LaunchBox 13.28 Beta Thread

[erling1000]

Quote

- LaunchBox List View performance - In the default theme, browse a large library using LaunchBox's List View with badges enabled, then confirm scrolling, selection, sorting, column changes, and general navigation feel stable, responsive, and persistent

Yes you fixed it...🤩

Here for many versions in LB Listview default theme with badges enabled and a large collection, I have had these flaws:

Everytime I booted up LB the Labels Name, Favorite, Genre etc. were gone, but they returned after I chose View - Images View, and then back to View - List View.

Also I had the same issue with the sliders in that window in right side and bottom, they also returned the same way. Both flaws are now fixed.

And another flaw is fixed: I couldn't make scrolling large collections show fixed column width... long game names made the name column fill all the window. I had to edit the 

ListContentView.xaml file like this: (Line 131) DataGridTextColumn Binding="{Binding Game.Title}" Width="200"

to be fixed at size 200...

Now I didn't check if name column was fixed, (haven't restored my file) but Platform column sorted with Arcade at top, and then resizing it narrow to just viewing "Arcade" and then scrolling down to platforms with longer names doesn't make the column size bigger - Finally 🙂

EDIT: I just checked and it seems there is an updated ListContentView.xaml file where none of those lines are present. IT WORKS

 😊

EDIT AGAIN:

It seems now, when I choose to expand games that were bundled into one with many versions in listview, The focus hangs on one of them even when I choose another, the focus only shifts when I click around a lot or choose a game from another platform. Also when i choose a game, then scan platform for achievements, the focus stays on the game when choosing others.

 

And overall, the use of sorting in columns in listview is much better and more responsive now.

Well done
👌

Edited Thursday at 10:15 PM by erling1000

[JaredN]

Launchbox is more unstable than ever with FFmpeg... 2 crashes in less than 5 minutes after the update.

BigBox seems to be holding up better.

To be confirmed.

In any case, thanks for the update! 😉

LB 1.evtx LB 2.evtx

[bikeking8]

I'm still running into the refreshing metadata infinite loop upon adding a new game, either drag-and-drop or via the add button. I gave it 5 minutes and it never went past verifying database hash. While 5 minutes may not seem that long in the grand scheme of things, it's much too long to wait for each and every game addition. Furthermore, I have to force close LB if I forget to opt out of the metadata prompt in the game addition process since the button bar area with the "Cancel" button becomes unresponsive.

This has plagued many recent betas and releases (search the forums); does LB really need to do an entire parity check each and every time a game is added? Can this just be relocated under the menu and completely out of the import process, perhaps "Tools\Database\Refresh", similar to scanning for added roms?

Edited 8 hours ago by bikeking8
A force close is NOT required to exit anymore, thankfully. Also, performing a force check database now takes just as long, so I can't reasonably update the db either automatically or manually.

[JaredN]

I spoke too soon... BB still crashes with FFmpeg, too.
With FFmpeg, I'd say that LB and BB seem even more unstable than before.

I'm switching back to WMP.

I hope that goes better. 😕

BB 1.evtx

[Fursphere]

@JaredN Doesn't address your issue, but I let my cabinet run on WMP mode yesterday for 12+ hours in attract mode without issue.   I can switch one of mine to FFMPEG and see if it crashes.   

See if its application code, or environmental based (your windows install vs. my windows install, for example).  

[faeran]

On 6/2/2026 at 8:36 PM, ojed4r said:

Hello everyone! First of all, I want to thank you for all the updates, features and improvements that you've implemented to LaunchBox all these years. I've been a LaunchBox user for half a decade now and is still my frontend of choice.

I notice that one of the new features for v13.28 is:

"New Feature: Added a new shutdown progress window that shows what LaunchBox or Big Box is doing while closing, with a force-close option if shutdown hangs"

I was wondering, will this feature close all LaunchBox/BigBox processes running in the background as well?

I ask this because there has been a bug since v13.19 that has made me unable to update and has to do with LB archive extractor. The bug can be triggered this way:

If you extract any zipped game that is just a couple of MBs in size while having startup screens enabled, BigBox creates a second instance once you launch the game, and even if you shut down LB completely, the program stays open in the background.

