1630 replies to this topic

[updon719]

Well just getting back into changing things on the cabinet, I tried pinbally and really like the simplicity, I just linked to the pinballx media had to clean up a few things and it runs great.  The problem is when I try to get it to launch on startup its giving me black screens then crashing, If I boot windows and launch it from the exe it starts right up. I tried a few of the things I have found in the thread and still no luck I am running a win7 machine, with pinddmd3.  I am stumped

[wiesshund]

There may be a better solution but

Put a shortcut to the EXE in the folder C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp

 

Should make it fire up as you sign in to windows

[updon719]

ok will give that a try

[mjr]

Well just getting back into changing things on the cabinet, I tried pinbally and really like the simplicity, I just linked to the pinballx media had to clean up a few things and it runs great.  The problem is when I try to get it to launch on startup its giving me black screens then crashing, If I boot windows and launch it from the exe it starts right up.

 

The other thing you might try is to adjust the startup delay - it's an option in the startup section ("After logon, pause before starting PinballY (second):").  My guess is that it's launching too soon after startup and conflicting with something else that's also starting up with the system, like something video driver-related.  That could explain why it works when you start it manually, but crashes when you start it automatically - the manual startup probably has a naturally longer delay since Windows doesn't show its UI until some of the core stuff is up and running.

[updon719]

I didn't have the above mentioned path to put the shortcut in, but I tried regular and admin mode on a 25 second delay and got the same results.  I have the freezy 1.8.  I just installed pinupplayer but this was happening prior to that anyway so I think I can rule that out. works fine when I launch it

[updon719]

Bingo had to do the view hidden folders got the start folder threw the shortcut in and it started right up I guess it would be solved using that work around

[wiesshund]

I didn't have the above mentioned path to put the shortcut in, but I tried regular and admin mode on a 25 second delay and got the same results.  I have the freezy 1.8.  I just installed pinupplayer but this was happening prior to that anyway so I think I can rule that out. works fine when I launch it

 

Unless you do not have a windows PC, you have that path, it is just a hidden folder
If you type %programdata% in file explorers address bar, it will appear

 

[EDIT]

 

nm i was too slow on the submit key  

Edited by wiesshund, 23 September 2020 - 12:04 AM.

[topper2k]

 

Hi Mike:  Yes, I'm using windows 10 pro.........

 

Okay, that's what I was guessing.

 

There are a couple of workarounds on the Web (in unrelated contexts) for the Win 10 Task Scheduler focus issue, but I've tried going through those with a couple of people, and they don't seem to work for everyone.  The two main ones are:

 

- Stop using Task Scheduler to launch it; change to a "Startup" group shortcut in your Start menu instead

 

or,

 

- Edit the Task Scheduler task so that rather than launching the program directly, it launches CMD.EXE, with a /c command line that launches the program

 

 

Hey folks! I'm having the same issues others have reported in Windows 10 related to gaining focus at startup. It seems to work about half the time.

 

I want to try the first solution MJR suggests above. Is this just a matter of:

1. Set PBY to manual launch mode in the PBY startup settings
2. Create a shortcut to PBY in my startup folder

Is that all there is to this or is it more complicated?

[wiesshund]

Nope, that's basically it

[topper2k]

Nope, that's basically it

Thanks, unfortunately I'm in the group of folks that doesn't work for. Adding a PBY shortcut to my startup folder doesn't seem to ever give keyboard focus. Using the PBY setting at least works half the time.

[wiesshund]

 

Nope, that's basically it

Thanks, unfortunately I'm in the group of folks that doesn't work for. Adding a PBY shortcut to my startup folder doesn't seem to ever give keyboard focus. Using the PBY setting at least works half the time.

 

Ok, dumb question, but what exactly gets focus then?
Is there something else that perhaps runs at startup?

