LaunchBox 13.28 Beta Thread

[Drybonz]

A question about the caching... when I adjust image height in the configure layout menu, this is only affecting the grid of one platform (the image height isn't affected for all other platforms) but then LB triggers a cache rebuild (progress bar at the top) for every platform.  Is that necessary?  Could that cache rebuild happen for only the affected platform?

Edited Tuesday at 01:49 PM by Drybonz

[salofan]

Will play around more with LB and BB today, but first impression is that beta-3 is running much better and snappier without any of the issues I ran into in beta-2. Much appreciated! 

[JaredN]

Hello,

I'm having a problem with the background music.

With VLC, when “Play video audio with background music” is unchecked, I don't hear any sound from the video or any background music.
If I check it, both start playing as soon as the video begins.

With WMP or FFMPEG, I don’t get any background music at all. If “Play video audio with background music” is unchecked, nothing plays.
If I check it, I only hear the video’s audio...

These issues weren’t present in Beta 2. However, Beta 3 completely fixed the choppy video issues I was having in LaunchBox and the responsiveness issues (such as a VERY unstable frame rate) I was having in BigBox, which made navigating the menus very hit-or-miss.

Finally, just testing FFMPEG for a few minutes for this post was enough to crash BigBox.
VLC, on the other hand, seems stable.
And I haven’t retested WPM enough to give you a reliable opinion.

A big thank you for your work!

[Fursphere]

After Beta 3 - I had to force-refresh all images to get the wheel images to show up again.    After the force refresh, everything seems fine.   

[JaredN]

One more thing: when minimized to the taskbar, LaunchBox resists "Alt-Tab" (it just makes a "DONG" sound). It doesn't do this when you use "Alt-Tab" from within LaunchBox without minimizing it.

Returning to LaunchBox via the taskbar doesn’t work on the first click either. The first click triggers a “dong,” and the second click brings you back to LaunchBox.

I don’t know if this is the intended behavior, but it’s definitely strange...

This “issue” was already present in Beta 2, but I hadn’t found the time to report it.

 

Edited Tuesday at 05:48 PM by JaredN

[Fursphere]

3 hours ago, Fursphere said:

After Beta 3 - I had to force-refresh all images to get the wheel images to show up again.    After the force refresh, everything seems fine.   

After attract mode runs for a few hours, the image cache for wheel images seems to go blank again...

Example:

[MysterNybble]

4 hours ago, JaredN said:

With VLC, when “Play video audio with background music” is unchecked, I don't hear any sound from the video or any background music.
If I check it, both start playing as soon as the video begins.

With WMP or FFMPEG, I don’t get any background music at all. If “Play video audio with background music” is unchecked, nothing plays.
If I check it, I only hear the video’s audio...

Would love to see the debug log files if you can recreate this for me. Enable debug logging in LaunchBox's options, then recreate the issue. This will create 3 files in the Logs folder: the normal log and 2 media-engine logs. The media engine handles background music irrespective of which video player you choose, so seeing these logs will be useful.

4 hours ago, JaredN said:

VLC, on the other hand, seems stable.

Good to hear. We're hoping to lean into this VLC player/media engine as *the* video/audio playback solution across the board once we iron out all the wrinkles.

[JaredN]

Thank you @MysterNybble,

When using VLC, here are the logs and a video I recorded at the same time so you can see exactly what I did.

I hope this helps resolve the issue!

Debug 2026-07-01 06-27-50 AM.log MediaEngine 2026-07-01 06-28-32 AM.worker.log MediaEngine Client 2026-07-01 06-28-32 AM.log

Edited yesterday at 04:49 AM by JaredN

[JaredN]

And here's the same thing using WMP, since it behaves differently (the background music never starts).

Thanks @MysterNybble !