I go more in depth regarding this bug in the following forum post:

Since I have 90% of my roms archived and I like the startup screens, I had to stay on v13.18 since. I just wanted to inform you about this issue and see if it could be fixed for the next update. I feel that the new feature I mentioned earlier could be the solution and finally get rid of this bug.

Thank you and keep up the great work.

I did a bunch of testing but was unable to actually get the process to get stuck, so it's quite possible there's more to it than what you may be thinking.

On 6/2/2026 at 9:56 PM, Jabb3rJaw said:

Thanks for the hard work but selfishly I was hoping for something related to the crashes multiple people have reported. 

This will be a long beta, and this first pass has nothing specific to Big Box performance in it. That is slated for beta 3. Beta 4 and beyond will be all fixes like this, so more to come.

On 6/3/2026 at 4:45 AM, Retrofrogg said:

The double jewel case doesn't appear when you go to edit platform then 3D model settings. It's in the list, but when you select it the preview window is blank.

Thanks, the platform specific 3D model override preview window will be fixed for beta 2.

On 6/3/2026 at 1:28 PM, Rlad said:

Seems to have broken the layers in CTC themes im making

13,7

 

13.8 Beta

 

 

 

Looks like maybe a CTC plugin essentially trying to do its own thing when it comes to displaying image in certain situations. This should be fixed in beta 2.

On 6/4/2026 at 10:00 AM, Rlad said:

I cant figure out the exact trigger but column sizing can become way to sensitive.

 

 

I'll see if I can recreate this and knock it out.

 

[Fursphere]

@faeran

On the shutdown routine.   This is a long standing bug / backdoor feature request, but since you're working on the shutdown code base right now anyway....   
 

My twin driving cabinets use Ultimarc PAC-Drives for lighting up LEDs.   These are latching - meaning if they are ON when the PC shuts down, they STAY ON (as long as they have power of course).  So on those machines, I have to EXIT BigBox, wait for BigBox to fire the LEDBLinky "exit frontend" routine (turn off the LEDs), then gracefully shutdown Windows.   If I use the BigBox built in shutdown routine - It doesn't seem to fire the LEDLlinky "frontend exit" routine, and the LEDs (buttons) stay on, even after the PC powers off.  

So the ask if you can work it in - Can you add the "LEDBlinky Frontend EXIT" routine to the BigBox shutdown routine and make sure it fires BEFORE it starts the Windows Shutdown commands?   

[faeran]

1 hour ago, JaredN said:

Launchbox is more unstable than ever with FFmpeg... 2 crashes in less than 5 minutes after the update.

BigBox seems to be holding up better.

To be confirmed.

In any case, thanks for the update! 😉

LB 1.evtx 68 kB · 1 download LB 2.evtx 68 kB · 0 downloads

We actually haven't touched FFMPEG yet in either LB or BB between 13.27 and this beta, but we will be soon. You'll see some major rework done in Beta2 and 3, followed by many rounds of fixes throughout the rest of the cycle. Stay tuned.

59 minutes ago, bikeking8 said:

I'm still running into the refreshing metadata infinite loop upon adding a new game, either drag-and-drop or via the add button. I gave it 5 minutes and it never went past verifying database hash. While 5 minutes may not seem that long in the grand scheme of things, it's much too long to wait for each and every game addition. Furthermore, I have to force close LB if I forget to opt out of the metadata prompt in the game addition process since the button bar area with the "Cancel" button becomes unresponsive.

This has plagued many recent betas and releases (search the forums); does LB really need to do an entire parity check each and every time a game is added? Can this just be relocated under the menu and completely out of the import process, perhaps "Tools\Database\Refresh", similar to scanning for added roms?

Well glad you can now see which step it's failing on on your computer, so at least that's something. That step should really only take a handful of seconds, so something on your computer is timing it out. You having to force close may be a clue, could point to a locked file somewhere in the chain there that LB needs to function for whatever reason. I'll see if I can lean out that step even more for people in your situation.

