Big Box not regaining focus after exiting MAME

[sTo0z]

I have a VERY basic setup here. Running LB 13.8 (got my reasons) and just MAME (0.237), almost everything is default. Just using Esc to exit MAME.

I have this EXACT same setup on another machine, and everything works fine. For whatever reason, exiting a MAME game on this machine sends me back to Big Box, but I can't do anything because the focus is lost.

I have tried looking in task manager, alt+tabbing to see if there's anything else there, there's nothing. No other apps are running, nothing minimized, nothing in the background. 

I do have a controller that has a mouse click type button on it, and if I push that button, it DOES regain focus. So I do have a work-around, but I'd love to just have it working normally. 

I have read a bunch of other threads on the issue, but none seem to be the same. Big Box will launch fine, MAME will launch fine, can play the game without any problems, and closing MAME works fine, but Big Box just doesn't get its focus back. Even though I have this exact same setup (same LB version, same BB setup, same MAME version, same Windows 11 version) on another PC and it works fine.

I even used to have this controller plugged into the other machine that still works fine, so the controller doesn't seem to be the issue either. 

Any ideas on what I can possibly look at to try and troubleshoot?

[JoeViking245]

47 minutes ago, sTo0z said:

Any ideas on what I can possibly look at to try and troubleshoot?

Try.... In LaunchBox, edit your MAME emulator and un-check Attempt to hide console window on startup/shutdown.

[sTo0z]

3 minutes ago, JoeViking245 said:

Try.... In LaunchBox, edit your MAME emulator and un-check Attempt to hide console window on startup/shutdown.

Just gave it a shot, no go.

[JoeViking245]

10 hours ago, sTo0z said:

Just gave it a shot, no go.

That was the fix for some on Discord.

Another one to try is, edit MAME [again] and in the Startup Screen section, check or un-check (the opposite of where it's at now) Hide All Windows that are not in Exclusive Fullscreen Mode.

[sTo0z]

9 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

That was the fix for some on Discord.

Another one to try is, edit MAME [again] and in the Startup Screen section, check or un-check (the opposite of where it's at now) Hide All Windows that are not in Exclusive Fullscreen Mode.

Sadly, no go again.

Tried with both options toggled as well, nothing still.

Frustrating that this same exact setup works on another PC... Both are near completely vanilla Win11, fully patched, and basically only have a few utlities (Notepad++, 7-zip, etc) and then just LaunchBox and MAME. 😕