LaunchBox for Android - 1.17 Beta Thread

[faeran]

Hi Everyone,

1.17 Beta 1 is out with a bunch of fixes that solve a number of issues that cropped up due to the big MAUI framework change. This will be a short development cycle to shore up as many bugs as we can. Once this update goes live we will be pivoting to new feature releases.

For users that were having issues on 1.16, it would be great to hear from you if this beta solves the problems you were facing.

 

Thanks to all who help test these beta versions. Don't forget to include the following information in your feedback to help us out with tracking down with any issues you may face with these betas:

• 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:

• Filter Views that utilize background videos should better identify the correct video to play
• Fixed an issue where LaunchBox would freeze when launching games if notifications were blocked
• The app no longer crashes if the user exits the network share username/password input dialog
• Manually changing media from the LaunchBox Games Database for a single game should better reflect the new image selected
• Fixed a rare crash that could occur when attempting to play a game
• Addressed a crash that could occur when attempting to import games from a network
• Fixed an uncommon crash that may occur when users navigate between the hamburger menu items
• Fixed a crash that could occur on devices whose API is 27 or lower
• Fixed a rare crash that could stop users from proceeding with the import process
• Fixed several minor crashes reported by our reporting system

Beta 2:

• Downloading bin/cue games over a network share now includes both downloading and deleting all associated files
• Introduced a new "Download Game" option for games imported from a network share, enabling users to download games independently of playing them
• Added the ability to delete the local version of a game while maintaining its availability over the network
• Increased network buffer size to potentially improve download speeds for game files from network shares
• The download pop-up for network share files is now more informative
• Default Nintendo 64 core for RetroArch has been updated due to the previous one being retired
• Resolved an issue where downloading EmuMovies videos could cause the application to crash
• Resolved an issue where importing files over a network share did not consistently handle bin/cue files as intended
• Addressed a problem where the selected platform or game information did not always update accurately when using touch controls
• Resolved a crash that could occur while navigating within a Boxes Grid view
• Addressed a crash that might happen during the import of MAME files
• Fixed a crash that could occur when changing screen orientation while on a Filters View
• Resolved a rare crash that could occur when long-pressing on specific elements
• Corrected an issue where the background video element behaved incorrectly when a custom view file lacked a foreground video element
• Fixed an issue that prevented Platform and Game videos from looping correctly

[JAKAMY]

Thanks for the update 😃 

One remaining bug from 1.16 is the crash when trying to import any arcade, cps123 and neogeo Roms. It starts and crash without notification each time. 

Tried these 5 mixing in all import option with and without make data using mame 263(Merged), mame plus 2003 set with and without chd, noeogeon only set all from NAS(SMB2+MTU/SMB3)  or local sd card 80MB/s, 1TB.

Cheers

Your device specs:

Retroid pocket 5

• 8GB LPDDR5
• 128UFS internal storage
• CPU sm8250
• GPU Adreno 650

The version of Android and API version:

Version 13, Api 33

Description of the issue:
Mid import crash for any Arcade set preset with any custom import setting.

Can it be reliably reproduced on your end?
Tried many times with 3 different rom set, all fail.

Reproduction steps:
Import arcade roms set from NAS or Local SD card.
Added crash log and import video for neoegeo roms

Debug 2025-01-07 11-27-32 PM.log

Edited January 8 by JAKAMY
Added video

[Xyb0t]

Thanks for the update 👍  Unfortunately i still experience the issue with tiny videos, described in more detail (with screenshots) here https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/88851-tiny-videos-unified-lite/

Device specs:
* Odin 2 Pro
* CPU: Snapdragon 8 gen 2
* GPU: Adreno 740
* RAM: 12GB LPDDR5x

Android and API:
* Android 13

Description of the issue:
* https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/88851-tiny-videos-unified-lite/

Can it be reliably reproduced on your end?
* Yes it is quite persistent
* I downgraded to 1.15 and the issue disappeared. All videos are normal size
* I did a factory reset on my Odin 2 Pro and re-installed 1.16 again, and the issue reappeared. All videos are small most of the time

Reproduction steps:
1 - Export games from LaunchBox (with videos)
2 - Import games to LaunchBox Android
3 - Select the gamelist view "Wheel with two-column details"
4 - Now when you open the gamelist, the video is most often tiny, about half size. Rarely the videos will show in normal size, but if it does you can just go back to platform view and then enter a gamelist, and the videos are all small again
5 - Also confirm that videos do not loop any more

 

Edited January 8 by Xyb0t
Readability in the Reproduction section

[faeran]

16 hours ago, JAKAMY said:

Thanks for the update 😃 

One remaining bug from 1.16 is the crash when trying to import any arcade, cps123 and neogeo Roms. It starts and crash without notification each time. 

