New versions of LB don't allow you to regain focus/click

[Sbaby]

5 hours ago, duerra said:

• Do you have any software installed which may interact with the Windows environment or task bar in any way, such as my situation with DisplayFusion?

No, I do not have software installed that interacts with Windows or the taskbar, such as DisplayFusion. However, I have four monitors (3 screens + one TV via HDMI) and I often use the WIN+P combination to switch between one monitor and three monitors or just the TV. However, the problem occurs even without changing screen configurations, such as after a normal Windows reboot.

I have noticed that, Launchbox remembers the last monitor I opened it on, while BigBox sometimes confuses the order of the monitors: while all games and emulators always open on the central desktop display, BigBox sometimes starts on the left or right one. That said, the problem occurs even when only one monitor is active. I believe Windows maintains an internal numbering of monitors that may be different from what LaunchBox recognizes, even when the other monitors are off or disabled.

 

5 hours ago, duerra said:

• Do you have any non-default settings in your LaunchBox install as it pertains to games - for example, I have the Launch Screen disabled in my settings.  Other things might include (but not in my case), AHK scripts or other software which may get invoked when launching a game.

Each game and emulator is configured differently, but I highly doubt the issue is related to game launches. In fact, the freeze with LaunchBox happens even when I just open it to browse around without starting any games. Sometimes I leave it open while doing other things on Windows, and when I come back, it’s completely unresponsive. That’s why I believe game launches aren’t the cause of the issue.

[duerra]

3 hours ago, Sbaby said:

In fact, the freeze with LaunchBox happens even when I just open it to browse around without starting any games. Sometimes I leave it open while doing other things on Windows, and when I come back, it’s completely unresponsive. That’s why I believe game launches aren’t the cause of the issue.

I've anecdotally felt like the same thing, that it happens randomly and not as a result of a game launch or close action, but could not be 100% sure that it didn't happen after closing a game from a previous play session and that I didn't notice until I came back later.

[duerra]

13 hours ago, duerra said:

Please see the attached video.

Just bumping this to page 2 so a team member doesn't accidentally miss it.

[AstroBob]

Hi Folks, 

Apologies for the delayed response here, thanks so much for the recent troubleshooting steps and repro video. Just to let you know I've collected all this info and we're trying our best to reproduce this on our end. 

We haven't had any luck so far but will keep trying and I'll reach out if we need any more info in the meantime. 

Thanks for bearing with us here while we try and nail this down, really appreciate it. 

[AstroBob]

Hi @duerra

Sorry for the dealyed response here, we've been using your video to try and narrow things down but unfortunately we're not able to reproduce this yet. We do have one hypothesis that I'm hoping you can help us test (and @Sbaby too). 

When LaunchBox opens a second window (e.g., the storefront manager, platform manager, etc.), this window takes precedence over the original LaunchBox window, and you cannot interact with it until this new window is closed. We've seen some instances in the past, where a second LaunchBox window may open but become hidden, preventing interaction with the first LaunchBox window until the hidden one is closed.

While this doesn’t appear to be the case for you, it would be helpful to rule it out. Here’s an easy way to test: when LaunchBox becomes unresponsive, open the Task Manager and check the LaunchBox process. Normally, it will just display as “LaunchBox,” but if there is an additional LaunchBox window open on top, it will show as “LaunchBox (2).”

Can you confirm if this happens when the issue occurs? If so, this might explain the unresponsiveness, and we can investigate further from there. Please let me know how it goes, and thank you for the detailed troubleshooting steps you’ve provided. We’ll get this sorted out!

[duerra]

I actually just checked that independently earlier today after the "freeze" happened again after a round of Rocket League. There are 2 subprocesses, but they were there after LaunchBox restart, too. 

[duerra]

Here's my "functional" LaunchBox instance:

 

My "frozen" instance earlier today was identical to this, so I didn't save the screenshot.  Note: I just launched a fresh instance, which is why the processor usage is so high.

Edited November 12 by duerra

[Sbaby]

20 hours ago, AstroBob said:

Hi @duerra

Sorry for the dealyed response here, we've been using your video to try and narrow things down but unfortunately we're not able to reproduce this yet. We do have one hypothesis that I'm hoping you can help us test (and @Sbaby too). 

