LaunchBox 13.17 - Beta Thread

[zyute]

I keep a playlist with Retroachievements for my collection. Since the new beta it now has doubled in size saying i have over 10000 roms supporting achievements but there are only 8684 game sets supported on the site.

There are games in various platforms that show the trophy icon but show up as having no support for achievements.

Edited October 3 by zyute

[faeran]

1 hour ago, zyute said:

I keep a playlist with Retroachievements for my collection. Since the new beta it now has doubled in size saying i have over 10000 roms supporting achievements but there are only 8684 game sets supported on the site.

There are games in various platforms that show the trophy icon but show up as having no support for achievements.

Thanks for the report. We'll get this fixed up for the next beta.

[Omifi]

What happened with RetroAchievement? i updated to beta 3 and scanned and it went from 7760 games to 18956 

[faeran]

56 minutes ago, Omifi said:

What happened with RetroAchievement? i updated to beta 3 and scanned and it went from 7760 games to 18956 

 

2 hours ago, faeran said:

Thanks for the report. We'll get this fixed up for the next beta.

 

[sundogak]

On 10/3/2024 at 10:08 AM, faeran said:

Beta 3 is out with the following changes:

• Improvement: Disable automatic ROM import for specific platforms in the Edit Platform window

Beta 3. Disabled platforms not working uniformly.

I had 7 platforms all checked with do not auto import and it is importing anyway.  It took time to start the first time as turned on disabled, changed the platform folders, and nothing happened for about 15 minutes (as expected).  But after I left and came 20 minutes later there was the pop info that it had imported 1,000s of files and downloaded media. All of which were in those disabled platforms.

One platform as example was Sinclair ZX which was pointing to my main ROM folder and Disable ROM Auto-Import checked. There were a few games from prior I had manually imported from the folder but it installed the entire directory.  It did it again after I exited out, restored to prior XML settings and restarted. Again after about 15 minutes or so it started importing the same 7 platforms all of which were checked to disable. One theory is that if you are pointing to a folder (even with disabled checked) and there are some games already installed in that platform within that same folder it is ignoring the disabled box (but haven't fully tested that).  I didn't have debug logs turned on but will try it sometime tomorrow and see. 

 

[faeran]

13 hours ago, sundogak said:

Beta 3. Disabled platforms not working uniformly.

I had 7 platforms all checked with do not auto import and it is importing anyway.  It took time to start the first time as turned on disabled, changed the platform folders, and nothing happened for about 15 minutes (as expected).  But after I left and came 20 minutes later there was the pop info that it had imported 1,000s of files and downloaded media. All of which were in those disabled platforms.

One platform as example was Sinclair ZX which was pointing to my main ROM folder and Disable ROM Auto-Import checked. There were a few games from prior I had manually imported from the folder but it installed the entire directory.  It did it again after I exited out, restored to prior XML settings and restarted. Again after about 15 minutes or so it started importing the same 7 platforms all of which were checked to disable. One theory is that if you are pointing to a folder (even with disabled checked) and there are some games already installed in that platform within that same folder it is ignoring the disabled box (but haven't fully tested that).  I didn't have debug logs turned on but will try it sometime tomorrow and see. 

 

Thanks. We believe we found the issue and should be fixed in the next beta.

[faeran]

Beta 4 is out with the following changes:

• Improvement: Non-Steam Windows games now have the ability to scrape Steam media
• Fixed: Updating MAME using the Full Set Import wizard now accurately updates the emulator name and folder to match the imported version
• Fixed: The "Create Playlist" option in the quick filter now functions correctly when viewing "All" games on the sidebar
• Fixed: The BIOS window for RetroArch should no longer take Dolphin and PCSX2 cores into consideration
• Fixed: RetroAchievement scanning now correctly indicates whether achievements are available for a given game (introduced in beta 3)
• Fixed: The per-platform auto-import disable option now functions as intended (introduced in beta 3)
• Fixed: Navigation issues within the playlist section of Big Box have been addressed. This should resolve instances where game details were not updating correctly during navigation (introduced in beta 2)

 

This should fix the issue users were seeing with RetroAchievement badges and playlists from the previous beta. The issue ended up being that the new end points we were given to use from the RA team was insufficient to deduce which games had achievements and instead were indicating which games had a game profile on the RetroAchievement website. We are now using the old endpoint for this, but there is a caching improvement that we've left in.