Tried these 5 mixing in all import option with and without make data using mame 263(Merged), mame plus 2003 set with and without chd, noeogeon only set all from NAS(SMB2+MTU/SMB3)  or local sd card 80MB/s, 1TB.

Cheers

Your device specs:

Retroid pocket 5

• 8GB LPDDR5
• 128UFS internal storage
• CPU sm8250
• GPU Adreno 650

The version of Android and API version:

Version 13, Api 33

Description of the issue:
Mid import crash for any Arcade set preset with any custom import setting.

Can it be reliably reproduced on your end?
Tried many times with 3 different rom set, all fail.

Reproduction steps:
Import arcade roms set from NAS or Local SD card.
Added crash log and import video for neoegeo roms

Debug 2025-01-07 11-27-32 PM.log 10.62 kB · 0 downloads

Thanks for the report. Arcade over NAS is actually not yet supported. We added a prompt to beta 1 to stop users from accidentally importing them.

Local MAME imports are supported, but we are unable to reproduce any crashes with those imports. If you have time, can you upload another video showing the process from the home screen and going through the process of trying to import a MAME set on your local SD card.

[faeran]

11 hours ago, Xyb0t said:

Thanks for the update 👍  Unfortunately i still experience the issue with tiny videos, described in more detail (with screenshots) here https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/88851-tiny-videos-unified-lite/

Device specs:
* Odin 2 Pro
* CPU: Snapdragon 8 gen 2
* GPU: Adreno 740
* RAM: 12GB LPDDR5x

Android and API:
* Android 13

Description of the issue:
* https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/88851-tiny-videos-unified-lite/

Can it be reliably reproduced on your end?
* Yes it is quite persistent
* I downgraded to 1.15 and the issue disappeared. All videos are normal size
* I did a factory reset on my Odin 2 Pro and re-installed 1.16 again, and the issue reappeared. All videos are small most of the time

Reproduction steps:
1 - Export games from LaunchBox (with videos)
2 - Import games to LaunchBox Android
3 - Select the gamelist view "Wheel with two-column details"
4 - Now when you open the gamelist, the video is most often tiny, about half size. Rarely the videos will show in normal size, but if it does you can just go back to platform view and then enter a gamelist, and the videos are all small again
5 - Also confirm that videos do not loop any more

 

Thanks for the report. Did a few round of tests but was unable to reproduce the tiny video issue. Were the video files sourced from EmuMovies or somewhere else?

As far as looping videos, we were able to reproduce and it should be fixed in beta 2.

[JAKAMY]

5 hours ago, faeran said:

Thanks for the report. Arcade over NAS is actually not yet supported. We added a prompt to beta 1 to stop users from accidentally importing them.

Local MAME imports are supported, but we are unable to reproduce any crashes with those imports. If you have time, can you upload another video showing the process from the home screen and going through the process of trying to import a MAME set on your local SD card.

Thank for the swift reply, I recorded NeoGeo import from SD, mam2003plus from SD, mam2003plus import without Mame data from sd. I also tried moving the LaunchBox folder to internal storage but it crashes all the same. 
I started using LB on android from 1.16, I also own the pc version, I'll try the export to Android if this is a pocket 5 only issue 👍
NB: I reencoded the screen recordings to AV1 to save space for the upload
Cheers

Debug 2025-01-08 08-28-44 PM.log Debug 2025-01-08 08-27-01 PM.log Debug 2025-01-08 08-24-08 PM.log Debug 2025-01-08 08-22-37 PM.log

[JAKAMY]

3 hours ago, JAKAMY said:

