Incorporating eXoDOS into current/existing LaunchBox Instance, Weird UX with "Install"

[duerra]

Hey -

I've incorporated eXoDOS into my current existing LaunchBox instance.  I'm having a weird issue where before I launch a game for the first time, it says "Play", and after I launch the game, the next time it always says "Install" instead of "Play".  I can manually edit the status as installed, but again when I launch the game, it ends up again reverting and saying "Install" when I select the game in LaunchBox again the next time.  Any idea why this keeps happening or what I can do about it?

Interestingly, the game launches always crash when I have the Game Launch Screen option enabled in LaunchBox, as well.  I think it has something to do with the launcher .bat file in eXoDOS causing an issue while the overlay screen is present. 

[duerra]

Anybody else going through this exercise and have any thoughts or recommendations on resolving this?

[sundogak]

9 hours ago, duerra said:

Anybody else going through this exercise and have any thoughts or recommendations on resolving this?

Best to visit the ExoDos Discord site.  https://discord.com/invite/37FYaUZ
Plus 6.0 version is out as well that substantially changes install vs 5.0 

[duerra]

I actually came here after eXo declined to support me integrating into my existing LaunchBox install and sent me here instead.

[duerra]

Is there a way to simply disable the "Install" button and always show the "Play" button instead?

I just don't understand why LaunchBox is reverting the "Installed" checkbox after I've already marked the game as installed every single time after quitting the game.

Edited December 12, 2023 by duerra

[C-Beats]

As far as I remember the plugin eXo packages with his collection sets the installed flag which drives what you are seeing. @TimberlAndRE may be able to confirm. If that's the case he'd maybe be able to walk you through why the collection doesn't think the item in question is installed.

[duerra]

Here's an example video of what's going on. 

Edit: Apologies for the dialogue and child windows not showing, but what I'm doing is right-clicking, edit, then marking the game as installed.  Then I "Play" the game, and quit.  When I quit, I click the next game cover and go back to GTA, and you can then see that the game has reverted its "Installed" status and offers me to once again install the game.  It only reverts after launching and quitting the game.  Even though it's offering to Install the game, if I click that Install button, it launches the game just fine.

Edited December 12, 2023 by duerra

[Timber-eXoProjects]

@C-Beats is right, the flag is set by the eXoPlugin we added to the collection.

It checks for presence of the unzipped gamefolder. 

Since you can start the game, the folder must be there. But the plugin can't find it.

- do you use a NAS or network drive for the eXoDOS installation?

- do you changed the path of the eXoDOS folder for the gamezips? (Should be /eXo/eXoDOS/)

Maybe the plugin has no permissions to access the folder?

 

[duerra]

@Timber-eXoProjects

Yes, actually - the games are on my drive mounted NAS.  All the games are extracted, ie "installed." This is v5.

Since this is my LaunchBox instance, is this plugin even there? Maybe it came over when I copied folders into my existing install, but I don't recall explicitly grabbing a plug-in for the migration.

Thanks for working with me on this.

[Timber-eXoProjects]

The plugin can be found here:

/Plugins/eXoPlugin.dll

IIRC we had this once before where the files are on a NAS and somehow the permissions won't work for the plugin to "see" the folders on the NAS.

I think the solution was to reset the permissions on the NAS and set them again. But I'm not sure.

Do you have the Launchbox installation on your NAS too or do you use SymLinks?

[duerra]

No the LB install is in C.  No symlinks either - just correct XML pathing.  I'll check when I get home on of I kept the whole deeper folder structure. Not sure on what you mean by unsetting and setting perms again though.

Edited December 12, 2023 by duerra

[Timber-eXoProjects]

(I also would recommend to update to eXoDOS v6 of course, we changed a lot in the way the scripts and plugin work and added lots of games, images, manuals, extras and... 😉 )

[duerra]

I just downloaded it haha. But I wasn't sure if the issue was resolved though so I didn't want to go through the whole process again and end up with the same issue haha.

[Timber-eXoProjects]

1 minute ago, duerra said:

No the LB install is in C.  No symlinks either - just correct XML pathing.  I'll check when I get home on of I kept the whole deeper folder structure. Not sure on what you mean by unsetting and setting perms again though.

Ah, so you changed the paths of the game folder? Then the plugin can't find them I guess.

They need to be in /eXo/eXoDOS relatively to your Launchbox folder.

I recommend to use SymLink for the eXoDOS folder then.

Just create a SymLink in /eXo/ to the eXoDOS folder on your NAS.

You will find a detailed tutorial on our discord too.

[duerra]

Ok I'll check it out in a bit. When you say symlink, you mean the Windows version aka shortcut, right?

[Timber-eXoProjects]

5 minutes ago, duerra said:

Ok I'll check it out in a bit. When you say symlink, you mean the Windows version aka shortcut, right?

No, it's a real SymLink, not just a Windows Shortcut. Here's the tut from our discord:

 

How to run Launchbox from a Network Drive or NAS with a Symlink (tested on Windows 10 & 11)
Install eXodos
Download & install this shell extension (`https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html`) - no restart required
Using File Explorer (may work with other file explorers), Right click on the installed Networked eXodos folder and select 'Pick Link Source' - this selects the Networked eXodos folder as the soruce
Navigate to the Local folder you want the system to associate the Networked eXodos folder and right mouse click and select 'Drop As' pop out menu and then click 'Symobolic Link', it will create a 'new' folder with a small shortcut icon over
It has now created a Symlink folder and Launchpad can now be run from your network drive or NAS

It will affect performance as it's running over a network, however in my tests I'm happy with the speeds.

[duerra]

Beautiful, installing the link extension worked.  Thank you!

Now I need to make sure when I back up this folder, it's not going to try and copy all of eXoDOS as well haha

[duerra]

Awesome, it backed up perfectly as well.  Super thankful for your help.  Now to assess whether or not it's actually worth upgrading to 6.0 - y'know, as the old adage goes - "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Or "leave well enough alone."