'm gonna let it go for another couple days over the weekend to be sure, but it seems like the code base has fully switched back to VLC being garbo and wmp being stable now. ... maybe pop a warning to users who have VLC still set in their settings warning of instability with a check box to not remind again if they wanna keep vlc garbo... cause if thats really the issue, thats pretty bad to allow users to make their settings unstable by having updates roll out without warning the user their settings are no longer ideal... they'd have to go into the settings and see that VLC is now labeled (Deprecated)... which I'd argue is useless to most users who have no idea what that word means lol

[C-Beats]

2 hours ago, MrSco said:

so I guess i switched my bigbox video setting to use VLC a year ago as directed by @C-Beats ... and more recently when I checked the setting, I only checked in LaunchBox settings, not also in BigBox and BigBox had it still set to VLC from last year's testing... So now BigBox AND LaunchBox are both set to WMP for video playback and I've had BigBox attract mode running for over 24hrs and no issues or crashes. Its the longest it's ran without crashing in a long time. I'm gonna let it go for another couple days over the weekend to be sure, but it seems like the code base has fully switched back to VLC being garbo and wmp being stable now. ... maybe pop a warning to users who have VLC still set in their settings warning of instability with a check box to not remind again if they wanna keep vlc garbo... cause if thats really the issue, thats pretty bad to allow users to make their settings unstable by having updates roll out without warning the user their settings are no longer ideal... they'd have to go into the settings and see that VLC is now labeled (Deprecated)... which I'd argue is useless to most users who have no idea what that word means lol

Yeah when we moved to .NET 9 it cleaned up stability in WMP but tanked it for VLC. There IS a prompt now last I knew in BB when you try to set playback to VLC (WMP is default) that tells you crap could break.