 

 

[Cadu]

Saves from Retroarch (PSX Core) have two file types: .srm and .mcr, but Launchbox Game Saves shows only one at a time. You need to delete .srm, close the window, and open again to see .mcr file.

[Sbaby]

3 hours ago, Cadu said:

Saves from Retroarch (PSX Core) have two file types: .srm and .mcr, but Launchbox Game Saves shows only one at a time. You need to delete .srm, close the window, and open again to see .mcr file.

I have some Retroarch PS1 games with save files only in .mcr format (not .srm). Despite this, LaunchBox cannot recognize them 🤔

Edited October 8 by Sbaby

[Sbaby]

3 hours ago, faeran said:

Beta 4 is out with the following changes:

• Improvement: Non-Steam Windows games now have the ability to scrape Steam media
• Fixed: Updating MAME using the Full Set Import wizard now accurately updates the emulator name and folder to match the imported version
• Fixed: The "Create Playlist" option in the quick filter now functions correctly when viewing "All" games on the sidebar
• Fixed: The BIOS window for RetroArch should no longer take Dolphin and PCSX2 cores into consideration
• Fixed: RetroAchievement scanning now correctly indicates whether achievements are available for a given game (introduced in beta 3)
• Fixed: The per-platform auto-import disable option now functions as intended (introduced in beta 3)
• Fixed: Navigation issues within the playlist section of Big Box have been addressed. This should resolve instances where game details were not updating correctly during navigation (introduced in beta 2)

 

This should fix the issue users were seeing with RetroAchievement badges and playlists from the previous beta. The issue ended up being that the new end points we were given to use from the RA team was insufficient to deduce which games had achievements and instead were indicating which games had a game profile on the RetroAchievement website. We are now using the old endpoint for this, but there is a caching improvement that we've left in.

 

 

Beta 2 was working perfectly, but after installing Beta 4 of LaunchBox, when I click on any game, an error appears. I tried reinstalling Beta 2, but on startup it gives plugin errors and no longer works. I then switched back to Beta 4, but I keep getting the same error, making the frontend unusable. What should I do?

 

[MrDeKat]

Hi!!

In Beta 4, when the metadata is downloades with "Download Metadata and Media Wizard", the release date is updated with only the year (01/01/19xx). However, if you update the metadata with the Edit option of each game, the release date is updated with day, month and year.

 

[faeran]

1 hour ago, Sbaby said:

Beta 2 was working perfectly, but after installing Beta 4 of LaunchBox, when I click on any game, an error appears. I tried reinstalling Beta 2, but on startup it gives plugin errors and no longer works. I then switched back to Beta 4, but I keep getting the same error, making the frontend unusable. What should I do?

 

Thanks, this is fixed internally and will be available in the next update.

23 minutes ago, MrDeKat said:

Hi!!

In Beta 4, when the metadata is downloades with "Download Metadata and Media Wizard", the release date is updated with only the year (01/01/19xx). However, if you update the metadata with the Edit option of each game, the release date is updated with day, month and year.

 

Tested a bunch of scenarios but we are not seeing this happening. Can you name a few different games for a specific system that this is happening for you? Our first assumption is that this might be more related to your data files, but we can look into it further once you provide some more information here.

[Sbaby]

26 minutes ago, faeran said:

Thanks, this is fixed internally and will be available in the next update.

Thank you for the prompt support. In the meantime, I managed to successfully restore the beta 2 version by removing the native plugins and allowing them to be recreated automatically during installation. I believe the issue was related to the renaming of these plugins

[MrDeKat]

46 minutes ago, faeran said:

Tested a bunch of scenarios but we are not seeing this happening. Can you name a few different games for a specific system that this is happening for you? Our first assumption is that this might be more related to your data files, but we can look into it further once you provide some more information here.

It happens to me with all Arcade games.

