Big Box - Crashing while in attract mode

[arcademode]

Hey gang, thought I'd chime in with some positive notes here on this somewhat bleak thread;  Brain over on the LB dev team has been emailing with me back and forth trying to sort this out.  He's narrowed it down a good bit and digging deep, so kudos to him and his efforts.  I'll update here when I know more.

 

 

[arcademode]

Heyo! Please check out the latest beta which has a patch to direct the .net memory issue. Big thanks to the devs for tackling this directly!

 

In my testing it is much more stable so far. 

[paddyG]

I've been having the Attract Mode freeze issue for over a year.  I installed the latest beta update last night, but it did not resolve the freeze.  I started Big Box at 10PM last night and when I woke this morning at 6AM, it was frozen, with the time displayed in the upper right corner as 1:35 AM.  BigBox was unresponsive, so had to quit it from Task Manager.  I restarted Big Box at 7AM, left for the day and when I returned home at 3PM, it was frozen again.  No one was around while I was gone to disturb it.   There was no attract video playing, but I could still hear audio.  That is the only difference applying the beta update... audio was still playing even though Big Box was frozen and unresponsive.  When I went to Task Manager, BigBox showed 4 running processes: CefSharp.BrowserSubprocess, CefSharp.BrowserSubProcess, Launchbox, Big Box.  BigBox showed about 800MB of memory usage when I quit it from Task Manager and also when I restarted it.  I have 15GB of total memory.

I rebooted the PC at 3:45 PM this afternoon and restarted BigBox (I have it set to autolaunch Big Box on startup).  I checked Task Manager and it showed only 3 processes this time: CefSharp.BrowserSubProcess, Launchbox, Big Box.  I'll keep an eye on it to see if it freezes again.  Hope not though.

Update: It froze-up again at 7:18 PM.  ::SHRUG:: 

Edited April 29, 2024 by paddyG
Update Status

[SatorSquare]

I am going to add my name to the list of users still having this issue. I've been waiting to post here until after the 13.3 release since it had listed fixes for various memory leaks and I had hoped it would resolve the issue but it has not. In my case, the app doesn't crash to the desktop but after about 12-16 hours it begins slowing down until it eventually locks up completely. I will say that before 13.3 when it reached this state, it required a hard reset, but now it seems to let me sluggishly open the menu and exit to the desktop. So that is some improvement I suppose . It happens in unified or default themes. 

[Traulq]

Sadly i have the same problem - left in attract mode with CoinOP theme and it eventually throws an error although it does give me a dialog box to close it. Will capture it next time and post

[MrSco]

I'm on default theme now on a brand new computer with brand new windows install on a nvme ssd.

I renamed my Videos folder to Videos_disabled and ran attract mode for 3 days no problems with images only.... but with videos playing i'm lucky if i get 8 - 12 hours.

I also ran all my video files through ffprobe and moviepy with a python script to check for bad video files and no errors thrown...

import os
import subprocess
from moviepy.editor import VideoFileClip

# Replace 'folder_path' with the path to the folder you want to check
folder_path = 'H:/Arcade/LaunchBox/Videos_disabled'

def check_video_files(folder_path):
    print('starting...')
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(folder_path):
        for file in files:
            if file.endswith(('.mp4', '.avi', '.mkv')):
                file_path = os.path.join(root, file)
                try:
                    clip = VideoFileClip(file_path)
                except Exception as e:
                    print(f'******Corrupted video file: {file_path}******')
                else:
                    clip.close()
                result = subprocess.run(['ffprobe', '-v', 'error', '-show_entries', 'format=bit_rate', '-of', 'default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1', file_path], capture_output=True)
                if result.returncode != 0:
                    print(f'******Corrupted video file: {file_path}******')

check_video_files(folder_path)

so it seems like bigbox attract mode fails playing video files after some random amount of time. but we already knew that... for years now. I wish it would be fixed. I think @Jason Carr mentioned he did attract mode stress testing with videos playing, but not sure how long

[C-Beats]

57 minutes ago, MrSco said:

I'm on default theme now on a brand new computer with brand new windows install on a nvme ssd.

I renamed my Videos folder to Videos_disabled and ran attract mode for 3 days no problems with images only.... but with videos playing i'm lucky if i get 8 - 12 hours.

I also ran all my video files through ffprobe and moviepy with a python script to check for bad video files and no errors thrown...

import os
import subprocess
from moviepy.editor import VideoFileClip

# Replace 'folder_path' with the path to the folder you want to check
folder_path = 'H:/Arcade/LaunchBox/Videos_disabled'

def check_video_files(folder_path):
    print('starting...')
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(folder_path):
        for file in files:
            if file.endswith(('.mp4', '.avi', '.mkv')):
                file_path = os.path.join(root, file)
                try:
                    clip = VideoFileClip(file_path)
                except Exception as e:
                    print(f'******Corrupted video file: {file_path}******')
                else:
                    clip.close()
                result = subprocess.run(['ffprobe', '-v', 'error', '-show_entries', 'format=bit_rate', '-of', 'default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1', file_path], capture_output=True)
                if result.returncode != 0:
                    print(f'******Corrupted video file: {file_path}******')

check_video_files(folder_path)

so it seems like bigbox attract mode fails playing video files after some random amount of time. but we already knew that... for years now. I wish it would be fixed. I think @Jason Carr mentioned he did attract mode stress testing with videos playing, but not sure how long

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.

[MrSco]

8 hours ago, 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.

