zapzoop Posted June 6 Share Posted June 6 (edited) I've noticed recently games I've deleted come back after restarting Launchbox. I did some research and the common answer was there were backup files in "LaunchBox\Data\Platforms". I've gone in there and there and don't see any backup or duplicate files. I tried simply removing the .XML files there, but all that does is remove my entire games listing. I also checked to make sure the files weren't set to read-only. I also tried going into "Launchbox\Backups" and deleting everything, but the game keeps coming back. What else can I do? UPDATE: I'm still not sure why, but the issue seems to be when updating from an older database that has entries that are blank for the platform field. The problem occurs from 13.5 onward, but is not present in 13.3 and earlier. For now, the solution seems to be to revert back to 13.3. Edited June 9 by zapzoop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C-Beats Posted June 6 Share Posted June 6 5 hours ago, zapzoop said: I've noticed recently games I've deleted come back after restarting Launchbox. I did some research and the common answer was there were backup files in "LaunchBox\Data\Platforms". I've gone in there and there and don't see any backup or duplicate files. I tried simply removing the .XML files there, but all that does is remove my entire games listing. I also checked to make sure the files weren't set to read-only. I also tried going into "Launchbox\Backups" and deleting everything, but the game keeps coming back. What else can I do? Do you have automated imports turned on? If so they may be reimporting a game that is in your folder but not in your LaunchBox collection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zapzoop Posted June 6 Author Share Posted June 6 No, the option is unchecked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C-Beats Posted June 6 Share Posted June 6 Just now, zapzoop said: No, the option is unchecked. Which? There are two. One for storefronts, another for ROMs. If both are can you tell me what game/system you're seeing come back? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zapzoop Posted June 7 Author Share Posted June 7 (edited) 19 hours ago, C-Beats said: Which? There are two. One for storefronts, another for ROMs. If both are can you tell me what game/system you're seeing come back? I'm not sure actually, I guess ROMs? I went to Tools / Options / General / Automated Imports and the option there is unchecked. If it helps, I don't have launchbox connected to any of my accounts, nor do I use it to actually launch anything, I just use it as an organizer to keep track of my games. Regarding the games, I'm actually not sure how many games have been refusing to delete now, but I've confirmed both Ragnorium and Dwerve for Windows refuse to delete. I also noticed on both those entries, the platform is blank. If it doesn't pull the information automatically when I make the entry, I often ignore that, since 99% of my collection is for Windows. Edited June 7 by zapzoop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C-Beats Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 To manage the Windows related auto-scan you'd want to go to Tools > Manage > Storefronts... and you can turn off/on certain storefronts there. Deleting a game auto-imported by that system SHOULD blacklist titles though, so unsure why'd you see them return. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zapzoop Posted June 7 Author Share Posted June 7 (edited) That was unchecked also, none of my accounts were linked to it. Some other things I tried: -right clicking on the launchbox directory and unchecking "read-only" just in case some random file got set that way, didn't help. -For some reason the "installed" box was partially checked on the games. I tried unchecking that. When I restart launchbox, it's set back to how it was. It really seems like all changes are being overridden. -Unchecked options / data / backups / automatically bak up the launchbox xml files (then quit and deleted contents of launchbox\backups folder) It looks like not being able to delete is only part of the problem. I tried adding new data to a field as a test, then when I restarted Launchbox, that info is gone. Everything is acting like it's read-only and changes are discarded when I close Launchbox. Edited June 7 by zapzoop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro808 Posted June 7 Share Posted June 7 I know you said you checked already but can you share a pic of the contents inside your \Data\Platforms folder. Make sure we can see all the contents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zapzoop Posted June 7 Author Share Posted June 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro808 Posted June 8 Share Posted June 8 If it is Windows games you are having issues with I am going to suspect that the Windows.xaml and Windows 3.X.xaml is the issues. LB might be confused by the Windows 3.X one. I would say move it out that folder (with LB closed) and test. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zapzoop Posted June 8 Author Share Posted June 8 No, while it is a windows game, in this case it's "unknown platform" since the data for the game wasn't there in the database when I created it, so I just left it blank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zapzoop Posted June 8 Author Share Posted June 8 Looks like the problem is deeper than I first realized. I can't add new entries either. Or rather, I can, but then when I restart Launchbox, they're all gone. Judging from my last game entry, it looks like this problem has been going on since late April for me and I just didn't realize it. I've tried reverting to 13.11, but the same problem is present, trying to figure out what is going on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro808 Posted June 8 Share Posted June 8 Is it only one platform this is affecting or multiple? What is the platform name it is affecting? PB may be struggling to know what to do with that Unknown Platform.xaml. Not sure why you even have that. If its a Windows game put it in the Windows folder on platform. