BigBox keeps crashing. Seems to be related to a .NET file: ntdll.dll

[theBCexperience]

EDIT: So, I decided to reinstall the earliest version of LaunchBox I had on my machine (13.19), and it's run two separate times, all through most of the day and night, without any issues. Also worth mentioning: I've been monitoring performance in task manager, and this is the only version of BB I've tried where it's not consuming a butt load of power. I hope I'm not speaking too soon, but I'm going to consider the issue resolved. If anyone reading this is having a similar issue, I recommend trying an earlier version of BigBox. According to what others have said in this thread and my own experience, I recommend trying version 13.23 or earlier. I have to concur with the others here: apparently BIgBox has gone really downhill for the past few updates. If the devs are aware of this issue, they apparently aren't digging deep enough to figure it out. All I can say is if I hadn't already put down the money, I would have given up a while ago. Frankly, it's not worth it. 

Faulting application name: BigBox.exe, version: 13.27.0.0, time stamp: 0x69f20000
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.19041.6456, time stamp: 0x7ec9c15d
Exception code: 0xc0000374
Fault offset: 0x00000000000ff489
Faulting process id: 0x1c88
Faulting application start time: 0x01dcee3425a40dc2
Faulting application path: D:\Games\LaunchBox\Core\BigBox.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 919ef035-e28d-4828-88e3-b1764950de32
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 

Above is a record from the event viewer in Windows. 

Before recently (maybe a month or two ago), this was never really an issue. I would have BigBox constantly open on my PC, running in attract mode, either on screen or on a different virtual desktop. But usually it would run indefinitely with little to no issues. But now, it'll crash after a few hours. Issue seems to be with a .dll file called "ntdll.dll." Apparently it has something to do with memory corruption, but I'm not entirely sure. Research yielded limited suggestions, but here's what I've tried so far:

• Tried reinstalling different past versions of LaunchBox
• Deleting a bunch of image files
• Clearing image cache
• Turning off attract mode
• Switching the playback engine to Windows Media Player instead of FFMPEG
• Updating GPU driver
• Updating .NET runtime

Nothing seems to work. 

System Specs:

• OS: Windows 10
• LaunchBox version: 13.27 (latest as of posting)
• Number of games in library: 1300+
• Theme: default
• 8GB RAM
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB

Edited Sunday at 02:56 AM by theBCexperience

[macmahoun]

 

Got the same crash and exception code randomly after 1 to 6 hours in BigBox  since version 13.24, 13.23 doesn't crash at all for me.

I reportet that too some time ago.

I wonder if it could be relatet to Nvidia GPUs.

I run Launchbox on 3 computers, the only one that doesn't crash runs on Intel CPU graphics.

 

[JaredN]

I'm also experiencing the same issues, which I've reported multiple times.

I recently switched computers.

My installation is “clean,” and I'm still having this problem.

I had it before with an RTX 3060 Ti, and I still have it now with an RTX 5060 Ti (16GB) and 32GB of RAM.

The CPUs for both setups were Intel.

And I’m also having the same issues on a Legion Go with an AMD architecture...

Windows 11 is up to date, and my drivers are up to date.

And it crashes on all three machines, more often when using FFmpeg than WMP.

The difference is that LB can crash with FFmpeg, but that hasn’t happened to me recently with WMP.

BB crashes regularly with both, but more often with FFmpeg.

[theBCexperience]

2 hours ago, macmahoun said:

 

Got the same crash and exception code randomly after 1 to 6 hours in BigBox  since version 13.24, 13.23 doesn't crash at all for me.

I reportet that too some time ago.

I wonder if it could be relatet to Nvidia GPUs.

I run Launchbox on 3 computers, the only one that doesn't crash runs on Intel CPU graphics.

 

Interesting. I guess I could try running on integrated GPU, at the risk of frying my computer lol.

I can't quite remember which versions I've tried, but I've tried several before the most current release (13.27). I can't recall if I've tried 23 or before specifically, but I can try and see what happens.