Yep. On latest version of everything. Including launchbox 13.14 and using VLC as video setting. Coming up on a decade of this issue persisting. Something is fundamentally broken with continuous videos playing in bigbox. I smell memory leaks or a race condition. But from what I’ve tested my library isn’t the issue. BigBox software is. 

[C-Beats]

2 hours ago, MrSco said:

Yep. On latest version of everything. Including launchbox 13.14 and using VLC as video setting. Coming up on a decade of this issue persisting. Something is fundamentally broken with continuous videos playing in bigbox. I smell memory leaks or a race condition. But from what I’ve tested my library isn’t the issue. BigBox software is. 

What theme are you running? We test in default and last round of testing both Jason and Faeran were able to keep machines running for a week without issue after the latest round of changes.

[MrSco]

3 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

What theme are you running? We test in default and last round of testing both Jason and Faeran were able to keep machines running for a week without issue after the latest round of changes.

Default theme. As you can see from the multiple threads, many people are having the same issue for a very long time now. 

[C-Beats]

7 minutes ago, MrSco said:

Default theme. As you can see from the multiple threads, many people are having the same issue for a very long time now. 

Yeah, it's a thing we keep a pretty active eye on. Unfortunately there are a lot of variables that affect stability and it's not always a straight line to the solution.

[MrSco]

9 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

Yeah, it's a thing we keep a pretty active eye on. Unfortunately there are a lot of variables that affect stability and it's not always a straight line to the solution.

Oh I completely understand. Besides that the software is amazing and I recommend it to everyone. The crashing is the one pain point and stands out for me since everything else works so great. 
 

one thing that seems more unique to my crashes then others is 95% of the time when it crashes there is no error message. Others seem to get an error message. I’ve had error messages and Event log entries and posted them in this thread above I believe. But most of the time, The bigbox process just locks up and all videos freeze and controls are unresponsive. I have to kill from task manager. 

[C-Beats]

13 minutes ago, MrSco said:

Oh I completely understand. Besides that the software is amazing and I recommend it to everyone. The crashing is the one pain point and stands out for me since everything else works so great. 
 

one thing that seems more unique to my crashes then others is 95% of the time when it crashes there is no error message. Others seem to get an error message. I’ve had error messages and Event log entries and posted them in this thread above I believe. But most of the time, The bigbox process just locks up and all videos freeze and controls are unresponsive. I have to kill from task manager. 

When you do so, can you successfully restart Big Box or do you have to restart the computer first?

[MrSco]

18 minutes ago, C-Beats said:

When you do so, can you successfully restart Big Box or do you have to restart the computer first?

After I kill launchbox and big box, I can just start them again and it works without having to restart the computer

[arcademode]

On 6/4/2024 at 9:23 AM, MrSco said:

After I kill launchbox and big box, I can just start them again and it works without having to restart the computer

Prior to the fix I was unable to reopen Big Big without a computer restart after a Big Box crash - something to do with the .NET framework getting screwed up. I had a very long back and forth with LB dev Brian via email where I provided tons of logs and tests to him and he was able to make the latest patch with that. He mentioned the following;

"...it's more likely a page filing crash of some kind that's all controlled by .NET. The way .NET is supposed to work is that it's supposed to take care of this stuff automatically. It's one of the benefits of using a framework like this. This indicates there's something inherently wrong with what it's doing here, and we'll have to see what we can do to patch this up."

I recommend reaching out to the dev team directly so they can investigate your logs and (hopefully) get to the bottom of the issue. I think I may get a slightly sluggish issue people are talking about, but it's only after running for a VERY long time and there seems to be no crash for me anymore. 

 

 

[Retro808]

26 minutes ago, arcademode said:

I recommend reaching out to the dev team directly so they can investigate your logs and (hopefully) get to the bottom of the issue. I think I may get a slightly sluggish issue people are talking about, but it's only after running for a VERY long time and there seems to be no crash for me anymore. 

 

 

Just an FYI in case anyone is not aware @C-Beats who is responding here is one of our developers. 

[arcademode]

23 hours ago, Retro808 said:

Just an FYI in case anyone is not aware @C-Beats who is responding here is one of our developers. 

I figured c-beats was on the team, always coming in with informed assistance!  

[Traulq]

On 6/3/2024 at 5:44 PM, Traulq said:

Sadly i have the same problem - left in attract mode with CoinOP theme and it eventually throws an error although it does give me a dialog box to close it. Will capture it next time and post

Not terribly helpful i know but here's the dialog box i get. using  v13.13, CoinOp, 16GB RAM, SSD etc. Crash seems to happen after a couple of hours of mainly mame video previews playing.

Edited June 19, 2024 by Traulq

[paddyG]

If it might be of any help, is there a way I could actually send my entire PC to the LaunchBox dev team so they can see first hand what is going on when it freezes in attract mode?  I don't mind parting with it for a few months.  It's just a small HP EliteDesk 805 G6.  I would pay for shipping both ways as long as it is in the US.  Getting desperate to fix this. 

[arcademode]

On 7/1/2024 at 1:40 AM, paddyG said:

If it might be of any help, is there a way I could actually send my entire PC to the LaunchBox dev team so they can see first hand what is going on when it freezes in attract mode?  I don't mind parting with it for a few months.  It's just a small HP EliteDesk 805 G6.  I would pay for shipping both ways as long as it is in the US.  Getting desperate to fix this. 

Check out my comment a few posts up - I recommend getting in touch with the devs directly via email. You can exchange your Windows Logs to help them diagnose exactly what's going on.  They're certainly improving the issue but without knowing any specifics from your logs there's only so much that can be done.