Thank for the swift reply, I recorded NeoGeo import from SD, mam2003plus from SD, mam2003plus import without Mame data from sd. I also tried moving the LaunchBox folder to internal storage but it crashes all the same. 
I started using LB on android from 1.16, I also own the pc version, I'll try the export to Android if this is a pocket 5 only issue 👍
NB: I reencoded the screen recordings to AV1 to save space for the upload
Cheers

Debug 2025-01-08 08-28-44 PM.logFetching info... Debug 2025-01-08 08-27-01 PM.logFetching info... Debug 2025-01-08 08-24-08 PM.logFetching info... Debug 2025-01-08 08-22-37 PM.logFetching info...

I tried the export from LB PC for mame 263 merged no CHD. Launching the games landed to a black screen after a side load window. I made sure that the romset works in retroarch by manually importing there with the dat file and setting the sample folder for mame in system. yet they run from retroach playlist but still not from LB. I found then 2000+/3000+ <ApplicationPath> roms in the data xml to use their pc location instead of the games arcade folder on the sd card. I replaced the paths with the local one and now they do run now great 👍
I will test again the import locally when the next beta is up.
For now as a summary of what doesn't work on my pocket device:

• any arcade imports beside naomi
• Video streaming
• display of platform videos
• SMB download speed inside LB is very slow. (same roms using a file explorer from the nas to sd card downloads at 80MB/s and finish fast while in LB (no extract) it takes 5-10 times longer if not more.

Cheers

Edited January 9 by JAKAMY
bullet points

[Xyb0t]

11 hours ago, faeran said:

Thanks for the report. Did a few round of tests but was unable to reproduce the tiny video issue. Were the video files sourced from EmuMovies or somewhere else?

As far as looping videos, we were able to reproduce and it should be fixed in beta 2.

Yes, they are primarily sourced from EmuMovies, and a handful from ScreenScraper.

Also the videos work perfectly for me if i install version 1.15 - that is a bummer. This might be on my end then, but i tried everything, messed with every setting, but no cigar. The 1.15 version works with just the default settings. As soon as i upgrade to 1.16 (and also the new beta) the issue arises.

[St3althShock]

• Your device specs

Samsung A52s

6GB of Memory

Snapdragon 778g

Adreno 642L

 

• The version of Android and API version

Android 15, not sure about API

• Description of the issue

Images not always loading after highlighting new game

• Can it be reliably reproduced on your end?

Yes, I've uploaded a video to show this

• Reproduction steps

Selecting any new game has a chance to not correctly load the media for that game.

 

The crash when rotating my device seems to be fixed in the beta update. Thanks

[faeran]

10 hours ago, JAKAMY said:

Thank for the swift reply, I recorded NeoGeo import from SD, mam2003plus from SD, mam2003plus import without Mame data from sd. I also tried moving the LaunchBox folder to internal storage but it crashes all the same. 
I started using LB on android from 1.16, I also own the pc version, I'll try the export to Android if this is a pocket 5 only issue 👍
NB: I reencoded the screen recordings to AV1 to save space for the upload
Cheers

Debug 2025-01-08 08-28-44 PM.log 17.75 kB · 0 downloads Debug 2025-01-08 08-27-01 PM.log 15.29 kB · 0 downloads Debug 2025-01-08 08-24-08 PM.log 3.39 kB · 0 downloads Debug 2025-01-08 08-22-37 PM.log 104.58 kB · 0 downloads

Thanks for that. While it wasn't happening on our devices, we were able to use your logs to figure out why it was happening with your specific dataset and fix it. We'll push this in the next beta.

Not related to the crashing, but in the first MAME2003 video - You checked the option "This is a full MAME set". You shouldn't do this for a MAME 2003 set, or there will be games (and version of games) that get imported that don't actually exist in your set.

 

7 hours ago, JAKAMY said:

I tried the export from LB PC for mame 263 merged no CHD. Launching the games landed to a black screen after a side load window. I made sure that the romset works in retroarch by manually importing there with the dat file and setting the sample folder for mame in system. yet they run from retroach playlist but still not from LB. I found then 2000+/3000+ <ApplicationPath> roms in the data xml to use their pc location instead of the games arcade folder on the sd card. I replaced the paths with the local one and now they do run now great 👍
I will test again the import locally when the next beta is up.
For now as a summary of what doesn't work on my pocket device:

• any arcade imports beside naomi
• Video streaming
• display of platform videos
• SMB download speed inside LB is very slow. (same roms using a file explorer from the nas to sd card downloads at 80MB/s and finish fast while in LB (no extract) it takes 5-10 times longer if not more.

