LaunchBox for Android - 1.16 Beta Thread

[faeran]

Hi Everyone,

I apologize for this being long overdue, but this update has taken a long time to put together due to the change in framework that we were forced to make with this update. We've switched over from the deprecated Xamarin.Forms framework to the MAUI framework. With that comes under-the-hood changes to almost everything in the entire application. As a user, you will not see much visual differences, however, do know that there's a higher risk with this update than with any others, so please, if you wish to test this update, back up your data files, and your theme files, before running this update.

Now that we are on MAUI, all frontend code had to slightly change. This means that the first time you launch the app after the update, you'll see a prompt that informs you of us needing to optimize any custom themes. This process will edit your theme files, which will eliminate custom theme specific errors that we were able to identify. However, do know that while you may not get errors, all custom themes did not some kind of custom code changes to them. At this stage, I believe all themes except the Colorful - Flex theme has had a version bump in the theme manager for users on beta 1, so if you use a specific custom theme, you'll want to head into the Theme Manager to download all updates before providing feedback.

For making you wait for this necessary framework change, we also wanted to make sure it was worth it, so we also added a brand new feature that's been long requested, Network Share Support!

To give a little context, Android itself has no global network share support within the operating system itself. Where Windows has built-in network support that any application can take advantage of, Android requires each app to create their own support for network shares. Since we are a launcher that sends file paths to other applications, that's becomes a bit problematic, as we'll be sending a file path to a network share that the emulator itself has no idea how to access. Therefore, the way our network share support works is that you first run the import process. You'll notice a new section when choosing a folder path for network drives. Choosing that will allow you to see any publicly available networks. If it's hidden behind a username/password, you'll be asked to authenticate. If your network share is truly open for anonymous users, you'll be able to make it right in. You can import your ROMs in the exact same way as before.

Any games in your local "cloud" will be marked as such. They'll get there own little badge that will display on most default views, and you have the ability to filter by them as well. When you play a game that's on a network share, we will download your file into a local location and send the local path to the emulator. We have a few more improvements with this system yet, but it's working good enough for testing at this time.

There's more in this update, so check the full changelog, and if you do decide to help us test this update we are very grateful. If you crash on the beta, we've already received the report, but the following information will be helpful for us to recreate the issue:

• Your device specs
• The version of Android and API version
• Description of the issue
• Can it be reliably reproduced on your end?
• Reproduction steps

 

You can opt into the beta within LaunchBox for Android by going into Option and turning on the Update to Beta Releases option. If a beta release is available, you will get prompted each time the app opens up.

Full Changelog: https://www.launchbox-app.com/android-about/change-log

 

Beta 1:

• Network Drive Support: Import games directly from your local network drive. When launching a game, they will download locally
• Local Game Indicator: Games stored on your local network are now easily identified by a cloud icon for all default views
• New Filter Option: Quickly filter your game library to view only local or non-local games
• Customizable Screen Timeout: Control your screen timeout independently of Android's system settings
• Expanded Emulator Support: Added full support for CEMU and Lime3DS emulators (yes, we know)
• Framework Overhaul: Upgraded to the latest MAUI framework for improved performance and stability
• Fixed Play Time Sync: Resolved an issue that could cause inaccurate play time tracking
• Android Game Parsing Fix: Addressed an Android game parsing issue on startup for certain Android based VR headsets

 

Beta 2:

• Optimized archive extraction logic during game launching
• Fixed an issue with additional apps not appearing
• Fixed crashing that was caused by image rendering
• Fixed a crash during RetroArch/Dolphin emulator installation
• Cleaned up RetroArch cores including a decommissioned version of mupen64plus and set different default emulators for SNK Neo Geo AES, Arcade, and SNK Neo Geo MVS
• Fixed a rare black screen issue during navigation
• Fixed a crash related to LongPressListView scrolling
• Fixed compatibility issues with certain fonts (for theme developers)
• Fixed many reported MAUI related crashes

[snarfo67]

I currently only have 3 platforms I'm using on the Android app (DS, 3DS, and GBA). Since this update no game will launch no matter which emulator/cores I try (MelonDS, Citra, Retroarch with various cores, DraStic) though the games still work fine from within those apps. When I try to launch a game I get the 'launching' splash screen and it just hangs there. I have to force close to get out.

Pixel Pro 9 Fold running Android 15

[faeran]

3 hours ago, snarfo67 said:

I currently only have 3 platforms I'm using on the Android app (DS, 3DS, and GBA). Since this update no game will launch no matter which emulator/cores I try (MelonDS, Citra, Retroarch with various cores, DraStic) though the games still work fine from within those apps. When I try to launch a game I get the 'launching' splash screen and it just hangs there. I have to force close to get out.

Pixel Pro 9 Fold running Android 15

Thanks for the report.

Did you make sure to update all themes you are using within the Theme Manager?

The launching code hasn't changed, so I'm wondering if it's just a theme related issue.

EDIT:
Another thing you can check: open the Emulator Settings to one of your platforms and uncheck the Extract ROMs option, and see if that makes a difference.

If you can take a screenshot of the page that is frozen and paste it here. It may provide some context to what's going on.