You could put a shortcut to a bat file in the startup instead
Have the bat file launch pbY after a delay, perhaps something is activating after PBY and stealing focus

bat file would be something like

 

 

PING localhost -n 15 >NUL
c:\path_to_pby\pbt.executable

 

the 15 would wait approx 15 seconds
adjust as needed

[mjr]

Thanks, unfortunately I'm in the group of folks that doesn't work for. Adding a PBY shortcut to my startup folder doesn't seem to ever give keyboard focus. Using the PBY setting at least works half the time.

 

Given that it's working some of the time, my guess would be an interaction with another program that's starting up with the system and stealing focus for itself after PBY has already started.  That would fit with the randomness, in that the amount of time it takes for each program to start up is somewhat random.  You might try tweaking two settings to see if they help.  First, try increasing the delay time in the automatic startup settings - the idea is to try to ensure that the other program that's grabbing focus always finishes its startup before PBY launches, since Windows generally gives focus to the last program that launched.  The other is "Force keyboard focus to PinballY at startup", and again, try adjusting the delay time upwards to see if that makes it any more reliable.  That option generates a synthetic mouse click on the PBY main window to try to force Windows to move focus there. 

 

What I might try with both settings is to increase the delay time to something ridiculously extremely, like 60 or 120 seconds, and then observe it several times to see if it makes the startup focus reliable (being sure to wait for the full delay time on each trial).  If it gets reliable at a ridiculously long delay like that, it would be pretty strong evidence that a timing conflict with another program is indeed the issue.  If you can't even get it working with a super long delay time, the problem is probably something else entirely.  Assuming that a super long delay time solves it, you can then start testing with reduced delay times to find the shortest time that gives you reliable results.

(60 or 120 seconds would be extreme on most of my systems, but you might need to make the delay even longer if your system is booting from a hard disk rather than an SSD, or if you have lots of startup software loading.  The way to gauge what's "extreme" would be to watch your disk activity indicator light at startup and see how long it takes after boot until the disk is pretty much idle.  As long as there's activity on the disk, Windows is probably still processing startup tasks.)

[PunkTiger]

I'm having a problem with PinballY and Media Packs. I fill out all the necessary info for the game, find the correct media pack for it (usually the only media pack for it), drag the ZIP onto the playfield, and one of three things will happen. Either PinballY will ask if I'm sure this is the correct media pack for the board, give me the option of what to install from it, display a message saying the pack is successfully installed, but it still shows the default graphics; or says it's the correct pack, gives me the option of what to install from it, display a message saying the pack is successfully installed, but it still shows the default graphics; or it actually installs the media pack and the new graphics shows up on the playfield/back glass/wheel.

 

Of the 10 or 12 boards I've tried to "set up" so far, only one has installed the media pack correctly (Gottlieb's 2001).

 

Going through this thread's archives brought me to this post from over two years ago:

 

 

I did the Game Setup on a couple tables. Then downloaded the HP Media Packs & dragged the zip files onto the playfield. Selected the wheel, backglass, & playfield and added these. A message appeared saying they were successfully installed. However nothing shows up.

 

How do I verify the images were added?

 

By seeing them show up.   They really should show up immediately in the wheel UI if they got installed properly, so if you don't see them, either they didn't get installed or they're not getting found on the display side.  

 

The directory structure is like this, if you haven't changed any of the default folder path settings and you don't have PinballX installed:

 

<PinballY install folder>\Media\<System Name>\Wheel Images\Game Title (Manufacturer Year)

 

The <System Name> part is the Media Subfolder path set in the Options dialog under the system that the game uses.  So, for example,

 

C:\PinballY\Media\Visual Pinball\Wheel Images\Cyclone (Williams 1988).png

 

So the first thing to check is that the there's a file in the location you'd expect with the name you'd expect, based on all of that.  If that all looks right, I might be able to spot what's wrong if you could send me all of the following:

 

* PinballY\Settings.txt

 

* DIR /S listing of your PinballY\Media folder

 

* The XML file where the game's database entry is located - this should be PinballY\Databases\Visual Pinball\Visual Pinball.xml if you haven't changed any defaults, and the game in question is a VP9 game.  If it's a VP10 game, change all of the "Visual Pinball"s to "Visual Pinball X".