Debug 2026-07-01 06-50-47 AM.log MediaEngine 2026-07-01 06-51-30 AM.worker.log MediaEngine Client 2026-07-01 06-51-30 AM.log

Edited yesterday at 05:06 AM by JaredN

[JaredN]

On 6/25/2026 at 8:44 AM, crusadeRGP said:

When I open a game manual from the pause screen it stays hidden and does not show in the foreground.

 

Using PauseShift game pause screen

Hi @crusadeRGP !

Same issue for me.

[izzishor]

Beta 3 is Very snappy, and nice, only problem I'm having is when I press A+B at the same time it brings BB over my Retroarch, and I have no idea why, with Beta 1 and 2 I didn't have this issue? Will downgrade, test and see, but it's weird.

Otherwise thanks for all the work.

[MysterNybble]

14 hours ago, JaredN said:

When using VLC, here are the logs and a video I recorded at the same time so you can see exactly what I did.

Super helpful! Thanks so much. If you relaunch your Beta 3, it should tell you to update the media engine plugin (should update to 1.0.5), then restart when it prompts you to, and cross your fingers, and it should fix this issue with VLC playback (and has a strong chance of fixing the related issue with WMP/ffmpeg as well, but I haven't confirmed that yet).

[Rlad]

2 hours ago, izzishor said:

Beta 3 is Very snappy, and nice, only problem I'm having is when I press A+B at the same time it brings BB over my Retroarch, and I have no idea why, with Beta 1 and 2 I didn't have this issue? Will downgrade, test and see, but it's weird.

Otherwise thanks for all the work.

i noticed this first time but didnt know the trigger, i've just tested again and yes, pressing A while holding B shifts focus back to BB.

[JaredN]

46 minutes ago, MysterNybble said:

Super helpful! Thanks so much. If you relaunch your Beta 3, it should tell you to update the media engine plugin (should update to 1.0.5), then restart when it prompts you to, and cross your fingers, and it should fix this issue with VLC playback (and has a strong chance of fixing the related issue with WMP/ffmpeg as well, but I haven't confirmed that yet).

Great! That's right—no more problems with the background music, whether using VLC or WMP!
Thank you so much!

[izzishor]

1 hour ago, Rlad said:

i noticed this first time but didnt know the trigger, i've just tested again and yes, pressing A while holding B shifts focus back to BB.

Exactly, reverted to Beta1, it's ok now. So hopefully it will be fixed as well 🫶

[kobaturtle]

No more performance issue with Beta3! Thanks!

- minor issue : in Launchbox, navigating in game grid, right click - Configure Layout menu, when changing item height (section override), it doesn't stick after a Launchbox restart.

Also, until Beta1, in Launchbox default theme, there was a nice glow/glass effect when hovering or selecting a game. Not there anymore, because of the new game grid?

Edited 6 hours ago by kobaturtle

[Jabb3rJaw]

 Just downloaded beta 3 and updated the media plugin and refreshed all images in Bigbox but my platform and game themes are just black screens. My start up video works no problem though? I tried ffmeg, wmp, and vlc and all do the same thing. I did get them to show once after a while but when i relaunched Bigbox same thing, no videos? 

[Drybonz]

Beta 3... I'm getting a message when I start LB that another instance is running.  I check the task manager and there is, in fact, a LaunchBox task that has been stuck open probably for hours since I closed it this morning.

[Jabb3rJaw]

1 hour ago, Jabb3rJaw said:

 Just downloaded beta 3 and updated the media plugin and refreshed all images in Bigbox but my platform and game themes are just black screens. My start up video works no problem though? I tried ffmeg, wmp, and vlc and all do the same thing. I did get them to show once after a while but when i relaunched Bigbox same thing, no videos? 

Here’s a video of what’s happening. Sometimes it shows the video as a still image?

[JaredN]

Hello,
I use a lot of playlists, especially for collections where games are sorted by release date.
In LaunchBox, there's no problem.
However, in BigBox, they are no longer sorted by release date but by alphabetical order... 
Thanks again for your work!