Big Box Crashing in Version 13.23? Here’s What You Need to Know

[AstroBob]

Hey folks,

We’ve received several reports of Big Box crashing after updating to LaunchBox version 13.23. This update introduced a major change under the hood: a new video playback engine.

If you’re seeing crashes or issues with video playback, here’s what’s going on — and how to fix it.

 

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▶️ What Changed in 13.23?

We’ve added support for FFmpeg-based video playback, which now appears as the FFMPEG option in Big Box settings under Options > Video > Video Playback Engine. It comes with new benefits but also introduces potential performance challenges depending on your setup.

 

Here’s a quick summary of the two available playback engines:

📝 For a full breakdown, see our Video Playback Guide.

 

🪶 Windows Media Player (WMP)

• Performance: Lightweight and fast, especially good for single monitor setups.

• Color Accuracy: May display washed-out colors depending on your GPU settings. This can usually be fixed via your graphics control panel.

• Multi-Monitor Support: Can cause black screens or visual glitches on secondary displays due to hardware overlay limitations.

• Load Time: Very fast, with videos appearing almost instantly.

• Audio Stability: Stable even under load.

• Setup: Built into Windows; may require codec packs like K-Lite, but is fully integrated with LaunchBox.

 

 

🔧  FFME (FFmpeg Engine)

• Performance: Heavier on system resources. May feel laggy when scrolling quickly.

• Color Accuracy: Excellent out-of-the-box support — accurate colors and wide codec compatibility.

• Multi-Monitor Support: Very reliable across all monitors — no overlay issues.

• Load Time: Videos can take a moment to appear after transitions.

• Audio Stability: On lower-end systems, fast switching can cause brief audio stutters if the UI thread is overloaded.

• Setup: No configuration required — plug-and-play with built-in codec support.

 

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✅ Recommended Fix: Switch to Windows Media Player

 

If you’re experiencing issues or crashes, we strongly recommend switching your video playback engine to WMP for now.

 

⚠️ Important: If you previously used VLC, upgrading to 13.23 may have incorrectly set your playback engine to FFMPEG. You’ll need to change this manually.

 

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🧭 How to Change Playback Engine

 

If Big Box is working:

 

1. Open Big Box

2. Go to Options > Videos

3. Set Video Playback Engine to WMP

 

If Big Box crashes before you can reach the settings:

 

1. Close both LaunchBox and Big Box

2. Open the file:

   LaunchBox/Data/BigBoxSettings.xml

3. Search for <VideoPlaybackEngine>

4. If the value is VLC or FFMPEG, change it to:

   <VideoPlaybackEngine>Windows Media Player</VideoPlaybackEngine>

5. Save and relaunch Big Box

 

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🧪 Still Crashing on WMP?

If Big Box still crashes after switching to WMP, try the following:

 

 

1. Remove Startup Videos & Background Music

These features may still default to FFmpeg under the hood and could be causing the crash.

 

• Try removing your Big Box startup video

• Disable or remove any background music that’s not part of a video file

 

 

2. Still No Luck? Help Us Help You!

If it continues to crash:

 

• If you get a LaunchBox error, copy and paste it in a reply to this post

• If it hard crashes, go to:

  • Windows Event Viewer > Windows Logs > Application

  • Look for 2–3 crash-related entries (errors/info) around the time of the crash

  • Include them in your post

 

Also include:

• Your graphics card model (and how much VRAM it has)

• Your CPU and RAM specs

 

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We’re actively working on improving FFmpeg stability and will continue refining both playback engines going forward.

 

Thanks for your patience and support. We’ll keep this post updated as new fixes roll out! 💙

— The LaunchBox Team

[j_ace]

I have no idea what I'm doing.

Edited Friday at 08:00 PM by j_ace

[faeran]

A beta is out that should fix crashing issues when entering Big Box for users that are using a 30-series graphics card (and other cards that have issues with certain types of unstable hardware decoding). For users that were experiencing this issue, if you can confirm that the beta has solved this for you that would be wonderful.

[CliffordYuma]

As said in 13.23 beta thread:

 

Can confirm beta works for me. I was experiencing BigBox crashes and tried everything. Beta solved it. Setup:

 

Graphic card: Nvidia 3080 RTX 10GB

CPU: i7 12700F

RAM: 32 GB DDR4

Setup: Triple monitor

Codecs: FFmpeg and WMP. Both works fine, no crashes.

 

If you need more info, let me know

Thank you very much

 

Edited 15 hours ago by CliffordYuma

[uberrr]

Hello,

My video playback is set to WMP in the BigBoxSettings.xml file. I have removed my startup video and don't use background music, but when I try to launch BigBox it just never starts, no error or anything. I've left it alone for a few hours but it still wont start. In order to get back into LB I have to open task manager and end BigBox manually

[Kennerdy]

Hello!  Here is what I have.
 

