LaunchBox 13.28 Beta Thread

[jiboreid]

This new beta feels incredibly good in BigBox. A very noticable change in performance in various views and VLC is working great for me. Thanks for all the hard work!

[Jabb3rJaw]

Just updated to the latest version and videos are playing again. I will run my machine for a while and check on the random crashes in Bigbox also. Thanks for the fix!  
 

** is there a way to turn off the text on the loading and exit screen. This must be new. “Waiting for game to load”…..

Edited Saturday at 04:39 PM by Jabb3rJaw

[Rimpy69]

I am experiencing an issue on the 13.28 Beta5 and game startup screen for MAME only. After starting a game and then exiting, Bigbox will not start another game. Clicking Play does nothing. I have rolled back to 13.27 and confirmed the issue isn't there and if I turn off the game startup screen option it also works fine. Other Platforms seem to be fine, it just seems to be something with the beta 5 and Mame game startup screen.

Also, the thirdscreen plugin UI now has an error once you open it and then try to close (see screenshot). Once opened you cannot save or close the UI and have to exit bigbox which then won't save your changes. Again, rolling back the build to 13.27 fixes the issue.

Edited Sunday at 01:29 AM by Rimpy69
Added another issue

[crusadeRGP]

Right click on the Retro points text at the top only works for me when I use the default theme and not my current Omni theme.

[Jabb3rJaw]

After some testing i can confirm videos are back to playing and the scrolling in Bigbox is smooth. The random crash still happens which confuses me. Using VLC I had my machine running Bigbox for 8-9 hours yesterday no problem. Today it ran for about 30 minutes and it crashed back to desktop running Bigbox. No changes were made in between both instances so I’m really confused what’s causing the crashes. 

[JaredN]

Hello,

Yes, like @Jabb3rJaw, I had the same issue today with BigBox crashing without an error message after running for about an hour.
Much to my surprise.
I thought I was finally rid of this problem with the return of VLC... 😵‍💫

BB 13.28 beta 5.evtx

[Heartless1Riku]

Following up on my earlier report that transitions no longer play using VLC in big box (critical zonev2 theme). It also appears the the video stutters initially and the audio is cut off or does not come in fast enough causing some of the beginning audio of videos to be lost. Here is a comparison of 13.9 VLC vs Beta 5 VLC showing the lack of sliding transitions and the loss of sound (2 less words at the start of the video) and stuttering at the beginning of the video themes. Also using the VLC player causes the video to restart when going from the game view to the game details view in big box compared to when going from game details and backing out to game view in which case the player continues the video from the same point smoothly. Not sure if that is by design. 

Big Box 13.9 VLC

 

 

Big Box 13.28 Beta 5 VLC

 

 

 

[MysterNybble]

7 hours ago, Heartless1Riku said:

Big Box 13.28 Beta 5 VLC

 

Would you be able to turn on debug logging for this exact test and send over the 3 log files it will make? This is odd and hoping to see something in those logs. Thanks!

[MysterNybble]

On 7/26/2026 at 11:01 AM, JaredN said:

Yes, like @Jabb3rJaw, I had the same issue today with BigBox crashing without an error message after running for about an hour.
Much to my surprise.
I thought I was finally rid of this problem with the return of VLC... 😵‍💫

 

On 7/26/2026 at 10:30 AM, Jabb3rJaw said:

After some testing i can confirm videos are back to playing and the scrolling in Bigbox is smooth. The random crash still happens which confuses me. Using VLC I had my machine running Bigbox for 8-9 hours yesterday no problem. Today it ran for about 30 minutes and it crashed back to desktop running Bigbox. No changes were made in between both instances so I’m really confused what’s causing the crashes. 

In addition, the Windows crash dump could be useful if you're willing. Please look for a .wer file along with a .dmp, .mdmp, or .hdmp file from the time of the crash in any or some of these folders:

• C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive (or ReportQueue)
• C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive (or ReportQueue)
• C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\CrashDumps for a BigBox*dmp file

The crash dump is the important file. If none exists we may need to enable dump tracking in windows. Which you can do by:

1. Open regedit

2. Create the key/folder "BigBox.exe" in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps\BigBox.exe

3. Create the DWORD value "DumpType" with a value of 2.

Then if you can get it to crash again, look for the above files. The crash dump can contain personal data so you may want to send it to us private via email, DM, or featurebase bug report but collect the .wer, the .*dmp, and the log files in the launchbox logs folder.

