LaunchBox 13.26 Beta Thread

[faeran]

Hi Everyone,

We are kicking off a new beta testing round for an upcoming hotfix release. This is a very short release cycle aimed at addressing major regressions introduced in 13.25, along with a handful of smaller fixes where possible. The goal here is speed and stability so we can get this hotfix out the door as quickly as we can.

Because of that, this beta is especially focused on verification. If something was broken for you in 13.25, this is the build we need your help validating.

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Things We Need Help Testing

Please focus on the areas below. Even a quick confirmation that something now works as expected is extremely helpful.

• Fixed Vertical Legacy Platform Wheels not appearing on load in Big Box
  If you use an older Big Box theme with vertical platform wheels, open a platform view and confirm the wheel list now appears immediately without needing to scroll

• Fixed platform and game background images not displaying in Big Box platform views
  If you previously saw a black background, or no background image where there should have been one, launch Big Box with the affected theme and confirm platform and game backgrounds now appear correctly

• Fixed the left sidebar not toggling in LaunchBox
  In LaunchBox, use View > Show or Hide > Side Bar or press CTRL + S and confirm the sidebar now shows and hides correctly

• Fixed background and game music not looping in LaunchBox and Big Box
  Load background music in Big Box or game music in either LaunchBox or Big Box and confirm the track now loops continuously instead of stopping at the end

• Fixed volume controls not affecting audio correctly with both WMP and FFmpeg
  In Big Box, adjust as many volume related settings as possible and confirm changes actually affect audio levels when using either video engine

• Fixed background music behavior with screensavers
  Let Big Box enter the screensaver and confirm background music continues playing and responds properly to your sound and music settings

• Fixed game music incorrectly continuing into the screensaver
  Start game music in Big Box, activate or wait for the screensaver, and confirm game music now stops when it should, instead of carrying over

• Fixed game music priority over video audio inside the screensaver
  In Big Box, if you have the music priority option enabled, let the screensaver run and confirm game music properly plays when a game with music appears

• Added a new FinalBurn Neo import step for Arcade platforms
  Start a Single Platform Import or drag and drop import, create a FinalBurn Neo style platform with Scrape As set to Arcade, and confirm the FBNeo specific import page appears and the correct games are imported

• Fixed Arcade imports rejecting files not listed in Metadata.xml
  Try importing non MAME Arcade files such as Hypseus Singe bat files using drag and drop and confirm they now import correctly

• Fixed RetroAchievements scanning for 7zip game files
  If you use 7zip compressed games, trigger a RetroAchievements scan and confirm LaunchBox successfully extracts the ROM to a temporary folder and identifies compatibility. Note that scans may take longer for large files, and it is highly recommended never to use 7zip to compress your games.

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Known Issues

We will continue to add to this list as new issues are discovered. Internally, we have already begun working through these.

• Platform videos may still play under certain conditions when the Game or Platform details pane is closed

• An Automatic ROM empty list bug caused by the background monitor scan could crash LaunchBox

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Full Changelog

You can view the complete changelog here (it gets updated first):
https://www.launchbox-app.com/about/changelog

• New Feature: Added full FinalBurn Neo arcade ROM import support across both the Single Platform Import wizard and drag and drop imports, making it easier to bring FBNeo based arcade collections into LaunchBox

• New Feature: Added a new Big Box option that lets video audio play alongside background music, giving you more control over how your setup sounds with proper music priority behavior

• Improved: Smarter auto play behavior for thumbnails so videos only auto play when a game has music and background music resumes properly when it does not

• Improved: Improved background rendering safety so image and video backgrounds are handled correctly across views without images being treated like videos

• Improved: Improved image caching reliability to better handle file system edge cases and ensure cached images are written successfully

• Improved: Reduced memory usage in Carousel and Media List views by ensuring image resources are properly released to help prevent memory leaks over long sessions

• Improved: Hardened video volume handling to prevent rare errors when video players are shut down or reloaded

• Fixed: Background music reliability in Big Box with better playback tracking to prevent music from stopping early or behaving inconsistently at the end of a track

• Fixed: Cleaned up how music behaves when entering and leaving the screensaver so audio starts and stops as intended

• Fixed: Resolved an issue where the left sidebar could fail to show or hide correctly

• Fixed: A problem that could cause the Single Platform and drag and drop import wizards to become unresponsive near the end of the import process should no longer occur

• Fixed: RetroAchievements scanning for 7zip compressed games by extracting ROMs to a temporary location before scanning, allowing compatibility checks to work correctly for archived files

• Fixed: Background and game music now loop properly in Big Box and game music loops properly in LaunchBox instead of stopping at the end of a track

• Fixed: Arcade imports no longer incorrectly reject files that are not listed in Metadata.xml when force metadata is not enabled, improving support for non MAME Arcade files such as Hypseus Singe

• Fixed: Game music no longer continues into the screensaver when it should stop

• Fixed: Game music priority and audio mixing inside the screensaver now behave correctly when the relevant option is enabled

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As always, thank you to everyone who takes the time to help us test these builds.

