Launchbox Crashing in 13.23 and 13.24

[Gaming.Zone]

Hi all,

I’ve been experiencing frequent crashes in LaunchBox ever since the FFmpeg update. I’ve been working on building out my setup, but the app has become increasingly unstable — especially since the official 13.24 release. While the recent betas seemed to reduce the frequency of crashes somewhat, the final release has made them more frequent again.

From a user’s perspective, the crashes seem to occur during various normal actions, but I don’t believe they’re necessarily caused by UI interactions themselves. Here are some examples of when the app has crashed (with no visible error message):

1. Editing a game record using the pencil button → Crash

2. Importing ROMs and clicking Next in the wizard → Crash

3. Selecting an existing game in any platform (UI starts to refresh) → Crash

4. Editing a game entry, making several changes or adding media, clicking OK to close the modal → Crash

5. Performing a bulk edit on multiple records, making a change, then clicking No when asked about further edits → Crash

I haven’t been capturing detailed logs or reproduction steps yet, as these have been happening during normal usage rather than intentional testing.

I’m happy to provide additional details, including my PC specs, logs, or to run more structured tests if needed. If this turns out to be an edge case, I’d like to understand why so I can fix it on my side. But if others are seeing similar behavior, I’d be glad to help narrow it down collaboratively.

For context, I’m a Software QA professional with 18 years of experience, so I’m familiar with structured debugging and root cause analysis. I’d be happy to coordinate with the LaunchBox QA team if that would help track down the issue.

If you have any initial theories or troubleshooting steps, please let me know and I’ll try them right away.

Thanks for your help!

Edited Saturday at 11:06 AM by Gaming.Zone

[Gaming.Zone]

Here’s a snippet from my LaunchBox.log around the time of the crash.
It looks like LaunchBox is hitting multiple UI and binding exceptions, including:

• An AmbiguousMatchException in PlatformFiltersDetailsViewModel

• A missing theme image (Not Rated.png) causing a conversion error

• And a transport connection exception likely during metadata loading

Full log available if needed, but this seems to point to a theme or binding issue.
I’m currently using the Default Plus theme.

I have debugging on now so I will continue to monitor.

[JoeViking245]

13 minutes ago, Gaming.Zone said:

I’m currently using the Default Plus theme.

Do you experience the same issues if using the Default theme?  That would be best for baseline testing. 

e.g.

• The AmbiguousMatchException is a theme related issue
• missing theme image (Not Rated.png) may be theme related
  • Of the LB themes I do have installed, Ricewind is the only one that actually has that image in its /Images/Ratings/ folder.
  • BB themes "BannerBox" and "Neon Deluxe Arcade" have it their /Media/ subfolder
  • It's not to be found anywhere in [my] /LaunchBox/Images/ folder(s)

RE: the transport connection exception, I too get a bit of those in the log(s).  But don't experience crashing.  For LB, I mostly use the Omni theme and sometimes Default.

[Gaming.Zone]

Thanks for the quick follow-up! I switched over to the Default theme to get a proper baseline. Unfortunately, I’m still seeing silent crashes, even when using Default and with no theme mods applied.

Here are a few key exceptions from my latest Debug.log that occur right before the crash:

FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: System.InvalidOperationException: Cannot perform this operation while dispatcher processing is suspended. at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.PushFrame(DispatcherFrame frame) at Unbroken.LaunchBox.Windows.ViewModels.GameDetailsViewModel.Dispose() 

FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: System.IO.IOException: The process cannot access the file 'Gilroy-Bold.ttf' because it is being used by another process.

FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'Unbroken.LaunchBox.Windows.XmlSerializers.dll' or one of its dependencies. FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: System.Reflection.AmbiguousMatchException: Ambiguous match found. at System.Reflection.RuntimePropertyInfo.GetValue(Object obj, Object[] index) 

FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION: System.IO.DirectoryNotFoundException: ImageSourceConverter cannot convert from System.String (pack:\application:,,,\WpfResources\Background.png)

 

The key one seems to be the dispatcher processing suspended exception, which points to a threading/race condition during disposal (GameDetailsViewModel.Dispose). That aligns with what I’m seeing — silent crashes when navigating quickly, closing edit modals, or bulk editing.