[JaredN]

1 hour ago, MysterNybble said:

 

In addition, the Windows crash dump could be useful if you're willing. Please look for a .wer file along with a .dmp, .mdmp, or .hdmp file from the time of the crash in any or some of these folders:

• C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive (or ReportQueue)
• C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive (or ReportQueue)
• C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\CrashDumps for a BigBox*dmp file

The crash dump is the important file. If none exists we may need to enable dump tracking in windows. Which you can do by:

1. Open regedit

2. Create the key/folder "BigBox.exe" in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps\BigBox.exe

3. Create the DWORD value "DumpType" with a value of 2.

Then if you can get it to crash again, look for the above files. The crash dump can contain personal data so you may want to send it to us private via email, DM, or featurebase bug report but collect the .wer, the .*dmp, and the log files in the launchbox logs folder.

Thanks @MysterNybble !

I do have the .wer file, but tracking dump wasn't enabled. It is now.
The next time it crashes, I'll send it to you! 👍

[fianovale@hotmail.com]

For me the "DEL" key to delete rom, doesn't work after update to 13.28. And sometimes the font of the console list automatically put on BOLD font.

[AstroBob]

2 hours ago, fianovale@hotmail.com said:

For me the "DEL" key to delete rom, doesn't work after update to 13.28

Thanks, this is already fixed and will be in beta-6

 

2 hours ago, fianovale@hotmail.com said:

And sometimes the font of the console list automatically put on BOLD font.

Could you elaborate on this, does it happen all the time, or only within certain sections? If you have a screenshot handy showing it that would be very useful. 

Cheers,

[Heartless1Riku]

9 hours ago, MysterNybble said:

Would you be able to turn on debug logging for this exact test and send over the 3 log files it will make? This is odd and hoping to see something in those logs. Thanks!

Here you go, let me know if you need anything else.

Debug 2026-07-27 08-31-06 PM.log Debug 2026-07-27 08-31-27 PM.log Debug 2026-07-27 08-32-01 PM.log

[JaredN]

3 hours ago, AstroBob said:

Thanks, this is already fixed and will be in beta-6

 

Could you elaborate on this, does it happen all the time, or only within certain sections? If you have a screenshot handy showing it that would be very useful. 

Cheers,

Hi @AstroBob and @fianovale@hotmail.com

That bold font display has happened to me once or twice in LB as well. But I can't say more about it because it didn't persist after a restart, and I haven't identified any specific conditions that trigger it.

[superrob3000]

On 7/25/2026 at 8:42 PM, Rimpy69 said:

Also, the thirdscreen plugin UI now has an error once you open it and then try to close (see screenshot). Once opened you cannot save or close the UI and have to exit bigbox which then won't save your changes. Again, rolling back the build to 13.27 fixes the issue.

@Rimpy69 The latest version (6.0.3) should now work with the latest LaunchBox Beta.

[Jabb3rJaw]

On 7/27/2026 at 2:25 PM, MysterNybble said:

 

In addition, the Windows crash dump could be useful if you're willing. Please look for a .wer file along with a .dmp, .mdmp, or .hdmp file from the time of the crash in any or some of these folders:

• C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive (or ReportQueue)
• C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive (or ReportQueue)
• C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\CrashDumps for a BigBox*dmp file

The crash dump is the important file. If none exists we may need to enable dump tracking in windows. Which you can do by:

1. Open regedit

2. Create the key/folder "BigBox.exe" in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps\BigBox.exe

3. Create the DWORD value "DumpType" with a value of 2.

Then if you can get it to crash again, look for the above files. The crash dump can contain personal data so you may want to send it to us private via email, DM, or featurebase bug report but collect the .wer, the .*dmp, and the log files in the launchbox logs folder.

Here are the files you requested. I did the same thing in beta 13.27 but they showed 0 downloads so not sure anyone even looked at them. 

BigBox.exe.15992.dmp Debug 2026-07-26 10-04-11 AM.log MediaEngine 2026-07-26 10-04-16 AM.worker.log Report.wer

[Rimpy69]

1 hour ago, superrob3000 said:

@Rimpy69 The latest version (6.0.3) should now work with the latest LaunchBox Beta.

Fantastic, can confirm its working again now. Thanks so much for resolving so quickly.

[MysterNybble]

1 hour ago, Jabb3rJaw said:

Here are the files you requested. I did the same thing in beta 13.27 but they showed 0 downloads so not sure anyone even looked at them. 