[snarfo67]

Thanks for the suggestions, but still no bueno.

I did the theme update when prompted on first run, and just now I tried theme repairs on Alisia and Unified Lite (the themes I use most), plus I tried the various launch themes in them as well as the base box art version.

All my ROMs are unarchived, but I did turn the extract ROMs option off for all of them.

In all cases I just get the launching screen attached.

[snarfo67]

On 12/9/2024 at 1:43 PM, snarfo67 said:

Thanks for the suggestions, but still no bueno.

I did the theme update when prompted on first run, and just now I tried theme repairs on Alisia and Unified Lite (the themes I use most), plus I tried the various launch themes in them as well as the base box art version.

All my ROMs are unarchived, but I did turn the extract ROMs option off for all of them.

In all cases I just get the launching screen attached.

I cleared the Launchbox app storage (just clearing the cache didn't do anything) and it's working again in case anyone else runs into the same issue. Other than that no problems with this update yet. Thanks to the devs for their hard work!

[snarfo67]

As a random note, I use Pizza Boy GBA Pro for GBA and though LaunchBox warns that that emulator can't launch games directly, the dev has told me it works. Now that I have everything sorted out I can confirm it launches ROMs from LaunchBox without issues.

Edited December 11, 2024 by snarfo67

[faeran]

Beta 2 is out with the following changes:

• Optimized archive extraction logic during game launching
• Fixed an issue with additional apps not appearing
• Fixed crashing that was caused by image rendering
• Fixed a crash during RetroArch/Dolphin emulator installation
• Cleaned up RetroArch cores including a decommissioned version of mupen64plus and set different default emulators for SNK Neo Geo AES, Arcade, and SNK Neo Geo MVS
• Fixed a rare black screen issue during navigation
• Fixed a crash related to LongPressListView scrolling
• Fixed compatibility issues with certain fonts (for theme developers)
• Fixed many reported MAUI related crashes

 

There's a few more things we are going to look at, but outside of that we are gearing up for the release!

[braincell1973]

I too did an update and I'm frozen on the launching screen.......

 

Android galaxy s21

 

No games launch but the emulators run fine when used by themselves (retroarch)

 

Cleared app data - no difference

Cleared cache - no difference 

Reinstalled launchbox - no difference

 

Any ideas ??

[braincell1973]

Here's my log file, at the end it looks like it's looking for notifications ???

Why would launchbox send me a notification to launch a game ??????

Debug 2024-12-22 11-44-53 AM.log

[braincell1973]

OK so even though I have denied permission it looks like it's frozen because its requesting permission (invisibly) it seems...... launchbox doesn't know the permission is denied.

I don't want notifications when launching games so I'm not going to enable it.....

Please fix this.....

[braincell1973]

I have tried enabling notifications and this does make the games launch properly, So , for anyone having this issue, if you have blocked notifications to launchbox it will stall at the launching screen.......

 

Deffo needs a fix.......

[AstroBob]

Hi @braincell1973 
Thanks for the detailed report. I see what you’re saying—the issue occurs when the “Show Play Tracking Prompt” option is turned on, but notifications from LaunchBox are blocked at the OS level. This causes the game to fail to launch. For reference, the play tracking prompt is the notification LaunchBox sends to display your in-game time spent. If you don’t use this feature, I recommend turning off the “Show Play Tracking Prompt” option in the settings menu.

I’ll bring this up with the team to see if we can get it addressed. Thanks for bringing this to our attention!

[UnnUndrgrnd4114]

Please excuse my lack of knowledge of the topic, but I wanted to confirm information about the Network Share feature and "local cloud" reference. Am I to understand that we're able to link it to something like a Google Drive, or is this referencing something else?

[faeran]

3 minutes ago, UnnUndrgrnd4114 said:

Please excuse my lack of knowledge of the topic, but I wanted to confirm information about the Network Share feature and "local cloud" reference. Am I to understand that we're able to link it to something like a Google Drive, or is this referencing something else?

It's referencing something else. This feature provides access to a local network share that is accessible on your local network.

Here's some information about it:

 

[wjs2555]

更新到 1.16 版本后，当我打开 launchbox 时，我一进入就会退出程序。我用的是红米 K40。系统为 HyperOS1.0.6.0。

[Chris V.]

Also dealing with frozen launching screen.

I have an Odin 2 with the latest software updates.  After updating Launchbox to 1.16,  no games launch from any emulators in LB. All standalone emulators will launch games without a problem. My subscription is set to expire in the beginning of February. I will not be renewing unless this issue is fixed because launch box doesn't work right now. Please fix.

[AstroBob]

@Chris V. thanks for reporting this and apologies for the issues here. 

There's a known issue on 1.16 at the moment, whereby if you have the Show Play Time Tracking Prompt option turned on in your preferences, but you are blocking notifications to LaunchBox at the Android level, then games will get stuck on the loading screen. 

To fix this, either turn off the Show Play Time Tracking Prompt option in LaunchBox's options or allow notifications to the LaunchBox app in Android's notification settings.

Can you confirm if that addresses the issues you're seeing and that it allows you to launch games.

Apologies for the issues caused here