Random black screen when selecting console/handheld

[sebas001]

Hello,

I sometimes experience a random black screen when selecting a console or handheld in Big Box. My base options are: Console, Handheld, Computer and Arcade.

When I for example select Console and after that PS2, I sometimes get a black screen instead of the game selection screen for that console. The music of the video that is supposed to be playing does start playing however.

Sometimes it happens immediatly and sometimes I can select 50 different consoles/handhelds and it still works fine.

I tried different things to alleviate the issue:

• Reinstall Launchbox from setup
• use VLC Media Player for videos
• use Windows Media Player for videos
• use a different theme (Coverbox and Unified)

I attached 4 different debug logs from sessions where the issue occurs.

If someone can point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated.

Debug 2024-08-19 08-24-19 PM.log Debug 2024-08-20 03-40-57 PM.log Debug 2024-08-20 03-59-02 PM.log Debug 2024-08-20 04-19-18 PM.log

Edited August 20 by sebas001

[elwooha6]

Just out of curiosity, does this happen on the Default theme too?

[sebas001]

11 hours ago, elwooha6 said:

Just out of curiosity, does this happen on the Default theme too?

Yes, it does. I attached a log file with the default theme applied where the error occurs.

Debug 2024-08-21 10-46-40 AM.log

[elwooha6]

I'm not super familiar with Launchbox logs yet but I did notice there are a lot of messages about a missing image. Have you recently moved any images around manually that it might be looking for? Other than that I'd recommend refreshing the image cache in BigBox, I have had luck with that in the past. You can find it in BigBox at Settings>Image Cache>Refresh All Images.

[skizzosjt]

it's a known issue, it's not theme specific, and VLC vs WMP is not a factor here either. unknown factors at play here for an otherwise intermittent issue. impacts any video, not just game videos. my experience is seeing the issue in Big Box, but I don't have videos play in LaunchBox (so never seen the issue there) and some users have problems there too

I know dev team is aware and have looked into it, but I don't think a good grasp is understood on the root cause and/or resolution

to clarify it is not it creates a black screen, it is the video is a black screen. if your entire screen is black it is because the video file is fullscreen. the audio for the video will still play, it's the actual video displaying that messes up.

here is one thread I find for reference. there are others

 

in Big Box I find it is possible to make the issue happen on demand depending on when you enter/exit an area. ie going from Category to platform or vise versa. If there are transition animations being used, they might be lending to the issue too. Don't quote me on that though, it's been quite a while since I deep dove into troubleshooting this. Would have been one of the 12.X betas when it got discussed a bit with the team. That's why I know they are aware but I don't recall any obvious solutions/workarounds

[sebas001]

17 hours ago, elwooha6 said:

I'm not super familiar with Launchbox logs yet but I did notice there are a lot of messages about a missing image. Have you recently moved any images around manually that it might be looking for? Other than that I'd recommend refreshing the image cache in BigBox, I have had luck with that in the past. You can find it in BigBox at Settings>Image Cache>Refresh All Images.

I did refresh the Image Cache, but that did not help with finding the image. As far as I can tell, the image it is trying to find is: ..\LaunchBox\Themes\Default\Images\Controller\.png which is weird because it is a file with no name, just an extention.

16 hours ago, skizzosjt said:

it's a known issue, it's not theme specific, and VLC vs WMP is not a factor here either. unknown factors at play here for an otherwise intermittent issue. impacts any video, not just game videos. my experience is seeing the issue in Big Box, but I don't have videos play in LaunchBox (so never seen the issue there) and some users have problems there too

I know dev team is aware and have looked into it, but I don't think a good grasp is understood on the root cause and/or resolution

to clarify it is not it creates a black screen, it is the video is a black screen. if your entire screen is black it is because the video file is fullscreen. the audio for the video will still play, it's the actual video displaying that messes up.

here is one thread I find for reference. there are others

 

in Big Box I find it is possible to make the issue happen on demand depending on when you enter/exit an area. ie going from Category to platform or vise versa. If there are transition animations being used, they might be lending to the issue too. Don't quote me on that though, it's been quite a while since I deep dove into troubleshooting this. Would have been one of the 12.X betas when it got discussed a bit with the team. That's why I know they are aware but I don't recall any obvious solutions/workarounds

Thank you for the response, I did find this thread before I made mine, that is why I changed the video player and mentioned it in the first post. But since I did not find any solution I started a new thread since the one you mentioned was a year old.