Cheers

The export to Android for MAME isn't the best thing to use for a number of reasons, but the main one being that unless you have a full non-merged set, you'd end up with paths to files that don't actually exist. On Windows this isn't a problem, MAME can fill in the gaps, but on Android, you'll end up trying to send a file to the emulator that doesn't exist, causing a black screen. Black screen can also indicate missing core, as in the core LaunchBox thinks RetroArch has isn't the one RetroArch actually has installed. I'm guessing you found yourself in the former.

Thanks for your list. Just to give context to it, the only one that's a global issue is the video streaming which was broken whem Google made some security changes. We've searched for solutions to their new security measures, but have yet to find a suitable one, so if we can't, we may disable it temporarily for this update until we find one.

We are also exploring possibilities of increasing speeds of the ROM downloads, but no promises there.

5 hours ago, Xyb0t said:

Yes, they are primarily sourced from EmuMovies, and a handful from ScreenScraper.

Also the videos work perfectly for me if i install version 1.15 - that is a bummer. This might be on my end then, but i tried everything, messed with every setting, but no cigar. The 1.15 version works with just the default settings. As soon as i upgrade to 1.16 (and also the new beta) the issue arises.

Could be device specific, but not really sure at this point. The only thing we know at the moment is that it's not happening globally, which makes it a tougher thing to track down. Pretty sure a few people on the team have the same device as you do, I'll get them to test on it and that will give us a few more answers anyway.

[faeran]

4 hours ago, St3althShock said:

• Your device specs

Samsung A52s

6GB of Memory

Snapdragon 778g

Adreno 642L

 

• The version of Android and API version

Android 15, not sure about API

• Description of the issue

Images not always loading after highlighting new game

• Can it be reliably reproduced on your end?

Yes, I've uploaded a video to show this

• Reproduction steps

Selecting any new game has a chance to not correctly load the media for that game.

 

The crash when rotating my device seems to be fixed in the beta update. Thanks

Thanks for the report.

The video is a bit unclear, but is it that screenshots didn't load into the background of the list for the double dragons, or was it something else?

If it was, can you edit the game's media and make sure one has downloaded for it?

 

[Xyb0t]

On 1/8/2025 at 9:47 PM, faeran said:

Thanks for the report. Did a few round of tests but was unable to reproduce the tiny video issue. Were the video files sourced from EmuMovies or somewhere else?

As far as looping videos, we were able to reproduce and it should be fixed in beta 2.

Please let me know if i can assist in any way, with videos, screenshots, logs or if you would like for me to test something specific I love what you guys are doing, and i still carry a tiny hope to not get stuck on version 1.15

[St3althShock]

14 hours ago, faeran said:

Thanks for the report.

The video is a bit unclear, but is it that screenshots didn't load into the background of the list for the double dragons, or was it something else?

If it was, can you edit the game's media and make sure one has downloaded for it?

 

Sorry, I should have explained better. Yes, the box art & background don't always load after highlighting a new game, even though they have been manually downloaded from the database. It will still show media of the previous games media

[faeran]

Beta 2 is out with the following changes:

• Downloading bin/cue games over a network share now includes both downloading and deleting all associated files
• Introduced a new "Download Game" option for games imported from a network share, enabling users to download games independently of playing them
• Added the ability to delete the local version of a game while maintaining its availability over the network
• Increased network buffer size to potentially improve download speeds for game files from network shares
• The download pop-up for network share files is now more informative
• Default Nintendo 64 core for RetroArch has been updated due to the previous one being retired
• Resolved an issue where downloading EmuMovies videos could cause the application to crash
• Resolved an issue where importing files over a network share did not consistently handle bin/cue files as intended
• Addressed a problem where the selected platform or game information did not always update accurately when using touch controls
• Resolved a crash that could occur while navigating within a Boxes Grid view
• Addressed a crash that might happen during the import of MAME files
• Fixed a crash that could occur when changing screen orientation while on a Filters View
• Resolved a rare crash that could occur when long-pressing on specific elements
• Corrected an issue where the background video element behaved incorrectly when a custom view file lacked a foreground video element
• Fixed an issue that prevented Platform and Game videos from looping correctly