 

 

Now, as a total newbie at setting up a vpin cabinet, when you say "check [...] that the there's a file in the location you'd expect with the name you'd expect", what name should I be expecting? Is this an instance like in a B2S backglass that the name of the backglass has to exactly match the name of the board, or is it more fuzzy than that?

 

I apologise if my frustration is coming through on this post. I started this cabinet build early last month and it has fought me nearly every step of the way.

[mjr]

Now, as a total newbie at setting up a vpin cabinet, when you say "check [...] that the there's a file in the location you'd expect with the name you'd expect", what name should I be expecting?

 

You might want to read through "PinballY isn't showing media for my tables" in the Troubleshooting section in the help, if you haven't already.  That has some step-by-steps you can go through to try to figure out exactly where PinballY is looking for a given game's media, without having to piece together all of the paths and filenames in your head.

[Samuel Villena]

Good morning!

I don’t know if this one is the place to make a suggestion about pinballY...

I would like a new functionality, but I know nothing about programming, so I’ll ask to add it in a new version:

When I setup a system (I’m talking specially about PunballFX3) I have the possibility to add parameters to the setup to make it star in hot seat, single player, no powers, etc. It’s really good, but I would like to choose each time. I think perhaps it would be posible to add the different parameters in the start menu. When you press the button “Start”, in the menu, would be nice to see “play solo” “hot seat 2 players”, “hot seat three players”, etc., but keeping the launch ball button as your usual way to play.

Than you and have a great day!


Enviado desde mi iPad utilizando Tapatalk

[topper2k]

 
You might try tweaking two settings to see if they help.  First, try increasing the delay time in the automatic startup settings - the idea is to try to ensure that the other program that's grabbing focus always finishes its startup before PBY launches, since Windows generally gives focus to the last program that launched.  The other is "Force keyboard focus to PinballY at startup", and again, try adjusting the delay time upwards to see if that makes it any more reliable. 

Thanks MJR! This might be a dumb question, but how do those two settings relate to each other? Are they independent or connected?

If I set the auto start delay to 10 and the focus delay to 2, does the focus grab try to fire 2 seconds after Windows opens or 12 seconds?

It's not clear to me whether the focus delay us connected to Windows startup or PBY startup.

[PunkTiger]

 

Now, as a total newbie at setting up a vpin cabinet, when you say "check [...] that the there's a file in the location you'd expect with the name you'd expect", what name should I be expecting?

 

You might want to read through "PinballY isn't showing media for my tables" in the Troubleshooting section in the help, if you haven't already.  That has some step-by-steps you can go through to try to figure out exactly where PinballY is looking for a given game's media, without having to piece together all of the paths and filenames in your head.

 

Well! I seem to have found the issue. When I'm inputting the board's information, the System area gives me the choice between Visual Pinball 9 and 9.2. I found all the problem backglasses, wheel images, and playfields under \PinballY\Media\Visual Pinball 9.2, and the only working setup under \PinballY\Media\Visual Pinball. After copying the items out of the 9.2 directory into the regular Visual Pinball directory, all the graphics came up as they should. So, it's not even looking in the VP9.2 directory for any images and whatnot.

 

Now, I guess I'm not going to set up my unconfigured tables as VP 9.2 and use VP9 as the default, but is this a bug, or did something not configure itself correctly during the installation of PinballY?

[mjr]

If I set the auto start delay to 10 and the focus delay to 2, does the focus grab try to fire 2 seconds after Windows opens or 12 seconds?

It's not clear to me whether the focus delay us connected to Windows startup or PBY startup.

