LaunchBox for Android - 1.18 Beta Thread

[faeran]

Hi Everyone,

1.18 Beta 1 is out with a bunch of fixes and small improvements.

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:

• Orientation Lock has been added, allowing users to lock the app's orientation to either Landscape or Portrait, overriding the device's global orientation settings
• The application framework has been upgraded to .NET 9 (from .NET 8), providing enhanced performance and stability
• Sega Triforce is now available as a supported platform
• Video streaming functionality has been restored; however, please note that only video will be streamed at this time due to the limitations of YouTube
• Video downloading from streamed content is now functional. The application will now combine the video and audio streams and save them as a single file to your local drive

 

Known Issues with Beta 1:

• There's a known crashing issue with beta 1 that's due to video playback. This is due to the media element that we are using. It has a known crashing issue that we can fix by updating the element, however, in order to update the element it requires that we update specific dependencies, including .NET and MAUI workloads. This work will come out in beta 2, which should be soon.
• Touch screen controls not working on the "Browse for New Games Database Image" page (controller navigation works fine). Fix slotted for beta 3.

 

Beta 2:

• Added a visual loading indicator to provide feedback during shared drive connection attempts
• Significantly reduced the frequency of application crashes during video playback by addressing underlying stability issues
• Implemented functionality to automatically delete partially downloaded files when a game download is canceled over the network
• Resolved an issue where platform theme videos would unexpectedly restart when the device orientation was changed
• Updated the "Video downloading..." indicator text to "Video Stream loading..." to better reflect the process of streaming video content

 

Known Issues with Beta 2:

• Screenshots may sometimes not appear in certain views when they should. Fix slotted for beta 4.
• Touch screen controls not working on the "Browse for New Games Database Image" page (controller navigation works fine). Fix slotted for beta 4.
• The app suddenly gets stuck during startup - this is due to a crash report not sending properly
  • Workaround: You'll need to downgrade to version 1.17 and wait for beta 3. You can find a copy of 1.17 in your LaunchBox\Upgrades folder, or you can get one from our website ( https://www.launchbox-app.com )

 

Beta 3:

• The beginning of Scoped Storage support has been implemented. It's in an incomplete state, with more work to come for the next beta
• Additional Apps on a Network Share should once again download and play
• Users stuck in a startup crash loop should now be unstuck (introduced in beta 2)

[faeran]

Beta 2 is out which should help with the crashing users were seeing with beta 1.

Here's the full changelog:

• Added a visual loading indicator to provide feedback during shared drive connection attempts
• Significantly reduced the frequency of application crashes during video playback by addressing underlying stability issues
• Implemented functionality to automatically delete partially downloaded files when a game download is canceled over the network
• Resolved an issue where platform theme videos would unexpectedly restart when the device orientation was changed
• Updated the "Video downloading..." indicator text to "Video Stream loading..." to better reflect the process of streaming video content

[ChunkyLoverMark]

Wow what an update ❤️

 

From having so many crashes to having none. I love all the little tweaks and changes with this update. I'll report if I find anything else but so far it's great. Appreciate the LaunchBox team and Community so much. 

[Vader]

For me the crashes continue. The app will load up fine to the platfrom screen, but when I select a platform, it crashes.

 

[Eyebrows Cat]

Lenovo Legion Tab Y700 Gen2 (2023)
ZUI 16.0.688

1.17 has no problems, but 1.18β2 shuts down during startup.
After uninstalling, installing 1.17 starts it up normally again, but updating to 1.18β2 prevents it from starting.

[faeran]

On 3/7/2025 at 9:59 PM, Vader said:

For me the crashes continue. The app will load up fine to the platfrom screen, but when I select a platform, it crashes.

 

 

3 hours ago, Eyebrows Cat said:

Lenovo Legion Tab Y700 Gen2 (2023)
ZUI 16.0.688

1.17 has no problems, but 1.18β2 shuts down during startup.
After uninstalling, installing 1.17 starts it up normally again, but updating to 1.18β2 prevents it from starting.

Thanks guys. We will take a look in our crash reporting system and we will be fixing as much as we can for beta 3.

[RavenDarhk]

On 3/12/2025 at 4:27 AM, Eyebrows Cat said:

Lenovo Legion Tab Y700 Gen2 (2023)
ZUI 16.0.688

1.17 has no problems, but 1.18β2 shuts down during startup.
After uninstalling, installing 1.17 starts it up normally again, but updating to 1.18β2 prevents it from starting.

