13.22 install issues

[5thWolf]

So I let LB update to 13.22 from 13.21 and nothing happens after the installation process disappears. It seems to just end without install confirmation. I then tried to ran the installer from the update folder manually, which in the past helped often, and same thing the installer bar seems to finish then instantly disappears with out any confirmation of install.
Running LB exe does nothing! Any ideas?
 

[C-Beats]

Typically if you see the splash screen then it disappears you have an either a bad install because the AV blocked something in the new installer that isn't old enough NOT to trip it OR some other .NET related error. If you look in Windows Event View there should be an application error log that points to LB and gives the reason for the crash. If you can provide that we can try to work through it.

[5thWolf]

No splash screen. Nothing happens when launching it. Will look for the logs.

[5thWolf]

It doesn't seem to come up on the event viewer at all. I just tried launching it 3 times, also making sure nothing was lingering in task manager, and nothing. Not even an event.

I did try yesterday deleting the EXE and letting the installer put down another one during installation and nothing changed.
Was running pervious versions just fine till now so skeptical it's .net. But I can reinstall it if you think it would help. Would just need to know which version to try.

Edited Friday at 12:10 PM by 5thWolf

[SubRetro]

@5thWolf Couple of things

1. What does your AV logs show?

2. Can you confirm that you are excluding the LB path from your AV?

3. You could try doing a "Run as Admin" on the EXE and install to a different drive location to see what the behavior is. 

If it was .Net it would normally generate an error window if it was missing. 

Edited Friday at 03:34 PM by SubRetro

[Zarach]

Same exact issue here. Event log is clear, run as Admin doesn't do anything different, The .exe never shows up in task manager. Windows Defender shows no recent threats. I've tried running it from multiple computers as it's on a network drive "R:\LaunchBox" and the behavior is the same. This was also an upgrade from 13.21.

 

Edit: Just tried a fresh install locally to the default install folder (AppData) and everything works fine. I then tried a fresh install to my network drive (R:\) and the .exe won't run. Hopefully that will help pinpoint the issue!

Edited Friday at 05:00 PM by Zarach

[5thWolf]

Not using any AV other than Windows Security and nothing is blocked. LB has never been blocked in many years I have used it across every version.
Also tried running as admin, no changes.

Edited Friday at 07:42 PM by 5thWolf

[5thWolf]

37 minutes ago, Zarach said:

Same exact issue here. Event log is clear, run as Admin doesn't do anything different, The .exe never shows up in task manager. Windows Defender shows no recent threats. I've tried running it from multiple computers as it's on a network drive "R:\LaunchBox" and the behavior is the same. This was also an upgrade from 13.21.

 

Edit: Just tried a fresh install locally to the default install folder (AppData) and everything works fine. I then tried a fresh install to my network drive (R:\) and the .exe won't run. Hopefully that will help pinpoint the issue!

That sucks. Seems like a lot of coding changing causing issues for networked drive users like us. Like adding roms, use to add the destination as ..\folder. Now it randomly does E:\folder\folder and randomly something else that doesn't work at all! I have to manually change it to ..\folder like it use to do from day one! So I think not that you said your a net drive like me that they are coding causing issues with mapped drives.

[Zarach]

1 hour ago, 5thWolf said:

That sucks. Seems like a lot of coding changing causing issues for networked drive users like us. Like adding roms, use to add the destination as ..\folder. Now it randomly does E:\folder\folder and randomly something else that doesn't work at all! I have to manually change it to ..\folder like it use to do from day one! So I think not that you said your a net drive like me that they are coding causing issues with mapped drives.

Since 13.19 it has been a little dicey when adding systems and importing games with a mapped network drive. I imported some games yesterday running 13.21 and it imported them all using their UNC path rather than the relative paths that were used in the past. I then had to open the platform.xml file and related .xml files and do a find/replace and get rid of all my UNC paths and change them back to relative paths. I've been combing through my other .xml files for any residue since 13.19 was released for UNC paths as well. The UNC path being ANYWHERE completely negates the "portable" concept which is why I've been hoping and waiting that they would revert back to the behavior of 13.18 and prior versions. There's still an old post here that hasn't been answered in months: 

I'm super appreciative for LaunchBox and the dedicated staff, you guys rock! Please don't take anything I say the wrong way. If you could give a little more attention to network drive setups in future revisions we would be eternally grateful! I'd be happy to share any of my own configurations with you if that will help at all.

[5thWolf]

Yeah. Its pretty annoying having to change the path after selecting a rom.
@Zarach I guess I know now how to explain the pathing "UNC" vs "Relative"! So I take it your update to 13.22 was fine then? Also after you ran the installer, when it was done did it just disappear or was there a confirmation/OK button to hit when it completed? Mine just disappeared after the green bar hit 100% and seemed like it just didn't install properly.

