Updating Metadata

[LuisQ]

Hello,

I have a question about Metadata. Some of my games do not have box artwork. When I select all games and I go into tools...download...and then I choose update metadata and media for all games, it does download the metadata, but yet the box artwork does not show up. What could be causing this?

Thank you

[Terminator23]

Is this happening for games that it found the corresponding metadata from the Launchbox Games Database?  It should download the artwork if there is a match and has corresponding artwork. 

I believe for the artwork to download correctly, the game has to match and be linked to a matching LaunchBox database ID. Most of the time LaunchBox does a good job generating the correct metadata for a game. I have seen that on some rare occasions it may not match up if the name of the game is a little too different than what is in the database. I would go to the game and go into the edit metadata menu. At the top it should show the title of the game and the upper right hand corner will have the corresponding Launchbox ID that will be linked to the LaunchBox database entry. If it says "search for metadata", click on that and look at the search results to find the corresponding Launchbox DB entry that matches whatever game and platform you are working with. You can also type in a new title in that field at the top and search again to see if it finds a match. From that point forward it should pull in the artwork, if exists, from the LaunchBox DB and from Emumovies if you have a subscription to that. Also some games it is possible they have no artwork in the Launchbox DB, but Emumovies might.

Arcade games that use Mame file names are different. Those have to match the built in Mame databaase in Launchbox to make a match.    

[JoeViking245]

On 5/31/2026 at 7:21 AM, LuisQ said:

Hello,

I have a question about Metadata. Some of my games do not have box artwork. When I select all games and I go into tools...download...and then I choose update metadata and media for all games, it does download the metadata, but yet the box artwork does not show up. What could be causing this?

Cross check the image Group and what you have set for Image downloads limit.  Note that the limit is per image Group.
(Group [e.g. Boxes]. Not to be confused with image type [e.g. Box-Front])

 

Using my ol' go-to game, 1942 in the Arcade platform.  (just selected one game for these tests)

Test #1

• My game already had an Advertisement-Front image.
• Using Tools < Download < Update Metadata and Media for Selected Game...
• I selected [only] the image types: Box-Front, Fanart-Box-Front, Screenshot-Game Title
• (An Arcade game isn't going to have a Box-Front image, but it will a Fanart-Box-Front)
• The limit (by default) was set to 1
• When done, 0 (zero) images were downloaded

The reason there were 0 downloaded was it already had an Advertisement-Front image. That, along with the 3 images I selected to download are all in the Group "Boxes".  Since that game already has (1) image in that group, no images were added/downloaded.

 

Test #2

• I removed the Advertisement-Front image from the game. So it now had 0 (zero) images of Group "Boxes"
• Same as above, except I set the limit to 4
  • and added Advertisement-Front to the previously selected 3
• When done, 3 images were downloaded
  • Advertisement-Front, Fanart-Box-Front, Screenshot-Game Title
  •  Box-Front was NOT downloaded because one didn't exist for this game

 

tldr:  Don't be shy. Up your Image downloads limit.