BigBox startup video intermittent black screen, audio playing

[Jabb3rJaw]

Has anyone else noticed an improvement after the last update? I’ve only started my machine about 15 times but haven’t had the black screen issue so far and noticed Ledblinky starts a lot faster. I used to get almost a quarter of the way through my start up video without ledblinky lighting up but now it lights up controls almost right away. Big improvement for me so far but again with the black screen it might be too early to tell. Ledblinky launching earlier is noticeably faster!!! 

Edited February 5, 2024 by Jabb3rJaw

[tralfaz]

Been seeing this exact issue since building mine about 9 months ago.  More often than not the machine boots to a black screen.  Pressing a button gets past the black screen (plays the startup sound and displays the wheel).  I tried switching to Windows Media Player, same results.  I then assumed it was one video in particular, of about 30 I have in the startup folder.  I painstakingly removed all videos but one and rebooted, repeating with each video.  It became obvious no specific video was to blame.

I've got a Geekom mini PC with an i3-8109U processor in it.  Windows 11.  I have Bigbox set as the default Windows shell.  Virtually nothing else is installed on the machine (whatever comes with Windows with most of that disabled), Chrome, LB/BB, emulators.  That's it.

Frustrating, but I guess I'll just remove the startup videos.  Not the worst workaround, but the videos were a nice touch.

[Fursphere]

I'll add my experience...

Both of my standup cabinets randomly go to a 'black screen' on startup, and I have to bump the joystick or hit a key to get it to like..  wake up and then load the main view and start working.   But it'll just sit there for hours if I don't touch it.   Oddly, my sitdown Daytona USA twin (two PCs running LB/BB) doesn't have this issue.

All four use LEDBlinky, standups have Ultimarc IPac Ultimate I/O boards, sit down drivers have IPac-2 boards. 

All four use startup videos as well.   The two standups share a video, and the two driving cabs share a video.  

I never considered it to be a startup video file problem, but maybe?

[Fursphere]

Just had this happen again on my ExoDOS install on my desktop PC.  No startup video is present on this build.   So.. its not the startup video.

[damageinc86]

I just want to say that I feel for you all that are having troubles with this.  Personally, this has never happened to me, EVER.  But every time I see a new post show up for this thread it bums me out. 

[tralfaz]

On 2/5/2024 at 10:34 PM, tralfaz said:

Been seeing this exact issue since building mine about 9 months ago.  More often than not the machine boots to a black screen.  Pressing a button gets past the black screen (plays the startup sound and displays the wheel).  I tried switching to Windows Media Player, same results.  I then assumed it was one video in particular, of about 30 I have in the startup folder.  I painstakingly removed all videos but one and rebooted, repeating with each video.  It became obvious no specific video was to blame.

I've got a Geekom mini PC with an i3-8109U processor in it.  Windows 11.  I have Bigbox set as the default Windows shell.  Virtually nothing else is installed on the machine (whatever comes with Windows with most of that disabled), Chrome, LB/BB, emulators.  That's it.

Frustrating, but I guess I'll just remove the startup videos.  Not the worst workaround, but the videos were a nice touch.

Following up on my own post, I removed all of my startup videos about a month ago.  I have not had a startup hang since.  For me it appears to have indeed been the videos that causes the hang on startup.

[Jabb3rJaw]

Well I thought this was fixed but it’s happened a couple times now. LED blinky still loads faster which is nice but the black screen on start up is still happening. 

[sniffmyface]

Sorry to revive and old thread, but this is still happening to me. Roughly one or two in every ten times i move to a different game or platform in launchbox the video sound plays but not the video.

I'm on the latest version and have tried everything suggested here. It also happens on a fresh install i did as a test on another computer with just one platform installed.

Did anyone get anywhere with this?

[macmahoun]

Some time ago i had the exact same problem, every other video not playing when i move to another Game, only sound.
I switched to from VLC to Windows Media Player only to realize, that without a codec pack Media Player could not play Steam Trailers in webm format.
So i converted them all to mp4 und my problem was gone.
With the latest Launchbox Update i installed the recommended codec pack so windows media player now can play those Steam webm videos.
After importing some Steam Games i left them in webm format und you know what? The problem was here again.
To be clear, It does not only affect playing webm files but also playing mp4 videos.
So i converted again those few webm files to mp4 and the problem was again gone.
I wonder if only the presence of webm files in any Launchbox Video folder could possibly trigger this strange behaviour
So in short, if you have any Steam Trailers in your Launchbox folder, try moving them out and test if other mp4 files now play normaly in Launchbox.
 

Edited 10 hours ago by macmahoun