Big Box Not Opening

[costaskk]

Hi, I'm suddenly having an issue where I can't open Big Box. Launchbox opens up just fine, I turned on logging and getting this message

2025-08-22 03:21:43 PM DataManager.SaveInternal started.
2025-08-22 03:21:43 PM Saving InputBindings.xml...
2025-08-22 03:21:43 PM Saving GameControllers.xml...
2025-08-22 03:21:43 PM Saving ListCache.xml...
2025-08-22 03:21:44 PM Saving Settings.xml...
2025-08-22 03:21:44 PM DataManager.SaveInternal completed successfully.
2025-08-22 03:21:47 PM FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: Cannot locate resource 'views/launchbox_theme_folder/fonts/redhatdisplay-black.ttf'.
   at MS.Internal.AppModel.ResourcePart.GetStreamCore(FileMode mode, FileAccess access)

I checked my BigBoxSettings.xml inside Data folder and I'm seeing this

This is my Retro Console Theme Anim V2 folder and the fonts folder inside


I copied the RedHatDisplay-Black.ttf from the default theme folder to see if that was the issue but no dice. Any help would be appreciated, cheers!

[JoeViking245]

23 minutes ago, costaskk said:

Hi, I'm suddenly having an issue where I can't open Big Box. Launchbox opens up just fine, I turned on logging and getting this message

Looking at the error... Cannot locate resource 'views/launchbox_theme_folder/fonts/redhatdisplay-black.ttf', it seems to be looking in the wrong folder.

Not knowing that particular theme (and just enough theming knowledge to be dangerous ), I think you need to find and change that (those?) lines in the xaml's.

The [section of the] line should read like:  

FontFamily="LAUNCHBOX_THEME_FOLDER/Fonts/RedHatDisplay-Black.ttf#Red Hat Display Black"

(without the views/ part.)  Why it's suddenly started having issues, don't know.  (and with my little bit of knowledge, surprised it worked before)

[costaskk]

Update, I think something is wrong with my metadata or launchbox.metadata,db file. As soon as I delete that folder , big box loads but then throws an unhandled exception. That's really weird, never had any issues with launchbox-big box before

[JoeViking245]

10 minutes ago, costaskk said:

Update, I think something is wrong with my metadata or launchbox.metadata,db file. As soon as I delete that folder , big box loads but then throws an unhandled exception. That's really weird, never had any issues with launchbox-big box before

If it is that, open LaunchBox and then... Tools < Download < Force Update Games Database Metadata...

[costaskk]

This didn't help, this is really weird lol. It seems that when I open Big Box a file named videoActive is created inside the MetaData folder. If I delete it, Big Box will start right away, that's really weird.

 

Edit: Also the startup video or the Big Box logo do not show when I open the app.

Edited Friday at 02:09 PM by costaskk

[JoeViking245]

15 minutes ago, costaskk said:

This didn't help, this is really weird lol. It seems that when I open Big Box a file named videoActive is created inside the MetaData folder. If I delete it, Big Box will start right away, that's really weird.

 

Edit: Also the startup video or the Big Box logo do not show when I open the app.

Shooting from the hip.... you mentioned the file "videoActive". And it has the word "video" in it. (how am I doing so far? lol)  Maybe try "the other" video player.

WMP or VLC if v13.22 or older.  WMP or FFmpeg for 13.23.

Also (as I got to thinking about it), that debug fragment you showed was just that. A fragment of the whole kit-and-Kaboodle.  I recall seeing in past logs as well, something about the ttf file (don't remember 'exactly' what). But it never stopped BB from opening.

[costaskk]

Yeah I'm not sure that is the true issue of my problems anyways, it's just the only thing I have to check. I have a pretty huge library too so I didn't wanna delete and start from scratch but I think I'll probably have to do that after all, since nothing seems to work

[JoeViking245]

3 hours ago, costaskk said:

Yeah I'm not sure that is the true issue of my problems anyways

Not sure if related to your issue....

 

[costaskk]

21 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

Not sure if related to your issue....

 

Ok I just found my issue and it is really weird. My pc was blocking all the dlls from the custom theme, even though I have turned off firewall and scanning in this drive. I guess it is a new windows feature. I had to right click on properties and select unblock and apply, I ended up running this command from cmd to unblock every dll in my Launchbox folder just to be safe Get-ChildItem "R:\LaunchBox" -Recurse -Filter *.dll | Unblock-File

Anyways, thanks a lot for trying to help, posted the solution in case anybody else has the same issue, that was really weird!