Both updated 13.23 and the rolled back 13.22 will crash the PC completely when a video is attempting to be played at startup (Screen darkens for approximately 2 seconds, followed by monitor dropping signal and PC rebooting).  No crash report is produced with this.  This was not an issue when originally on 13.22.

By removing the video, it no longer crashes the computer but does hang up on the Big Box logo.   Nothing opens up, just the logo.  The task manager shows BigBox as an application in the background, but idling more or less.  This doesn't progress unless I actively close it (kill it),  This doesn't produce a crash report with Bigbox.   The windows error report for me mentions the program hangs.

This occurs regardless of using a custom theme or the default.

Video and audio files have also been removed.

I also manually changed the video player in the .xml file. 

I have tried a fresh install of 13.23 and it opened Big Box without issue after initial setup.  WMP was the selected video player.  Upon adding in the startup video, Bigbox would again hard crash the computer.  Once removing the startup video, this install proceeds to hang up in the same way the other install does.

Windows 11
Radeon 780m, 16gb
AMD Ryzen 9, 7940HS
64gb DDR4

Attached is the report that Windows provides.  I hope it helps.

 

Thank you again to anybody that can help provide a solution and to the awesome people working on this amazing program.  

Bigbox Crashing.evtx

Edited 14 hours ago by Kennerdy

[faeran]

3 hours ago, uberrr said:

Hello,

My video playback is set to WMP in the BigBoxSettings.xml file. I have removed my startup video and don't use background music, but when I try to launch BigBox it just never starts, no error or anything. I've left it alone for a few hours but it still wont start. In order to get back into LB I have to open task manager and end BigBox manually

Update to the beta and see if it helps. I hope you mean when you say you changed to WMP, you mean Windows Media Player.

After the update, if you are still experiencing the issue, follow the steps to provide an Event Viewer .NET crash log.

2 hours ago, Kennerdy said:

Hello!  Here is what I have.
 

Both updated 13.23 and the rolled back 13.22 will crash the PC completely when a video is attempting to be played at startup (Screen darkens for approximately 2 seconds, followed by monitor dropping signal and PC rebooting).  No crash report is produced with this.  This was not an issue when originally on 13.22.

By removing the video, it no longer crashes the computer but does hang up on the Big Box logo.   Nothing opens up, just the logo.  The task manager shows BigBox as an application in the background, but idling more or less.  This doesn't progress unless I actively close it (kill it),  This doesn't produce a crash report with Bigbox.   The windows error report for me mentions the program hangs.

This occurs regardless of using a custom theme or the default.

Video and audio files have also been removed.

I also manually changed the video player in the .xml file. 

I have tried a fresh install of 13.23 and it opened Big Box without issue after initial setup.  WMP was the selected video player.  Upon adding in the startup video, Bigbox would again hard crash the computer.  Once removing the startup video, this install proceeds to hang up in the same way the other install does.

Windows 11
Radeon 780m, 16gb
AMD Ryzen 9, 7940HS
64gb DDR4

Attached is the report that Windows provides.  I hope it helps.

 

Thank you again to anybody that can help provide a solution and to the awesome people working on this amazing program.  

Bigbox Crashing.evtx 68 kB · 0 downloads

Can you update to the beta and see if that helps in your situation. If not, send us another Event Viewer log, however, the logs you sent is missing the actual .NET error log (looks like you sent the other 2 only), so don't forget to include the .NET error crash report which should be very near these other 2.

[Rez_Box34]

How do I download the beta? I already chose the WMP option, disabled startup and background videos and the crashes are still going.

[VhmSephiroth]

I have the Same problem.
My Log says: FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: Ressource "views/launchbox_theme_folder/fonts/redhatdisplay-black.ttf" not found.
at MS.Internal.AppModel.ResourcePart.GetStreamCore(FileMode mode, FileAccess access)

I tried to copy the fonts manually in all themes.
Changed the Theme in the BigBoxSettings.xml to different ones.
Deleted the BigBoxSettings.xml
I created a file with views/launchbox_theme_folder/fonts/ in every Theme.
Tried both Video Engines.

Edited 10 hours ago by VhmSephiroth

[JoeViking245]

5 minutes ago, VhmSephiroth said:

I have the Same problem.
My Log says:

Someone earlier had that same error.  Their pc was blocking all the dlls from the custom theme.  The fix was to unblock the .dll files.

https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/91595-big-box-not-opening/#findComment-494920

 

[VhmSephiroth]

Yes i saw this post. I tried this too. But not working.

[faeran]

5 hours ago, Rez_Box34 said:

How do I download the beta? I already chose the WMP option, disabled startup and background videos and the crashes are still going.

In LaunchBox, Tools > Options > General > Updates, check the Beta update option.

Then Menu > Help > Check for Updates, and you should get a notification about updating to the beta.