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zapzoop Posted June 8 Author Share Posted June 8 49 minutes ago, Retro808 said: Is it only one platform this is affecting or multiple? What is the platform name it is affecting? PB may be struggling to know what to do with that Unknown Platform.xaml. Not sure why you even have that. If its a Windows game put it in the Windows folder on platform. Okay, this does seem like it could be the part of the problem, but it's still confusing. I did some testing and here is what I found: Creating a new entry as "Windows" = works Creating a new entry with a blank entry for platform = disappears on relaunching Trying to change the platform of an existing game with a blank entry for platform to "Windows" = doesn't work, the platform information disappears on relaunching. So it looks like it works properly after all, but only for games that have a field entered for platform. The ones with a blank field seem unmodifiable. Is there any remedy to this? It seems like Launchbox can't handle a blank field for that anymore, but won't let me fix the existing ones. Does anyone know what version that started? As for the "why", I don't enjoy data entry, so I do the bare minimum for my purposes. Like I said, the vast majority of my games are already on Windows and a lot of the time when I add a game, the Launchbox database doesn't have an entry for it, so I just fill in the bare minimum information that I care about (title, genre, year, and screenshot). I don't mark platform since I'm never confused about that, it would just be busy work on my end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zapzoop Posted June 8 Author Share Posted June 8 I SOLVED IT (sort of) For anyone else this might be helpful for: If a game has a blank entry for the platform, then Launchbox seems to act as though it's read-only and any changes get purged when you restart. This means you can add games that seemingly disappear later or delete ones that re-appear. The solution I found was to revert to an older version of Launchbox, though I had to go significantly older. I tested about a dozen versions until I narrowed it down. The bug seems to emerge after 13.3. Version 13.3 lets me delete old entries, create new ones, etc. In all versions for 13.5 onward (I didn't have an installer for 13.4 to test), the bug emerges and I can't fix my old entries with a blank entry for platform. It's possible something else is going on also, since I thought I was using a more recent version that, but either way, I'll be sticking to 13.3 for some time now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeViking245 Posted June 8 Share Posted June 8 40 minutes ago, zapzoop said: The bug seems to emerge after 13.3. From a different perspective, it'd seem the 'bug' was fixed after v13.3. A game, when imported needs to get added to something. In the case with LaunchBox, a 'Platform'. This game (data) is then saved inside ../LaunchBox/Data/Platforms/platform_name.xml Though technically, you could have a file named ".xml" (no name, just an extension). Why? [To me at least] it doesn't make sense to have a game that doesn't actually belong to a platform. "Platform", being just a name (or placeholder). Be it "Windows" or "Games I don't want to see in the Windows Platform". (Granted, that's kind of a long name.) I apologize if I misunderstood the situation. tldr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zapzoop Posted June 9 Author Share Posted June 9 13 hours ago, JoeViking245 said: From a different perspective, it'd seem the 'bug' was fixed after v13.3. A game, when imported needs to get added to something. In the case with LaunchBox, a 'Platform'. This game (data) is then saved inside ../LaunchBox/Data/Platforms/platform_name.xml Though technically, you could have a file named ".xml" (no name, just an extension). Why? [To me at least] it doesn't make sense to have a game that doesn't actually belong to a platform. "Platform", being just a name (or placeholder). Be it "Windows" or "Games I don't want to see in the Windows Platform". (Granted, that's kind of a long name.) I apologize if I misunderstood the situation. tldr No, you're misunderstanding the situation. This is 100% a bug. What's unclear is what conditions trigger it. I just tried to recreate it on a fresh system inside a VM on 3.14 and it didn't happen, so no idea why 13.5 onward breaks some of the functionality on my existing database on my main system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro808 Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 On 6/9/2024 at 4:53 AM, zapzoop said: No, you're misunderstanding the situation. This is 100% a bug. What's unclear is what conditions trigger it. I just tried to recreate it on a fresh system inside a VM on 3.14 and it didn't happen, so no idea why 13.5 onward breaks some of the functionality on my existing database on my main system. What I think Joe is saying is LB allowing a game to be added and editable without an assigned platform (the way you saw it functioning) could have been the bug and the team identified and fixed it. When importing a game LB asks you to specify the platform it gets imported to. I have never known LB to play well with games not having a platform listing filled in. So allowing a game to get imported without a platform field being populated is more likely the bug. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zapzoop Posted June 9 Author Share Posted June 9 On 6/9/2024 at 7:36 AM, Retro808 said: What I think Joe is saying is LB allowing a game to be added and editable without an assigned platform (the way you saw it functioning) could have been the bug and the team identified and fixed it. When importing a game LB asks you to specify the platform it gets imported to. I have never known LB to play well with games not having a platform listing filled in. So allowing a game to get imported without a platform field being populated is more likely the bug. No, that's incorrect also. I'll try to keep it simple since people are still confused. Here's what I observed: -Creating a new entry with no platform on 13.3 and earlier = No problem. It's automatically assigned as "Unknown platform." Everything works. -Creating a new entry with no platform on a completely fresh install of 13.5 - 13.14 (with no previous entries) = Seemingly no problem. It's automatically assigned as "Unknown platform." -Updating my old database on 13.3 or earlier to 13.5 or later then modifying / creating / deleting any entries with no platform specified = Appears to let me make changes, but won't save upon restart. It acts like it's read only. Worse, this creates the ILLUSION that changes are made, but they are completely undone when LB is restarted. This is terrible default behavior for it to be intentional and didn't exist before. Now the unknown element is why my old database screws up on 13.5 onward, but it's a bug either way. Considering how I can still create an entry with a blank platform on a fresh install of 13.14, nothing was "fixed" regarding entries with a blank platform. It worked before, it works now from a clean install, but it doesn't seem to work properly with my old entries + something else corrupts on new entries when bringing over my old database. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro808 Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 LOL. We are not confused with what you are saying. We are not even saying it is not supposed to work the way you are saying. We are just contemplating the other side that maybe it was not supposed to allow an import to “unknown platform” all along. That’s all. Which is why Joe said “from a different perspective”. It’s the weekend and our devs typically are not online so we cannot confirm either way for now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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