Same problem on Galaxy S25 Ultra.

[ChunkyLoverMark]

Yeah app doesn't open for me anymore, I'm hoping for an APK link when the next beta releases so I can upgrade with that. 

[faeran]

We've looked into the issue where the app will suddenly stop opening during startup, which looks like it would have started on beta 1.

Essentially, what's happening is that when a user hits a hard crash, our crash reporting system attempts to send that report into our system. Instead of sending the report, the crash reporting system crashes again.

If you find yourself in this situation you'll need to downgrade to 1.17 and wait for beta 3, which should be out in the next day or so.

Sorry for the headache here.

[faeran]

Hey all,

Beta 3 is now out.

For users stuck in that startup crash due to the crash reporting system issue, we'd love for you to test this release to see if this release fixes it for you.

If you have downgraded to 1.17, you can simply run the beta update from within the app.

If you need a copy of the beta 3 apk, you can get it from here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XVFtzBfY9DSdgCfuEeNtJ0yVtLFJxUl9/view?usp=sharing

*There's the potential that after you install this apk, you may need to restart your phone.

This release includes:

• The beginning of Scoped Storage support has been implemented. It's in an incomplete state, with more work to come for the next beta
• Additional Apps on a Network Share should once again download and play
• Users stuck in a startup crash loop should now be unstuck (introduced in beta 2)

Thanks again for the help with all the beta testing.

 

[ChunkyLoverMark]

So I installed the beta and it works great ❤️

 

The portrait lock seems to work great too, the loading screen will start loading in the system orientation and switch after a few seconds: https://photos.app.goo.gl/kuorQa6sCdcSBs8X9

[Eyebrows Cat]

On 3/12/2025 at 6:27 PM, Eyebrows Cat said:

Lenovo Legion Tab Y700 Gen2 (2023)
ZUI 16.0.688

1.17 has no problems, but 1.18β2 shuts down during startup.
After uninstalling, installing 1.17 starts it up normally again, but updating to 1.18β2 prevents it from starting.

I installed β3 in the same environment as the source. It started without any problems. Thank you for the quick update!

[Eyebrows Cat]

4 hours ago, Eyebrows Cat said:

I installed β3 in the same environment as the source. It started without any problems. Thank you for the quick update!

A new problem has occurred.
This is a bug that did not occur in 1.17.
Edit media → Select image category → Browse new game database image → Unable to select image
1.18β3 Japanese environment.

[Eyebrows Cat]

12 minutes ago, Eyebrows Cat said:

A new problem has occurred.
This is a bug that did not occur in 1.17.
Edit media → Select image category → Browse new game database image → Unable to select image
1.18β3 Japanese environment.

 

Debug 2025-03-22 12-17-41 PM.log

[ChunkyLoverMark]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what does this part mean? 

 

Additional Apps on a Network Share should once again download and play

 

Are apps different from Roms? Is there something other than roms we can store on our NAS?

[jevcleem]

3 hours ago, ChunkyLoverMark said:

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what does this part mean? 

 

Additional Apps on a Network Share should once again download and play

 

Are apps different from Roms? Is there something other than roms we can store on our NAS?

You can merge different versions of roms (eg different regions or newer versions) into one game - such that it only shows up once in the list, it has one default rom and then the other versions are stored under 'additional apps'. Under android/launchbox you can click play and it will launch the default rom, or you can click additional versions and choose one of the 'additional apps'

[faeran]

On 3/21/2025 at 11:26 PM, Eyebrows Cat said:

A new problem has occurred.
This is a bug that did not occur in 1.17.
Edit media → Select image category → Browse new game database image → Unable to select image
1.18β3 Japanese environment.

Thanks. The known issue that we are currently tracking is that for certain devices touch screen controls do not work on the page where you choose a new database image.

We've confirmed that controllers seem to work, and we've also confirmed that certain device the touch screen controls do work on this page.

If this is not what you are seeing, please let us know.

[Eyebrows Cat]

5 hours ago, faeran said:

Thanks. The known issue that we are currently tracking is that for certain devices touch screen controls do not work on the page where you choose a new database image.

We've confirmed that controllers seem to work, and we've also confirmed that certain device the touch screen controls do work on this page.

If this is not what you are seeing, please let us know.

Lenovo Legion Tab Y700 Gen2 (2023)

ZUI 16.0.622

I checked further. No matter how many times I touch the image, there is no reaction. However, the "←" key to go back does react.
Thank you in advance.