LaunchBox 14.1.0 Beta Thread

[AzgoRAth]

startup and shutdown is now much faster in both LB and BB. Man what a change.

[Hanz]

Seems to be taking a very long time to get the update. The notification for an update popped up and I hit it then walked away...and that was about an hour ago and I am still here:

Usually only takes a few minutes for me.

[MysterNybble]

2 minutes ago, Hanz said:

Seems to be taking a very long time to get the update. The notification for an update popped up and I hit it then walked away...and that was about an hour ago and I am still here:

Usually only takes a few minutes for me.

That's not good, nor likely it's actually taking that long. I might suggest you cancel/kill it and see it works the next time? Could send me your debug logs to see if anything jumps out there too.

[Hanz]

9 minutes ago, MysterNybble said:

That's not good, nor likely it's actually taking that long. I might suggest you cancel/kill it and see it works the next time? Could send me your debug logs to see if anything jumps out there too.

Still no movement.

Never had a single issue with any previous beta and this cycle I get two! I feel like I've won the lottery.

 Debug 2026-10-16 02-47-45 PM.log

[skizzosjt]

5 hours ago, JoeViking245 said:

I recall that previous post now.

If I'm understanding correctly, the concern is not that when you restart BB, it doesn't start on the last platform you left on.  But that it's not physically writing to the BigBoxSettings.xml file every time you select a different platform.  

It's only writing to the xml file if:
a)  you go into the platform [to look at the games] then go back to platform View
b)  when shutting down Big Box

 

Is that correct?  Or did I miss something [again] (which I sometime do, and I apologize for that).

close, but no cigar, as the saying goes lol

one more step is needed first. make "a)" be "user must enter into the System Menu"
It doesn't seem to actually write anything when closing Big Box

so I must:

• go into system menu
• exit system menu / return to platform menu
• enter a platform
• exit the platform
  • at this exit point is when the value is written

 

if you do not go into the system menu first, going into platforms and exiting them does not write a value. and also, going into the system menu and doing these steps is only going to work once. once a new value is written, if you enter and exit more platforms no value will be written unless going into the system menu again and repeating the navigation steps. 

 

also it can write a wrong value depending on what a user does. it seems the value is getting stored when user enters system menu. for ex:

• user is on SNES platform
• goes into System Menu
• exit system menu / return to platform menu
• enter a platform...something different than SNES....lets say Sega Genesis
• exit the platform
  • SNES is written as LastPlatform value
  • That is the wrong platform! Should be Sega Genesis instead. 

 

So that is why I think it's storing the value, waiting for more actions to write it. Stores SNES when entering the System Menu because SNES was what was selected when going into the System Menu, but it's not going to be written until you enter and exit a platform. If the user enters and exits SNES, they are going to think it is working perfect. If the user enters and exits any other platform, they will notice a discrepancy. also note if the user was to exit Big Box at this point of entering the system menu the value never gets written. So, in my head that is why the value should be written when entering the system menu, or at least one of the triggers that prompt a write. 

 

[MysterNybble]

9 minutes ago, Hanz said:

Still no movement.

Never had a single issue with any previous beta and this cycle I get two! I feel like I've won the lottery.

  Debug 2026-10-16 02-47-45 PM.log 354.97 kB · 3 downloads

That helps see what's happening, but not entirely sure why.

The download failed quickly, like 10s after you clicked the button. The error is it's unable to write to your Temp folder because the file was locked, for some unknown reason. So, bug #1) that should have shown you an error, but it didn't (I'll get this fixed)

That said, can you do a full windows restart just to make sure everything resets its locks on that file and try it again? If that doesn't work, I might start trying to blame anti-virus software (which you could try pausing) or something else like that. If all else fails, I can send you a direct link since I won't be able to fix it otherwise.

Question for you, what is that G: drive? Internal, external, USB, NAS, Google Drive, etc.? Comparing your logs from this to last time you shared them it looks like somehow your startup got slower, but that could be caused by something holding onto files in that drive. If it is a Google Drive we only have partial official support in it because of how all those cloud drives work. Some details here if that's applicable: https://feedback.launchbox-app.com/help/articles/5055093-avoiding-cloud-sync-issues-with-launchbox

I'll keep looking, but worse case if you can't get it to work, I can send you the installer directly, just let me know!

 

[Hanz]

G is an external SSD. Didn't notice anything out of the ordinary with startup. I'm not running anything other that windows defender.

Restarted and the bar is moving now, but its still pretty slow.

[MysterNybble]

3 minutes ago, Hanz said:

G is an external SSD. Didn't notice anything out of the ordinary with startup. I'm not running anything other that windows defender.

Restarted and the bar is moving now, but its still pretty slow.

Hopefully it finished. If you know, curious what file system you have on there? NTFS, FAT, something else? The logs showed some oddities, is all

[Hanz]

About half way now.

 

The drive is exFAT.

Edit: I am syncing that drive with the mini pc attached to my TV which is reporting a failed sync. I wonder if that has something to do with it.

Edit 2: A file in Metadata/Temp is being locked up by windows defender, which is also causing it to fail in syncthing. That appears to be the culprit.