[faeran]

1 minute ago, Fursphere said:

@faeran

On the shutdown routine.   This is a long standing bug / backdoor feature request, but since you're working on the shutdown code base right now anyway....   
 

My twin driving cabinets use Ultimarc PAC-Drives for lighting up LEDs.   These are latching - meaning if they are ON when the PC shuts down, they STAY ON (as long as they have power of course).  So on those machines, I have to EXIT BigBox, wait for BigBox to fire the LEDBLinky "exit frontend" routine (turn off the LEDs), then gracefully shutdown Windows.   If I use the BigBox built in shutdown routine - It doesn't seem to fire the LEDLlinky "frontend exit" routine, and the LEDs (buttons) stay on, even after the PC powers off.  

So the ask if you can work it in - Can you add the "LEDBlinky Frontend EXIT" routine to the BigBox shutdown routine and make sure it fires BEFORE it starts the Windows Shutdown commands?   

I'll see what I can do. Would have to be a blind fix and you'll have to let me know whether it worked for you. I'lll see what I can do for beta 2 or beta 3.

[JaredN]

39 minutes ago, Fursphere said:

@JaredN Doesn't address your issue, but I let my cabinet run on WMP mode yesterday for 12+ hours in attract mode without issue.   I can switch one of mine to FFMPEG and see if it crashes.   

See if its application code, or environmental based (your windows install vs. my windows install, for example).  

Thanks @Fursphere !

WMP seems pretty stable on my end too.
And honestly, as long as one of the video decoders works properly, I'm fine with that!
But it's still very strange.

I’ve had this issue with FFmpeg from the start, on my old PC (RTX 3060 Ti, Intel CPU, 16GB of RAM), a new machine (RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, different Intel CPU, 32GB of RAM), and on a Legion GO (AMD architecture). I haven’t retested on the old one (which I no longer have) or on the Legion GO recently, but it doesn’t seem to be a hardware issue. I’ve also tested with the files on an internal SSD, an external SSD, an SD card, with and without antivirus, with the default themes, without plugins...

With the new installation, I started from scratch. I re-imported my ROMs, reconfigured LB and BB so they wouldn’t use my old config files… but no. Still random crashes with FFmpeg. AND sometimes with WMP, but less so.

The only common factor across all of this is Windows 11 and certain settings shared between the machines. Windows is up to date and my drivers are up to date. And I tested it without applying scaling.

And I’m well aware that not everyone is experiencing this issue and that the devs can’t reproduce it… so there’s something going on! But what?

Fortunately, @faeran just confirmed that they haven’t tried to fix this issue in this beta yet, but that it’s in the works, so I imagine it’s coming!

Thanks anyway for the suggestion, @Fursphere !
I’m sure some additional testing could help. 

Edited 8 hours ago by JaredN

[ojed4r]

2 hours ago, faeran said:

I did a bunch of testing but was unable to actually get the process to get stuck, so it's quite possible there's more to it than what you may be thinking.

 

@faeran  Hi! Thank you for taking the time to test it out. I've used two different PCs and the bug happens in both. After you extracted the ROM and shut down BigBox, did you check task manager to see if there were any extra background processes? This is a video I made where I show how to trigger the bug, it has to be a very small ROM, a couple of MBs. At the end of the video you can see that BigBox is still open in the background using task manager, even if I shut it down.

 

 

[Drybonz]

5 hours ago, faeran said:

I'll see if I can recreate this and knock it out.

The over-sensitive thing happens when the column you are re-sizing is close to the edge of the screen... if you scroll it to the middle the warp speed re-sizing doesn't happen.

[Fursphere]

5 hours ago, JaredN said:

Thanks @Fursphere !

 

ON the cabinet I switched to FFMpeg - BigBox did crash out after a couple of hours.    So its not just you.   I'm not sure of the exact time, because I wasn't paying close attention to it.  But it absolutely crashed to the desktop with no error message on the screen.   Other cabinet running WMP was still cruising along in attract mode.