 

The "Force focus" timer starts when PinballY starts up - it's an internal timer within the program, so it's not related to when Windows starts up.  (So it's almost the second case you propose, the 12 seconds case, although not exactly: the synthetic mouse click will actually happen 2 seconds after PinballY starts up, whenever that is.  The reason I point out the distinction is that it might matter if Windows is slow to execute its startup tasks, and takes longer than the 10-second auto start delay to accomplish that.  In that case, there's not some kind of separate system timer that's waiting (10 + 2) seconds from Windows startup to fire the synthetic mouse event.  The 2-second timer simply doesn't start at all until PinballY has successfully launched.)

Well! I seem to have found the issue. When I'm inputting the board's information, the System area gives me the choice between Visual Pinball 9 and 9.2. I found all the problem backglasses, wheel images, and playfields under \PinballY\Media\Visual Pinball 9.2, and the only working setup under \PinballY\Media\Visual Pinball. After copying the items out of the 9.2 directory into the regular Visual Pinball directory, all the graphics came up as they should. So, it's not even looking in the VP9.2 directory for any images and whatnot.

 

Now, I guess I'm not going to set up my unconfigured tables as VP 9.2 and use VP9 as the default, but is this a bug, or did something not configure itself correctly during the installation of PinballY?

 

You might want to check the Media Folder settings for your different VP versions to see if they're all set to "Visual Pinball". That's probably why the program isn't looking for the files in the "Visual Pinball 9.2" folder.  If you want it to look there, you can just change the Media Folder in the settings for VP 9.2 to point there.

[SandraMe]

Hi all!  This is my first post, and I have a question.

 

First off, your Build Guide is my absolute bible in helping me build my first virtual cab!  I have a two screen setup which I'm very happy with and your documentation has been a godsend in helping me put it all together.

 

Also, let me gush a bit on PinballY.  It's a wonderful frontend and it's installation was very smooth.  Any and all questions I've had about it I did find in the incredible documentation.  And to make it all open source is such a credit to you.  My very heartfelt thanks for all your effort!

 

By the way, if this is not the correct place to ask, then simply point me to the right forum. 

 

Here is my question.  On exit of PinballY there is an option to turn off the computer at exit.  Would it be possible to send the computer to sleep instead of power off?  My rig returns from sleep faster than a cold boot.  I've been through all the documentation and I've been climbing around in the source, but I really haven't found were I can modify either the action of the power off option, or add a menu item for sleep.

 

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

Thank you!!!

 

-Sandy

[mjr]

Sleep rather than power-down isn't one of the built-in options, but that's a good idea for something to add.  If you're up for a little Javascript programming, though, I think you could adapt one of the worked examples to do this pretty easily.  Take a look in the help at Javascript scripting > Worked Examples > Log Off at Shutdown. The thing you have to change is to take out the part that logs off via User32.ExitWindowsEx(), and instead use a different Windows API that sets sleep mode, SetSuspendState().

 

Untested, but here's roughly what's needed, replacing the corresponding sections in the example:

// bind the system sleep API [use this to replace the User32 binding in the example]
let PowrProf = dllImport.bind("PowrProf.dll", `
    BOOL WINAPI SetSuspendState(BOOL bHibernate, BOOL bForce, BOOL bWakeupEventsDisabled);
`);

// set sleep mode [use this to replace the "log off Windows" section in the example]
SetSuspendState(0, 0, 0);

[EDIT] On second thought, this isn't quite sufficient; SetSuspendState() is one of those protected APIs that requires you to mess with the process token to enable it.  That's doable, but it takes some extra code, and I don't have a ready-made js example to point you to.  If you want to try adapting it from C++, you can find the code in PinballY/PlayfieldView.cpp in the github repository - look for the PlayfieldView::PowerOff() routine; you need all the stuff there from the call to OpenThreadToken() to the call to AdjustTokenPrivileges() (inclusive).

Edited by mjr, 11 October 2020 - 06:14 PM.