[AndrewSpec]

My problem still exists on the beta 2

 

[Xyb0t]

This morning i was prompted to download the new beta, and i AM SO HAPPY ❤️ All my video snaps are now shown and playing correctly, filling up the full frame in the theme 😄 Just like version 1.15 did. Or, at least that is what my initial morning-coffee-testing-run shows, trying out a few different themes and views. Gonna give it a thorough whirl later today when wife is out of town anyways.

Thank you guys. I am about to scream to the heavens from utter happiness!!! You guys rock severely

 

EDIT:
I tested some more, using both the standard theme, some other one which name i don't recall, and the Unified Lite (to try out video frames of different sizes) and they all work perfectly!

Another thing i notice is, that when i enter a system/gamelist now, it seems like a game is always highlighted straight away 👍 Before it was a bit wonky, and often when entering a system/gamelist i would end up "between" two games, and i had to move up or down to highlight a game.

All in all, I am a huge fan of this new beta release ❤️ 

Edited Saturday at 12:06 PM by Xyb0t
More testing

[St3althShock]

Highlighting a new game is now loading the correct media every time with the new beta.

Thanks! 

[JAKAMY]

On 1/23/2025 at 4:24 PM, faeran said:

Beta 2 is out with the following changes:

• Downloading bin/cue games over a network share now includes both downloading and deleting all associated files
• Introduced a new "Download Game" option for games imported from a network share, enabling users to download games independently of playing them
• Added the ability to delete the local version of a game while maintaining its availability over the network
• Increased network buffer size to potentially improve download speeds for game files from network shares
• The download pop-up for network share files is now more informative
• Default Nintendo 64 core for RetroArch has been updated due to the previous one being retired
• Resolved an issue where downloading EmuMovies videos could cause the application to crash
• Resolved an issue where importing files over a network share did not consistently handle bin/cue files as intended
• Addressed a problem where the selected platform or game information did not always update accurately when using touch controls
• Resolved a crash that could occur while navigating within a Boxes Grid view
• Addressed a crash that might happen during the import of MAME files
• Fixed a crash that could occur when changing screen orientation while on a Filters View
• Resolved a rare crash that could occur when long-pressing on specific elements
• Corrected an issue where the background video element behaved incorrectly when a custom view file lacked a foreground video element
• Fixed an issue that prevented Platform and Game videos from looping correctly

Thanks a lot for the big update. As promised. I retested the issues I mentioned on this updates as follow:

• importing Mame2003plus romset from the sd card and it completes without a crash now.
  • (importing them in retroarch+samples still important to avoid black screens which is what I do on PC too so for me it's normal).
• Big roms/chds download is now significantly faster like 10X compared to before and the download rate helps put some numbers on it.
  • Honestly I am more than content with half max speed inside LB but as we beta test this is what I encountered:
    • It starts now at 29MB/s and climbs to a max of 40MB/s from LB. (tested on multiple roms in and out of LB using MixPlorer and CX File explorer from local lan Synology NAS (with config of SMB 2 MTU, SMB3 ) using Wifi 6. It still downloads to SDcard at 90MB/s from the file explorers for the same chd/roms.
• New Related notes to downloads, I noticed this:
  • Download progress bar is not linked to rom file size vs downloaded amount anymore and fills to 100% in a few seconds while the download is still progressing.
  • When taping download and play it now don't show the download and stay displaying launching and look like it is frozen while it processes in the background)
  • Deleting downloaded local files works great and confirmed in file explorer.
• The issue of boxarts in list not displaying/loading correctly after coming back from a game launch from retroarch seem to be corrected as I couldn't replicate it again.
• Just for confirmation, I don't use video but I tested the stream option and display background video and still none showing up/ streaming but I understand that Google broke it.
• N64 works correctly after I updated the cores in retroarch after the update. Not sure if that was necessary but it now runs without issues.
• Not related to update but I also fixed amiga .ipl games capsimg.so issue I had on my non rooted device and it works too great