Edited 18 hours ago by Hanz

[launchretrogirl2562]

@MysterNybble : I took a screenvid of it happening. (the platform revert to ALL or in my case now to the first one in my list of platforms)
In the screensnap u can see me in launchbox. I selected the Apple II platform, clicked on a few 3D boxes.
Then I closed Launchbox. And waiting a few seconds and launched Launchbox again.

After launchbox starts, it defaults to the Apple II platform but after that immediately goes back to the first platform in my list...which is the 3DO.
(I had ALL deactivated cause it bothered me that it always defaulted to my largest view)

And u can see...my mouse stays where it is, it does it on its own.
So it does remember my last platform...but somehow forgets about it and defaults to the first one.
So somewhere in your code, after it reads the last platform from xml settings and after startup u have start your search there I suppose.

No idea why this happens. Never had this before in any of the other versions before 14.1

[Hanz]

Well that isn't good. 

[JoeViking245]

42 minutes ago, Hanz said:

The drive is exFAT.

I can't attest to this being "the issue", but I do know that drives not formatted NTFS can have issues with the symlinks LaunchBox creates and uses at runtime.

(at least that was the case when I wrote that in my notes about a year ago)

[Hanz]

Ran a repair on the drive and it fixed something because this time I tried it downloaded and installed lightning fast. Definitely something up with my drive. Testing the play time issue now.

Edited 17 hours ago by Hanz

[Nixx]

Thanks a lot for the game save fix. While at it, two minor that remain : 
 

1. Make Default doesn't swap, it overwrites

I had a game on "Secret of Mana (France).sfc" with RetroArch bsnes, plus an additional version "Secret of Mana (Germany).sfc" on RetroArch snes9x. I picked Germany and hit Make Default.
What I expected: France and Germany swap places.
What happened:

the game now points to Germany.sfc AND uses the version's emulator
the version still points to Germany.sfc too, so both entries launch the same file
France.sfc isn't referenced anywhere anymore, it just disappears from the library
the game's bsnes save rows got copied onto the Germany version, so it now shows saves from a different rom/core (went from 3 save rows to 5) Tested with no third party plugins, RetroArch integration only.
A real swap (with the saves following their file) would make way more sense

2. Saturn restore in RetroArch can overwrite another save's companion files

Small one in the RetroArch integration
When you restore a Saturn save, CopySaturnCompanionFiles copies every .bcr / .bkr / .smpc it finds next to the backup with the same base name.
Problem is the backup lives in the shared vault (Saves\Sega Saturn), so it grabs whatever has that name there, even if it belongs to a different save group or core.
Example: I had a Yabause save and a Beetle Saturn save for the same game. Restoring the Yabause .srm also pulled the Beetle .bcr/.bkr sitting in the vault with the same name, and silently overwrote my live Beetle set.
Maybe only copy the companions that belong to that exact backup (same group id)? 

[Jabb3rJaw]

@MysterNybble This beta seems a lot faster and smoother!! Nice work!! I previously mentioned in the last beta my screen freezing in Bigbox but not crashing back to desktop like it used to do. It just did it again but if I click the mouse buttons it regains focus. There was no WER file but here are my Launchbox files.

Debug 2026-10-16 09-07-08 PM.log MediaEngine 2026-10-16 09-07-08 PM.worker.log MediaEngine Client 2026-10-16 09-07-08 PM.log

[SqHd]

@MysterNybble Wow! Great work! Rom import only took seconds first try. So nice to have this working again.

[Madhead]

I don't know if any one has picked up on this, but I've been replacing the low res logos in my collection with higher quality ones, and during the process, as of the last 2 betas, images have been getting corrupted upon refreshing (maybe refreshing caused it? I'm not 100% sure). The worry is if there are dozens of images (or more) across the collection like this without me knowing. I've uploaded an example. I had to zip it up because it wasn't letting me upload it straight for some reason.

mb.zip

[skizzosjt]

18 hours ago, MysterNybble said:

VLC playback smoothness (experimental): If you tried "EXPERIMENTAL: Use smooth high frame rate rendering for VLC" under Options > Video during the 14.0 betas and it didn't help try it again! @skizzosjt, @Rlad, @Heartless1Riku this is a carryover from 14.0 testing - It still needs a restart after changing it.

I'm testing in Big Box on my Windows 10 system with a 120Hz display just for reference. It's where I've done all this testing previously.
With the experimental checkbox disabled, no change, performance is not up to par relative to WMP.
With the experimental checkbox ENABLED, I think it's ironed out! VLC playback performance is now ON PAR with WMP! Including fullscreen playback at that!
Just making that a point that the option is definitely making a difference this time around. 👍

 

 

Performance improvements are immediately noticeable for boots going between LB and BB 👍

 

 

Also been doing lots of these boots back and forth. None have gotten stuck on "Loading Interface..."
I'm hopeful this issue will not be rearing its head anymore! 👍

 

Badges look crisp and clean now in LB, no longer jaggy-like or pixelated. 👍

 

 

Missing status for Steam games installed on disconnected disks/paths working as intended. The tool tip that pops up shows the proper path of where the game lives on the disconnected disk. 👍