LB Pause freezing in MAME

[Joe35car]

For some reason the pause feature is not working. It works like less then 10% of the time. I'm using the default Pause theme. Pause key is set to P. MAME default pause key is F5. When I hit the P button the theme shows but I can't choose anything and I have to force close LB. Then MAME is running in the background where I have to force close that using task manager.

Debug 2024-12-23 04-11-44 AM.log

Edited December 23, 2024 by Joe35car

[Hanz]

I had a similar issue a while back and it turned out the theme I was using (Retrofresh Detailed) was somehow interfering with the Pause Screen. I switched to a different one and haven't had the issue since. Could be a similar case?

[Joe35car]

But it works once in a while. I don't want to change the LB theme. 

Edited December 23, 2024 by Joe35car

[JoeViking245]

4 hours ago, Joe35car said:

But it works once in a while. I don't want to change the LB theme. 

My pause binding in MAME is set to "P".  Not sure if that makes a difference.  Here's my LB settings where the default Pause screen doesn't seem to have any issues:

 

[Joe35car]

I'll check my settings later. Just curious why your MAME pause key is P. Mame chamged that a year ago to F5 because it interfered with other systems. 

Edited December 23, 2024 by Joe35car

[JoeViking245]

38 minutes ago, Joe35car said:

I'll check my settings later. Just curious why your MAME pause key is P. Mame chamged that a year ago to F5 because it interfered with other systems. 

Most likely because, although I frequently (well, monthly) update MAME, the updates don't update any of my cfg or ini files.  I did see they changed their default Pause mapping (back in February I believe [0.263]) and my thought was... If it ain't broke, why change it.  

[Joe35car]

OK so I checked or unchecked the boxes in your screenshot. Only thing I had to change was check the forceful pause screen activation. I checked multiple pause themes and all work. Thanks 

 

PS This also solved the startup themes.

Edited December 23, 2024 by Joe35car

[Joe35car]

UPDATE:

 

After further testing this option does not work. It breaks other console systems that I use the MAME emulator with. I need to have these boxes unchecked for the other systems to work. Any other options to get the Pause to work properly? Is there anything else that can be interfering with this?

Edited December 26, 2024 by Joe35car

[JoeViking245]

39 minutes ago, Joe35car said:

After further testing this option does not work. It breaks other console systems that I use the MAME emulator with. I need to have these boxes unchecked for the other systems to work. Any other options to get the Pause to work properly? Is there anything else that can be interfering with this?

Checking/Un-checking "Remove quotes" and "Remove file extension.." has no effect on the Pause Screen.  From what I understood, the only thing needed to be changed to get the Pause Screen(s) to work was to disable the Forceful Pause Screen Activation.

If (somehow) your Arcade platform had no issues loading the ROMs with those un-checked, un-check them.

 

If you're not using MAME's softlist ROMs for non-Arcade systems, then yes, those boxes need to be un-checked.  (There are options to get a single instance of the MAME emulator in LaunchBox to play nicely between arcade ROMs, softlist ROMs and/or non-MAME ROMs.  But that's a different topic.)

[Joe35car]

6 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

 

If you're not using MAME's softlist ROMs for non-Arcade systems, then yes, those boxes need to be un-checked.  (There are options to get a single instance of the MAME emulator in LaunchBox to play nicely between arcade ROMs, softlist ROMs and/or non-MAME ROMs.  But that's a different topic.)

Show me where this topic is? lol Becasue it's driving me crazy. I even tried to create a new emulator and named it MAME Arcade. So I could use the different setup and still crashes.

Checking/Un-checking "Remove quotes" and "Remove file extension.." has no effect on the Pause Screen.  From what I understood, the only thing needed to be changed to get the Pause Screen(s) to work was to disable the Forceful Pause Screen Activation.

It won't work if I have this unchecked.

 

It's just too bad I'm not able to use this feature in LB. It very convenient to bring up everything at once. Manuals, High Scores, Achievements, etc..

Edited December 26, 2024 by Joe35car

[JoeViking245]

12 minutes ago, Joe35car said:

Show me where this topic is? lol Becasue it's driving me crazy. I even tried to create a new emulator and named it MAME Arcade. So I could use the different setup and still crashes.

It seems that, if you set one emulator up the way you had it before, that one will work for your softlists.  If you create a new emulator (in LaunchBox, pointing to same mame.exe) and set it the way you have it now, that will work for Arcade.

What I meant by "different topic" is, that it's getting off topic from this thread.  But yes, there are probably quite a few other existing topics that go over setting up MAME for softlists.  Some if using MAME's softlist ROMs and others for using non-MAME ROMs.  But what you look for depends on the ROMs you're using.

[Joe35car]

OK so after trial and errors I finally have it working on both sides. Arcade and and non software list. The problem was I have to have the Pause button be the same on MAME and LB. I also had to have it checked, unchecked in the pics below. If I had that suspend emulation checked it would crash. If I didn't it would work but MAME would still have the game running in background. That's why they needed to have the same pause key.

 

Damit. MAME is still running in the background when I hit the Pause key in LB. If I check suspend emulation it crashes. So the option for me is pause MAME emulator first with its own Pause key and the use LB pause key button. To bad there isn't a way to have both use the same Pause key button. I can't check the suspend emulator or I'm back to square one.

Edited December 26, 2024 by Joe35car

[JoeViking245]

15 minutes ago, Joe35car said:

MAME is still running in the background when I hit the Pause key in LB. If I check suspend emulation it crashes.

Un-check Forceful Pause?

[Joe35car]

Only way it works is if I keep it unchecked the suspend emulation for it not to crash. But MAME will run in the background. Game doesn't pause. I would have to use my MAME pause key (F5) to pause the game first. Then use the LB pause key (P) to get in the Pause theme. At least it works on arcade and no software list games. Guess I can't have my cake and eat it too. Having the same pause key will not work. MAME will run in background. If I check suspend emulation then it will crash.

Edited December 26, 2024 by Joe35car

[JoeViking245]

27 minutes ago, Joe35car said:

At least it works on arcade and no software list games. Guess I can't have my cake and eat it too.

Sure you can.

When running MAME softlists', the default is to start it using the consoles' emulated keyboard.  Here, MAME's UI commands don't work (i.e. F5 [or "P"] to pause emulation).  To get out of the emulated keyboard mode, press SCRLOCK on your keyboard.  Then... you can press F5 to pause MAME.  Alternately, you can add in the command line parameter -ui_active.  This will automatically enable MAME's UI keyboard functions.  But if the system you're running requires its 'emulated' keyboard, you'll need to press SCRLOCK to get [back] into the emulated keyboard mode.

[Joe35car]

I'll check it out. At least I know what was causing LB to crash.

 

Thanks again

[Joe35car]

Just want to say thank you JoeViking. Seems like every time I have a weird issue you are there to solve the problem. Many thanks and I am very appreciative.

[JoeViking245]

18 minutes ago, Joe35car said:

Just want to say thank you JoeViking. Seems like every time I have a weird issue you are there to solve the problem. Many thanks and I am very appreciative.

You're welcome.  Always glad to help when and if I can. 😎