These are the data obtained in the importance of Mame, with the option to update the metadata activated. It's from 5 days ago:

"Download Metadata and Media Wizard" and the first option (Download and replace metadata):

This is the result, with all games with 01/01/19xx as released date:

Now if I search the game from edit option (this case is "Anti-Aircraft"), it shows the complete released date:

Edited October 8 by MrDeKat

[Cadu]

Hi, I was researching the reason for the high CPU usage after 'Launchbox' is open, and everything indicates that it's the Retroarch folder, because when I rename it, the issue doesn't occur. Is this being analyzed by the development team?

[faeran]

17 hours ago, MrDeKat said:

It happens to me with all Arcade games.

These are the data obtained in the importance of Mame, with the option to update the metadata activated. It's from 5 days ago:

"Download Metadata and Media Wizard" and the first option (Download and replace metadata):

This is the result, with all games with 01/01/19xx as released date:

Now if I search the game from edit option (this case is "Anti-Aircraft"), it shows the complete released date:

Thanks that helps. It's a MAME specific issue, we'll look into it.

1 hour ago, Cadu said:

Hi, I was researching the reason for the high CPU usage after 'Launchbox' is open, and everything indicates that it's the Retroarch folder, because when I rename it, the issue doesn't occur. Is this being analyzed by the development team?

This is most likely due to the scan that needs to happen for the save management feature. After a the scan completes CPU usage drops down.

[Cadu]

7 minutes ago, faeran said:

This is most likely due to the scan that needs to happen for the save management feature. After a the scan completes CPU usage drops down.

I've been using Launchbox for many years, and I've never experienced a version with so many problems. It would be acceptable if it took only a few seconds, but we're talking about 5 to 10 minutes with 20% CPU usage and 3 GB of RAM, 1.5 GB above the normal usage. I believe it needs to be reviewed, or there should be an option to disable this functionality until it's stable.

[The Papaw]

22 minutes ago, Cadu said:

I've been using Launchbox for many years, and I've never experienced a version with so many problems

I could not agree more to this part. Sometimes I feel actual bugs are never addressed or completely worked out unless it affects the masses and so on to the next round of beta testing and releases. Just throwing in my 2 cents.

[faeran]

27 minutes ago, Cadu said:

I've been using Launchbox for many years, and I've never experienced a version with so many problems. It would be acceptable if it took only a few seconds, but we're talking about 5 to 10 minutes with 20% CPU usage and 3 GB of RAM, 1.5 GB above the normal usage. I believe it needs to be reviewed, or there should be an option to disable this functionality until it's stable.

Sorry to hear you feel that way, and while I don't want to get too into it, based on the usage numbers for this version vs. issues that came out of 13.16, this release probably falls somewhere in the middle. However, I can understand that when something is specifically affecting you, it can definitely be frustrating.

Based in our widespread testing, we aren't seeing the numbers you are across many builds, but we are always looking to improve where we can. If you would like to send me your data files through a PM, I can take a look and see if there's anything to gather from them.

1 minute ago, The Papaw said:

I could not agree more to this part. Sometimes I feel actual bugs are never addressed or completely worked out unless it affects the masses and so on to the next round of beta testing and releases. Just throwing in my 2 cents.

I believe you are talking about different things here, and I do want to keep this beta thread on topic. We read everything and address everything that we can, triage between client issues, server issues, and user issues, and address the ones that we can control. This happens every round, which I'm sure you are aware, since we do address many of the things you have brought up in the past that are within our control to do so (we've even solved many of your user specific configuration woes as well).

 

Alright, back on topic. We do have another beta coming that will address more issues that have come up in the beta, so expect a beta 5 before the end of the week.

[Sbaby]

I’m not sure if it’s related to the fact that I switched from beta 2 to beta 4 and then back to beta 2, but now, when I launch LaunchBox, it often gets stuck on the small loading screen window. It gives the impression of an infinite loading process, but it never finishes. I have to open Windows Task Manager, forcibly end the LaunchBox process, and then restart it. On the second launch, it works fine. Has anyone else experienced a similar issue or have any suggestions on how to fix it?

Thanks! 🙏