The other exceptions (font file locks, missing serializer, and ambiguous reflection) might be contributing instability, but the dispatcher issue looks like the main trigger.

Next, I’m going to:

• Keep using the Default theme

• Keep using a turned off video/music autoplay,

• Compare behavior when navigating slowly vs rapidly to confirm if the crash is timing-related.

Based on additional testing, it seems the crashes occur more frequently when navigating quickly through the UI, suggesting a possible threading or disposal race condition. (This is an assumption still)

[JoeViking245]

16 minutes ago, Gaming.Zone said:

Here are a few key exceptions from my latest Debug.log that occur right before the crash:

I'm not a LB developer and know only enough to be dangerous. 

But for the folks that are, using the Default theme will definitely help towards troubleshooting as will the other 2 "next" on your list.

 

(back to me being dangerous)

The (forgive the term) 'cherry picked' exceptions may not be as helpful as attaching the log file as some are better seen with their before's and after's.  But suppose is a starting point.  That said, don't start attaching a ton of different files because they're not really fun-reading.  

The #2 and #4 exceptions you show above I'm not sure would cause a crash.  That is, the font would (should) revert to something default and the image would (should) just show an empty space.  (all speculation)

The #3 one (FileNotFoundException) is a pseudo false-positive.  It's an old Visual Studio compiler thing that always brings up that error unnecessarily.  Yeah, the file truly isn't there, but that stuff is a handled innately by other dependencies.  (this one I know for fact)

 

 

53 minutes ago, Gaming.Zone said:

it seems the crashes occur more frequently when navigating quickly through the UI

All I can say about this is, slow down, take your time and enjoy the ride. Marvel at your collection and play some on them games. 😎

[Gaming.Zone]

I have decided to attempt the nuclear option and have installed a fresh install of Launchbox.  Luckily I can reference my old content, and start back from there.  I will Update here if I experience any crashes from this new install.  If it is resolved I will use the new system as a benchmark for future updates (via backups of it to my NAS)

Hoping this was a me problem and not a global issue.

[Ravenloft]

I am also experiencing crashing since upgrading to 13.24 Does not seem to happen when using the Default Theme. The attached log is from the usage of the BannerBox Theme. 

 

Debug 2025-09-27 06-48-26 PM.log

[Ravenloft]

I spoke to soon, it happens using the default theme as well, it just takes longer apparently.

Windows Application Log:
Faulting application name: BigBox.exe, version: 13.24.0.0, time stamp: 0x68a40000
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.26100.5074, time stamp: 0x0e967e89
Exception code: 0xc0000374
Fault offset: 0x000000000011a3b5
Faulting process id: 0x30BC
Faulting application start time: 0x1DC300D32F84650
Faulting application path: E:\LaunchBox\Core\BigBox.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: f0626513-9fd6-4f45-b031-dd31ac0be4b2
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 

Debug 2025-09-27 07-16-59 PM.log

[Gaming.Zone]

Looking at your logs and comparing them with mine, my QA brain is thinking that LaunchBox isn’t properly handling scenarios where it can’t locate or access an asset (image, font, or media). It appears that the system hits a low-level WPF imaging exception before LaunchBox’s own error handling can intercept it — which prevents any error report or graceful fallback.

From the logs, I’m seeing repeated FIRST CHANCE EXCEPTION entries (for BitmapDecoder, invalid pack URIs, and locked font files), followed by a silent crash. This suggests the exception is being thrown on the UI/render thread, causing a fatal process exit before LaunchBox can catch or log it.

Here are a few questions and suggestions for development:

• Is LaunchBox currently catching BitmapDecoder or WPF imaging exceptions during theme/media loading?

• Should missing or corrupt image/font resources trigger a safe fallback instead of a fatal crash?

• Is there a recommended way to trace which file specifically causes the failure before WPF terminates the process?

This seems to have started after upgrading to 13.24, and occurs even with the Default Theme, though sometimes after a delay. It may be worth reviewing recent changes to resource handling or theme initialization.

Edited Sunday at 05:37 PM by Gaming.Zone

[Ravenloft]

So, I rolled back to 13.23 and am no longer experiencing any crashes. Oddly enough this also appears to have resolved a blue tooth connection issue with two of my gamepads that appeared around the same time as the 13.24 update. 

Curious to know what the QA process looks like prior to an RC or general release?