Edited Friday at 07:06 PM by 5thWolf

[Zarach]

5 minutes ago, 5thWolf said:

Yeah. Its pretty annoying having to change the path after selecting a rom.
@Zarach I guess I know now how to explain the pathing UNC vs Relative! So I take it your update to 13.22 was fine then? Also after you ran the installer, when it was done did it just disappear or was there a confirmation/OK button to hit when it completed? Mine just disappeared after the green bar hit 100% and seemed like it just didn't install properly.

My update to 13.22 has the same results yours does. The installer just disappears. Usually the update finishes and it launches the new version with the news window in the foreground to see the goodies they added for the version. Mine doesn't do anything, it just disappears. No errors, no logs, no AV behavior, nothing. Clicking the .exe from my network drive - either LB or BB does nothing.

[5thWolf]

I remember in the past sometimes the exe would install corrupt. I am going to try to install it on C: then just copy over the 2 exe. and see what happens!
Just hope all others files installed properly.

Edited Friday at 07:27 PM by 5thWolf

[5thWolf]

Well it installed just fine on C:\ and ran just fine. Moving over the EXEs did nothing.
Whatever changes in this version has completely killed the app from functioning on a mapped drive.
I hope this gets looked at for I been using LB on my mapped drive since I began using LB many many years ago. Never had an issue. I even spent hundreds upgrading my network to be 10g specifically to run everything faster and it has been wonderful!
Please devs, look into this. I think the change from XML to SQLite may have something to do with this and as @Zarach mentioned about UNC vs Relative pathing. This is a problem since update 13.19!

Edited Friday at 07:46 PM by 5thWolf

[DZuroff]

Same issue here.  When trying to run from a mapped drive on my NAS, the launcher never starts, there are no entries logged, and the splash screen never appears.  Literally, nothing happens when Launchbox.exe is opened.

[5thWolf]

After watching it install on C:\ and it running LB right after successfully I would guess it installed properly on the net drive. It installed and went away with no install confirmation or anything just went straight to LB. Same as when installing to net drive except that the exe failed. So bet install is good using net drive.

Edited Friday at 11:04 PM by 5thWolf

[Zarach]

I rolled back to 13.21 and the installer doesn't offer any input once it's done, it simply opens LB after it finishes and everything is back to working for me. If I recall this is the normal process when installing all versions of LB. There's not much happening with the installer itself. It's just extracting files and folders to the specified path and it puts a couple icons in the start menu like a shortcut to the LaunchBox.exe and uninstall .exe. It also checks to see if the .net and codecs are installed and if not it installs either or both. Since LB was designed to be portable they didn't have it installing tons of registry keys or registering .dll files all over your system drive.

When I went back into 13.21 I started doing a couple changes as I wanted some different icons for a couple of my systems. Totally unrelated to the discussions we've had here today. I noticed each platform I edited and saved caused seemingly random fields in the platform such as the path to "Square" to become a UNC path but the rest of the fields were still relative paths. I don't know what "Square" is, and I never touched that field! It caused me to have to go back into my Platforms.xml file and remove the UNC paths yet again. There's definitely a few strange items happening when LB is sitting on a network drive even aside from the latest 13.22 issues. Hopefully this thread will get some attention and we'll see some updates. Until then, I hope everyone has a great and safe July 4th!!

[DZuroff]

I can confirm that rolling back to version 13.21 produces a working Launchbox running from an SMB share.  I rolled back to version 13.21 and Launchbox fired right up.

Edited 7 hours ago by DZuroff

[5thWolf]

Figured I mention this incase it leads to ideas..... but went to play on may arcade machine which is also Win 11 and running the same files on my net drive, which is what I have been doing for years, since LB wasn't updated 13.22 and is still on 13.21, would at least play arcade games.
Well same exact thing happened when I launched it, this is without installing any LB update, Makes me wonder if maybe Windows updates may be involved with issues as well?

[5thWolf]

I want to try total wipe of .net but I had a few versions due to certain emulators. What version is required for 13.22? is it .net 4 or 6 or 8? or will using the latest which is 9 work?

[JoeViking245]

14 minutes ago, 5thWolf said:

What version is required for 13.22? is it .net 4 or 6 or 8? or will using the latest which is 9 work?

The only one needing to be on your system is .NET Core 3.1 Runtime. 

No other .NET-this, .NET-that or .NET-the-other-thing is required by LaunchBox to be installed.  LaunchBox does use .NET 9, but ALL required dependencies for it are included within LaunchBox itself.