Need help with multiple dll errors.

[80sRkadeGuy]

Hello all, I needed to roll my Launchbox back to a previous version and now I'm getting multiple dll errors and now Launchbox won't load. I tried restoring a previous Launchbox backup as well as restoring it to the latest version but no luck.

I also right clicked on each dll to unblock it, but they're not blocked and restarting my PC didn't help either.

Please help! I don;t want to have to uninstall Launchbox and completely start over as I have almost 3,000 games.

Thanks in advance.

Edited October 23 by 80sRkadeGuy

[AstroBob]

Hey @80sRkadeGuy, sorry for the issues here. Can you try deleting the directories it mentions, anything in the `Plugins` directory that is an emulator integration (i.e [emulator] LaunchBox Integration).

LaunchBox should re-create these on startup. Please make a backup of your `LaunchBox > Plugins` directory first just to be safe.

Let me know how you get on.

[80sRkadeGuy]

8 hours ago, AstroBob said:

Hey @80sRkadeGuy, sorry for the issues here. Can you try deleting the directories it mentions, anything in the `Plugins` directory that is an emulator integration (i.e [emulator] LaunchBox Integration).

LaunchBox should re-create these on startup. Please make a backup of your `LaunchBox > Plugins` directory first just to be safe.

Let me know how you get on.

Thanks for the reply. I backed them up, then deleted them but Launchbox said they couldn't be found so it didn't recreate them.

[AstroBob]

Hi there, thanks for trying that. We've looked into this with the team and have some theories about what might be happening. The error message you're seeing is actually a Windows error message, which suggests that something outside of LaunchBox is preventing those files from running correctly.

Weirdly, LaunchBox should re-create those plugin directories if they don't exist, so the fact it doesn't also point that there is something else that has a lock on that directory. Can you post what exactly that error message was?
 

Here are a few things to try:

1. Check for Security Software Conflicts: Sometimes, Windows Defender or third-party security software can block certain files, especially if they think they are suspicious. Even if you checked the properties and didn’t see the files explicitly blocked, there could still be background processes preventing them from working. It might be worth temporarily disabling any security software and seeing if that resolves the issue. If that works, you’ll need to whitelist the LaunchBox folder or those specific DLL files.

2. Test Reinstalling LaunchBox in a New Folder: If the issue persists, it might be worth installing a fresh instance of LaunchBox into a new folder (same directory but different LaunchBox folder) and see if you get that error. Sometimes starting fresh can help avoid whatever is causing the block in your current directory, and that could help us uncover the cause.

3. Test with new Plugins:  If that does work, you could try copying over the plugin directories from the new build to your existing setup. Since the plugin's directory should auto-fill when missing, the fact that it didn’t in your case suggests there’s something preventing that part of LaunchBox from functioning properly.

Please let me know how you get on, would be interested to hear if any of those suggestions yield any discoveries.

[80sRkadeGuy]

22 hours ago, AstroBob said:

Hi there, thanks for trying that. We've looked into this with the team and have some theories about what might be happening. The error message you're seeing is actually a Windows error message, which suggests that something outside of LaunchBox is preventing those files from running correctly.

Weirdly, LaunchBox should re-create those plugin directories if they don't exist, so the fact it doesn't also point that there is something else that has a lock on that directory. Can you post what exactly that error message was?
 

Here are a few things to try:

1. Check for Security Software Conflicts: Sometimes, Windows Defender or third-party security software can block certain files, especially if they think they are suspicious. Even if you checked the properties and didn’t see the files explicitly blocked, there could still be background processes preventing them from working. It might be worth temporarily disabling any security software and seeing if that resolves the issue. If that works, you’ll need to whitelist the LaunchBox folder or those specific DLL files.

2. Test Reinstalling LaunchBox in a New Folder: If the issue persists, it might be worth installing a fresh instance of LaunchBox into a new folder (same directory but different LaunchBox folder) and see if you get that error. Sometimes starting fresh can help avoid whatever is causing the block in your current directory, and that could help us uncover the cause.

3. Test with new Plugins:  If that does work, you could try copying over the plugin directories from the new build to your existing setup. Since the plugin's directory should auto-fill when missing, the fact that it didn’t in your case suggests there’s something preventing that part of LaunchBox from functioning properly.

Please let me know how you get on, would be interested to hear if any of those suggestions yield any discoveries.

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately nothing worked so I backed up my Launchbox settings, uninstalled it, reinstalled it, added my settings and now it's working again.

[AstroBob]

Thanks for confirming that, sorry we weren't able to get to an actual root cause, but glad to hear it's working now. Don't forget you should be able to move your `Data` folder, and `Images`, `Videos`, `Music`, `Manuals` etc so that you don't need to re-import everything again.

Please let me know how you get on with this instance and if the issues happens again.