[bbweiners]

Hi @faeran,

There seems to be a video issue. If you try using your theme Aetherial the Platform/Filter and Game video won't play.

Also, there is an issue where if you use the PlatformHybridView on any theme the search feature will show you results for every filter/platform, not just the filter/platform you're searching in. It also changes your view to the TextGamesView.

Thanks!

[SqHd]

Hello. Thanks for the hotfix beta. Background fanart is back for Default theme (in regular and hybrid views). As bbweiners reported, platform / game videos do not show in hybrid views for the Default theme (or in Aetherial). But they do work for the original regular views.

[faeran]

54 minutes ago, bbweiners said:

Hi @faeran,

There seems to be a video issue. If you try using your theme Aetherial the Platform/Filter and Game video won't play.

Also, there is an issue where if you use the PlatformHybridView on any theme the search feature will show you results for every filter/platform, not just the filter/platform you're searching in. It also changes your view to the TextGamesView.

Thanks!

1 minute ago, SqHd said:

Hello. Thanks for the hotfix beta. Background fanart is back for Default theme (in regular and hybrid views). As bbweiners reported, platform / game videos do not show in hybrid views for the Default theme (or in Aetherial). But they do work for the original regular views.

Thanks guys. Fixed internally, should be in beta 2.

[faeran]

1 hour ago, bbweiners said:

Also, there is an issue where if you use the PlatformHybridView on any theme the search feature will show you results for every filter/platform, not just the filter/platform you're searching in. It also changes your view to the TextGamesView.

This part is actually working "as intended", in that there was no effort to filter down search results like this in hybrid views.

I'll see what it would take, but it would be a new effort, so I'm not sure where in line it will get placed.
 

As far as switching to the TextGamesView, that's by design. The PlatformHybridView is a Platform view with a game list tacked on (not the other way around), which means, that the only true Game view in that theme is the TextGamesView, which Search results requires to utilize.

[Suhrvivor]

2 hours ago, faeran said:

Fixed Vertical Legacy Platform Wheels not appearing on load in Big Box

I had this issue, it seems to be fixed since 13.26 beta 1.

I also had random crashes when running Bigbox on my laptop at work (core i3 10gen with intel GPU and Win11), I'm gonna test that on this beta to see if that's fixed.

[The Papaw]

UPDATE, finally connected after 15-20 minutes

 

When I opened LB and seen the beta update. I told it no, until I read what it was about. Now when I open LB, it doesn't notify me of the beta. When I go to the menu and check for update, it finds it, but just hangs and never downloads. BB tells me of the update and also just hangs

LB

BB

Edited 11 hours ago by The Papaw

[JaredN]

First of all, thank you very much for this quick update, which fixes a lot of problems!

However, I have noticed two small issues:

1. Unchecking “Play Video Audio with Background Music” has no effect if “Prioritize Soundtrack Music over Video Audio” is not also checked. If “Prioritize ...” is not also checked, the video audio remains present, regardless of the status of “Play Video Audio with Background Music.”

2. When background music is selected, launching the screensaver (automatically or with a key) causes it to skip to the next track.

Once again, thank you very much for your responsiveness in releasing this beta!

Edited 11 hours ago by JaredN

[Fursphere]

13.26 Beta 1 appears to have a crippling memory leak (guessing) or something in BigBox.  After 45 minutes to an hour in screensaver mode (just idle / chilling) it becomes very sluggish.   30-45 minutes after that, and its dead.   ctrl-alt-del - kill app time. 

False alarm.  I had another app go bat shit crazy the same time I upgraded to Beta 1.   Never mind.  Nothing to see here.   

Edited 4 hours ago by Fursphere

[xokia]

I found an issue with launchbox and retroarch that was driving me nuts. retroarch allows controller remaps based on the directory the game was run from. So you can choose directory_name.rmp and it will load a controller remap based entirely on the directory the game comes from. This is useful for something like sega games where one emulator runs multiple systems but the controls can be different. So you remap the controls based on the system that was run.

Retroarch uses the directory path to figure out how to name the map file. When it tries to load directory map files the directory name before the rom needs to match with the map file. Launchbox breaks this if the folder is zipped or compressed.

In both cases the file is compressed as "Z:\Arcade\Sega Master System\Altered Beast.7z" (this happen if using .zip or .7z)

If I dont let launchbox unzip the file and just pass it to retroarch directly I get the following in the retroarch log file
[INFO] [Content] Loading content file: "Z:\Arcade\Sega Master System\Altered Beast.sms"
If I choose save content directory remap I get Sega Master System.rmp and this will auto load anytime a game loads from this directory

 If I let launchbox unzip the folder first I get the following
[INFO] [Content] Loading content file: "Y:\LaunchBox\ThirdParty\7-Zip\Temp\Altered Beast.sms".
If I choose save content directory remap I get Temp.rmp

Any other system that has compressed roms now tries to use Temp.rmp and is completely hosed

The Temp directory is completely fine but launchbox should retain the directory directly in front of the ROM. I think retroarch would then function correctly.
 "Y:\LaunchBox\ThirdParty\7-Zip\Temp\Sega Master System\Altered Beast.sms"

Edited 2 hours ago by xokia