How many games do you have in your library? Also, do you know what version of .NET runtime you're using? I figured maybe the version of .NET was out of sync since the dll in question seems to be a .NET thing. All versions I have (19 - 27) all seem to target .NET version 9, but even after downloading 9 specifically, nothing changed. Guess I should have known. It had been running without version 9 without problems for a long time.

[Jabb3rJaw]

Exact same problem here. Never used to crash until 5-6 updates ago. Also using Nvidia graphics card. I did pull the crash report and put it into ChatGPT since I couldn’t understand it and it said something about videos and memory. Just curious if yours is similar but in Bigbox my crash normally happens within the first half hour. If it goes beyond that it will run for hour hours no problem. 

Edited Friday at 09:52 PM by Jabb3rJaw

[Tcrush375]

I am a new user so I might be doing something wrong, that said the only games that crashes on this emulator are old windows games that need dosbox to run.  I would like help to figure out why.

[theBCexperience]

1 hour ago, Jabb3rJaw said:

Exact same problem here. Never used to crash until 5-6 updates ago. Also using Nvidia graphics card. I did pull the crash report and put it into ChatGPT since I couldn’t understand it and it said something about videos and memory. Just curious if yours is similar but in Bigbox my crash normally happens within the first half hour. If it goes beyond that it will run for hour hours no problem. 

My research has also told me it was a video and/or memory problem, but none of the suggested fixes helped at all. For me, the crashes happen somewhat at random, but it's usually at least a few hours. The suggested fixes (such as changing the playback engine) may have actually delayed the crashes, but they're still happening. 

[LF77]

I am also getting this issue at random intervals, though it's not whilst using Big Box. Launchbox can be just sitting in my system tray, not even being used, and it will crash.

Faulting application name: LaunchBox.exe, version: 13.27.0.0, time stamp: 0x69c40000
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.26100.8521, time stamp: 0xccc028d4
Exception code: 0xc0000374
Fault offset: 0x0000000000112265
Faulting process id: 0x756C
Faulting application start time: 0x1DCEFBC60FA0AEB
Faulting application path: C:\Users\xxxxx\LaunchBox\Core\LaunchBox.exe
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: fca016c1-e98d-4743-8a45-a7701394a378
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 

[macmahoun]

7 hours ago, theBCexperience said:

Interesting. I guess I could try running on integrated GPU, at the risk of frying my computer lol.

I can't quite remember which versions I've tried, but I've tried several before the most current release (13.27). I can't recall if I've tried 23 or before specifically, but I can try and see what happens.

How many games do you have in your library? Also, do you know what version of .NET runtime you're using? I figured maybe the version of .NET was out of sync since the dll in question seems to be a .NET thing. All versions I have (19 - 27) all seem to target .NET version 9, but even after downloading 9 specifically, nothing changed. Guess I should have known. It had been running without version 9 without problems for a long time.

I'm at 41000 games in my library.

.net version seems to be 6.0.

I always switch back to 13.23 and it never crashed.

But it's a bit annoying, as steam media downloads didn't work in this version any more and will crash Launchbox if you try 😅

[zugswang]

The more they add to LB+BB the worse it gets.

It's practically unusable now for large setups.

Someone needs to start working on a revamped version from scratch and make it what it should have been in the first place, seeing as it is now impossible to backtrack in it's current state.

Less is more as they say.

[Boomerps2]

16 hours ago, zugswang said:

The more they add to LB+BB the worse it gets.

It's practically unusable now for large setups.

Someone needs to start working on a revamped version from scratch and make it what it should have been in the first place, seeing as it is now impossible to backtrack in it's current state.

Less is more as they say.

I am at the point of not updating anymore. Just updated and now return to my arcade after being gone for 20 minutes and BigBox has shutdown. Getting ridiculous.

 

UPDATE: Reverted back to 12.22 and it is stable. This is where I'll be staying for the foreseeable future. It seems every update after this it went downhill. 

Edited Saturday at 11:52 PM by Boomerps2

[Jabb3rJaw]

I like how the updated version has a smoother wheel and searching by using the letters is way better. Both used to be laggy but I agree while those options are better it doesn’t make up for the crashing. Nothing more frustrating than coming back to your cab running Bigbox and it’s back to the desktop for no reason.