Windows.xml Platform File Bloated By Extra Controller Entries

[XXVI]

For some reason, every Windows game that has been imported into Launchbox has an insane amount of Steam Controllers associated with it. If I do anything with the metadata, I have to delete them all. Some of them appear to have hundreds, if not thousands. My Windows.xml file is almost 5GB! Everytime I launch, it gets bigger and bigger. There is clearly something wrong here. Every other platform xml file I have is less that 450 KB.

 

Any help would be appreciated. It is slowing down Launchbox/Big Box and eating up more and more space every time it boots.

 

EDIT: For context, I have less than 200 Windows games imported into Launch Box.

EDIT 2: Going through XML now. Looks like there are several hundred/thousand duplicate entries for the <Alternate Name> tag as well.

EDIT 3: Deleting duplicate <Alternate Name> tags. Just deleted over 663,599 lines of code all for Horizon Forbidden West. At 5 lines per <Alternate Name> tab, that's nearly 133k <Alternate Name> tags for one game. There is definitely a bug here.

Edited September 3 by XXVI

[C-Beats]

I have some questions for you to help with debugging this:
1) Are you using any plugins?
2) Are you using any third party scrapers like Skraper on your collection?
3) What version of LaunchBox are you using?
4) Have you noticed this happening after a specific event? (like saving a game, selecting it in Game Details, closing LB, etc)

[XXVI]

1) I don't think any of these plugins are unusual but here's the list. The top one isn't actually installed:

 

2) I use EmuMovies but I'm not sure that qualifies as a third party scraper. No other unusual tools for metadata collection.

3) Launchbox Version 13.15

4) I noticed the file size jump last night when Launchbox was initializing meta data but I only watched it happen that once. I spent several hours last night deleting duplicate entries and was able to get the file size down to a reasonable amount. It was helpful that most of the bloat was in relation to a handful of games (like 1,000,000 lines of code for Wonderlands controllers) so it was manageable but not quick. Since finishing that process, I haven't noticed the file size jump again.

 

A few other notes:

My installation is admittedly a bit unusual in that I have Launchbox/Big Box on my PC and my Ally X. I use Syncthing to keep the installations synced. That being said, I don't know why that process would have affected the contents of this one file. When Syncthing has an issue with syncing a file, it creates a duplicate with "sync-conflict" in the name, noting that there was a problem with the file during the sync. I haven't seen it alter primary file contents in any other use case.

Last week, I did complete a multi-week effort to hand-curate all the thumbnail art, box art, background art, and logos for all the games in my collection. I have about 340 games imported (over 120 of which are Windows games) which isn't a small amount but it's awfully meager compared to some folks' libraries. That process had me closing down and opening Launchbox repeatedly. I also cleared the image cache within Big Box often during the work. 

I did actually take a backup of the bloated file somewhere around the 3 GB marker, if you'd care to take a look at it, we can figure out how to share that if necessary.