I want to thank you so much for the NAS feature so much as it made LB Android for me the best and only App I can't live without on my handled device. I use Tailscale to access all my PC LB collection from anywhere in the world without the need to have it locally (impossible anyway as it is TB of data).
I still manually replace the NAS Lan IP to Tailscale IP in the Platform XMLs when I am out of home for days and back for a faster local LAN speed but I can live with that 🙂

Cheerio/Kudos 
 

 

[JAKAMY]

11 hours ago, JAKAMY said:

Thanks a lot for the big update. As promised. I retested the issues I mentioned on this updates as follow:

• importing Mame2003plus romset from the sd card and it completes without a crash now.
  • (importing them in retroarch+samples still important to avoid black screens which is what I do on PC too so for me it's normal).
• Big roms/chds download is now significantly faster like 10X compared to before and the download rate helps put some numbers on it.
  • Honestly I am more than content with half max speed inside LB but as we beta test this is what I encountered:
    • It starts now at 29MB/s and climbs to a max of 40MB/s from LB. (tested on multiple roms in and out of LB using MixPlorer and CX File explorer from local lan Synology NAS (with config of SMB 2 MTU, SMB3 ) using Wifi 6. It still downloads to SDcard at 90MB/s from the file explorers for the same chd/roms.
• New Related notes to downloads, I noticed this:
  • Download progress bar is not linked to rom file size vs downloaded amount anymore and fills to 100% in a few seconds while the download is still progressing.
  • When taping download and play it now don't show the download and stay displaying launching and look like it is frozen while it processes in the background)
  • Deleting downloaded local files works great and confirmed in file explorer.
• The issue of boxarts in list not displaying/loading correctly after coming back from a game launch from retroarch seem to be corrected as I couldn't replicate it again.
• Just for confirmation, I don't use video but I tested the stream option and display background video and still none showing up/ streaming but I understand that Google broke it.
• N64 works correctly after I updated the cores in retroarch after the update. Not sure if that was necessary but it now runs without issues.
• Not related to update but I also fixed amiga .ipl games capsimg.so issue I had on my non rooted device and it works too great

I want to thank you so much for the NAS feature so much as it made LB Android for me the best and only App I can't live without on my handled device. I use Tailscale to access all my PC LB collection from anywhere in the world without the need to have it locally (impossible anyway as it is TB of data).
I still manually replace the NAS Lan IP to Tailscale IP in the Platform XMLs when I am out of home for days and back for a faster local LAN speed but I can live with that 🙂

Cheerio/Kudos 
 

 

Addendum: Using time count for different games, it is effectively max speed not half. The displayed speed rate is wrong. 850MB file download in 9-10 seconds (around 90MB/s not the displayed 40MB/s)

Cheers

[ChunkyLoverMark]

• Introduced a new "Download Game" option for games imported from a network share, enabling users to download games independently of playing them

This is really cool, I left feedback requesting it and I'm really happy you added it so thank you very much. The cancel button doesn't seem to work when trying to download from a Network drive that hasn't been woken up. I have to use a third party file manager to wake up my network drive before using LaunchBox to download my games. The application freezes when trying to download games from my network drive when it hasn't been woken up. (My Network drive is the Nvidia Shield 2017) Like someone else said as well, there is no idea how long any of the downloads will take as the bar fills up instantly with only the MB/s giving any idea that the download is still running. 

• Added the ability to delete the local version of a game while maintaining its availability over the network

This is also useful, Seems to work really well. Perfect for mobile with limited storage. 

• Increased network buffer size to potentially improve download speeds for game files from network shares

This makes a huge difference, night and day difference how much quicker games download. Before I was thinking if it was worth hosting my games on a NAS drive but this part of the update has convinced me.

• Resolved an issue where downloading EmuMovies videos could cause the application to crash

I'm still having issues with downloading EmuMovies videos, this might be because I'm on a beta version of Android 15 on my Pixel 8 Pro. Downloading videos from EmuMovies works fine on my Windows machine and I'm a LifeTime supporter.