When LaunchBox opens a second window (e.g., the storefront manager, platform manager, etc.), this window takes precedence over the original LaunchBox window, and you cannot interact with it until this new window is closed. We've seen some instances in the past, where a second LaunchBox window may open but become hidden, preventing interaction with the first LaunchBox window until the hidden one is closed.

While this doesn’t appear to be the case for you, it would be helpful to rule it out. Here’s an easy way to test: when LaunchBox becomes unresponsive, open the Task Manager and check the LaunchBox process. Normally, it will just display as “LaunchBox,” but if there is an additional LaunchBox window open on top, it will show as “LaunchBox (2).”

Can you confirm if this happens when the issue occurs? If so, this might explain the unresponsiveness, and we can investigate further from there. Please let me know how it goes, and thank you for the detailed troubleshooting steps you’ve provided. We’ll get this sorted out!

Hi,

thanks for looking into the situation! I confirm that when LaunchBox crashes, my experience is similar to @duerra 👇

19 hours ago, duerra said:

 

Instead, I am attaching a screenshot of my Task Manager as soon as I open LaunchBox: although you mention a possible second window, in my case I have only one visible window of LaunchBox, the startup window (without touching anything) , However, in Task Manager there are two instances of the “LaunchBox” process.👇

I hope this information can help narrow it down and give us a better understanding of what is causing the problem.

Thanks again for your support!

[Sbaby]

Then :
I did not perform any operations with LaunchBox; I simply minimized it in the Systray and continued working on other tasks. After about 20 minutes, when I reopened LaunchBox, the program did not respond for about 10 seconds and then resumed normal operation. This is the current state of the Task Manager. 👇

[duerra]

It just happened again, again the last game played was Rocket League.  Here is my task manager output:

 

[Sbaby]

Launchbox completely frizzed out without ever starting any games, I had just opened it and left it in the background

[AstroBob]

Hi Folks, 

Thanks for the updates there and for testing this out. I think we can safely assume my hypothesis was not correct, since what you're seeing in the task manager is normal. I'd like to move on to try and isolate certain feature sets that may / may not be causing the issue.

@duerra, based on your observations of it happening shortly after closing a game, I am curious if you have LaunchBox's startup/shutdown screens enabled. If so, could you please temporarily disable them and see if the issue still happens? Tools > Options > GamePlay > Game Startup and then turn on Use Game Startup Screen

Secondly, can you disable LaunchBox's notifications by going to (Tools > Options > General > Notifications)

And then thirdly, can you please try disabling auto-store imports ( Tools > Manage > Storefronts) and then turn off Enable Automatic Imports On Startup

Please turn these off one at a time, and see if any has any effect before disabling the next one so that we can identify which of these make a difference.

Thanks for continuing to help us test this, please let me know how you get on

[duerra]

@AstroBob

• I had startup screens disabled for a long time due to eXoDOS not being compatible, but recently re-enabled them for everything else except eXoDOS, in part to try and see if it could be related to this issue somehow.  It has persisted with both settings. My shutdown screens are whatever is default.
• Just converted notifications from LaunchBox notifications -> Windows notifications, since disabling them isn't an option that I can select.  I'll report if it happens again following this change.
• I do not use automatic store imports.  This problem existed before that feature was even released.

To be clear, I believe the issue arises in other scenarios outside of game launch/shutdown, but am not 100% sure on that.  @Sbaby seems confident that it arises independently of game launches.