Thanks so much for pulling this - super helpful, and apologies for missing these when you reported them in 13.27. Good news: this crash seems to align with one that we saw and should be in beta 6 (which should be out "soon"). Of course, with software, fixing one thing may just highlight something else, but progress is progress.

Thanks again.

[Jabb3rJaw]

9 minutes ago, MysterNybble said:

Thanks so much for pulling this - super helpful, and apologies for missing these when you reported them in 13.27. Good news: this crash seems to align with one that we saw and should be in beta 6 (which should be out "soon"). Of course, with software, fixing one thing may just highlight something else, but progress is progress.

Thanks again.

Thanks for trying to fix the crashes. Anything I can do to help just let me know. 

[skizzosjt]

On 7/27/2026 at 12:58 PM, MysterNybble said:

Would you be able to turn on debug logging for this exact test and send over the 3 log files it will make? This is odd and hoping to see something in those logs. Thanks!

I 2nd this complaint, it's a step backwards for VLC. Transitions are not the same anymore.  But the problem is not just with VLC, seems to be with the other media engines too. 

 

Transition points that no longer work as expected with all media engines, but VLC is the worse offender perhaps. This is what I noticed reviewing Colorful theme.

-from platform wheel to game wheel
-from game wheel to game details
-from game details to game wheel
-from game wheel to platform wheel
-from platform wheel to system menu
-from system menu to platform wheel
-from categories wheel to platform wheel (sorry forgot to put this one in the videos)
-from platform wheel to categories wheel (sorry forgot to put this one in the videos)
-frame rate for VLC and FFMPEG playback looks poor. for ex I watch a video I know is 60FPS, it sure is not looking like 60FPS with either VLC or FFMPEG selected. you can see this in the videos I captured too.

The same above issues can be said about FFMPEG, and WMP, but some small differences too so I list them below rather than make the same lists with just 1 or 2 changes.....
 

Specific to FFMPEG
-from game wheel to platform view seems to transition as expected
-shows what looks like a single frame of what I would assume is an image for the currently selected game before video starts for game videos (game wheel and game details). Note this doesn't seem to occur for platform videos though. 

 

Specific to WMP
-from game details to game wheel view seems to transition as expected
-frame rate is EXCELLENT (it has actually always looked excellent with WMP) and makes it more noticeable how poor frame rate/playback is with the other two media engines right now

 

It's like there is zero transition at all anymore. As if it's going from one view to the other in a span of 1 frame. 

 

Video examples of the above issues for all three media engines:
-VLC

 

-FFMPEG

 

-WMP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm still needing to do multiple attempts of opening LaunchBox to get it to actually load. I do not notice any improvements on this front. This should be priority #1 on the needs to be fixed immediately list. I'm quoting my previous post below, which has logs included there. This time around, I zipped the entire log folder to provide whatever ones you need for not only the Big Box transition issue, but also LaunchBox getting hung up during launch so often. 

On 7/13/2026 at 10:40 AM, skizzosjt said:

attached logs from the last borked attempt to open, and the very next attempt that did load successfully. I left it open for some time, and then closed the frontend and attached all four logs that were created. I notice every time it got hung up it created the same 120KB file each time sans of course different time stamps for each step. Otherwise it keeps hanging up on the same exact spot each time where it is adjusting game's play count and time and then appears to do something with the media engine....this media engine step never appears on the borked attempts when it gets hung up at "Loading Interface"

 

Can see the next step is where the hang up problem is. The left hand side is a borked launched log, the right hand side is a successful launch. Files are attached! Note there are no crashes or event logs, I checked both application and system tabs for anything relevant to the frontend or when it was launched/closed and didn't see anything. The program doesn't crash, it is hung up indefinitely when it occurs. The only way I can close it is through force closing the process and then trying to open it again. 

 

 

MediaEngine 2026-07-13 09-34-44 AM.worker.log 3.17 kB · 0 downloads Debug 2026-07-13 09-34-39 AM.log 129.63 kB · 0 downloads MediaEngine Client 2026-07-13 09-34-44 AM.log 1.58 kB · 0 downloads Debug 2026-07-13 09-34-06 AM.log 119.29 kB · 0 downloads

 

 

 

Logs.zip

 

 

 

The positives (confirming previous issues are resolved)

-No more focus issues from hitting B on the controller when playing a game launched from Big Box
-No more extra/unintended animations occurring when exiting games and returning to Big Box