Edited November 26 by duerra

[AstroBob]

Hi There,

Thanks for the update there and apologies for the delayed response here. This is a particularly taxing issue since after countless tries we are not able to reproduce this behaviour on our side 😭 That said, I have a few more ideas of things we could try:

• I would be interested to know if a certain application is pulling focus away from LaunchBox which could be contributing to the freeze, we've had some people find luck with using a focus logger app, which at the time of problem could show any background processes or apps that may be interfering. Here's an example one you could use (https://github.com/JocysCom/FocusLogger)
• Outside of that, we'd really need to isolate if it is a LaunchBox issue or something else in your environment that is causing LaunchBox to freeze. The only way to narrow this down is to install a completely new build of LaunchBox (using the 13.17 installer), and only import a few games (not AHK scripts, no plugins, nothing custom at all, just vanilla LaunchBox). If the issue persists on that new build, then at least we know it's something in your specific environment, and if not, we know that it's something related to your specific LaunchBox setup (could be your data files, could some custom plugin or script you're using, anything that isn't vanilla LaunchBox). I realise it may be hard to test that, but it would be the next logical step to trying to narrow this down

Let me know how you get on, and thanks for bearing with us here

[duerra]

I could try the focus logger app, but I'm very hesitant to start all over again with LaunchBox.  I've been curating my LB install for many years now, including many custom platform categories that I've set up, etc.  I don't have any real custom AHK scripts outside of basic support for ESC key-to-quit support for a couple emulators.  I don't do anything particularly unusual, but it is highly curated and meticulously managed.

Edited December 4 by duerra

[AstroBob]

No worries, I totally appreciate the hassle this is to test out, but just to clarify I'm not suggesting you need to rebuild your primary build from scratch. What I meant was that you can install a new build alongside your current one just for testing purposes in case it can help us narrow things down. 

That said, I realise it's easier said than done since the issue happens sporadically and you wouldn't want to run for a long time off this test build, but if it's a possibility and you can confirm it does or doesn't happen there then we'll have a good indication of where to look next.

[duerra]

Hello -

Here is output from Focus Logger when this issue occurred again for me today.  Note that when clicking the already-expanded LaunchBox instance, nothing was recorded in the app.  When attempting to click icon on the task bar, you can see the DisplayFusion trigger followed by the "Idle" trigger.  Nothing else I have seen produces this "Idle" output.  I decided in this situation to try and exit DisplayFusion, but that also did not correct the problem.  I also locked and unlocked my computer, which also did not make any difference.

[AstroBob]

Hi Folks,

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you. I have both good and bad news regarding the situation.

The Good News:
I’ve encountered this issue myself and believe I have some insight into what might be causing it. Essentially, when a secondary LaunchBox window is open, you’re unable to interact with the primary window until the secondary window is closed. We suspect the problem arises when a secondary window is triggered, but another task running in the background takes over and prematurely closes that window.

In my case, I was bulk editing metadata and performing several tasks when I noticed the secondary window suddenly disappeared. It seems that LaunchBox still “thinks” this window is open—even though it’s not—which leaves the primary window unresponsive. While your scenario might differ slightly, the underlying issue seems to be that although no secondary window is visibly open, LaunchBox behaves as if there is one.

The Bad News:
Unfortunately, we haven’t yet been able to reliably reproduce this issue. Without a consistent way to replicate it, implementing a fix is challenging. That said, we’re much closer to understanding the root cause and will continue investigating ways to reliably reproduce the issue.

If either of you can pinpoint a way to consistently trigger this issue with clear steps, please let me know—we’ll be actively working on this as well. I apologize for not having a definitive fix at this stage, but I believe we’re heading in the right direction. Please keep me updated on any developments on your end, and I’ll do the same.

Thank you for your patience!

[duerra]

@AstroBob as a dev myself, Schrödinger's Bugs can be exceptionally frustrating.  I'm glad you were able to reproduce it, and your description and hypothesis on the issue does track for me.  I hope you guys are able to identify resolution for it.  As you noted, I have not found a reliable way to reproduce the issue.  It happens seemingly at random.  Sometimes I'll get it more than once a day, and other times I could go a week or two without seeing it resurface.

[AstroBob]

Thanks for your understanding @duerra, it’s definitely been a tricky one to track down, but I was surprised (and glad) when I encountered it myself. However, like you, I haven’t been able to consistently reproduce it. It hasn’t happened to me again since the first time I experienced it, but at least we now have a solid hypothesis. We’ll keep an eye out for it moving forward, and I’ll be sure to update you here if we make any breakthroughs.

Thanks for all your help with diagnosing this