[RESOLVED] PinballX crash while launching Pinball FX2

[arnobarno]

Hello,

Noob here.

I have Pinball X configured and running with Pinball Arcade using Nuke Launcher. That is all working well.

I don't want to use Nuke Launcher for Pinball FX2 for a variety of reasons and just want Pinball X to display the backglass and then launch Pinball FX2 for me. I'll then select the actual game I want to use.

So, I've configured all the media files using the excellent Nuke Launcher media pack and I can browse all the tables, backglass, etc.

When it comes time to launch Pinball FX2, I get an error in the Pinball X log file:

19:04:58.4 1/17/2015: PinballX - Version 1.93

19:04:58.4 1/17/2015: Windows 8.1 64-bit (15.9GB)

19:04:58.4 1/17/2015: Loading Settings

19:04:58.4 1/17/2015: Initialize Component

19:04:58.4 1/17/2015: Initialize Display

19:04:59.5 1/17/2015: Loading PlugIns

19:04:59.6 1/17/2015: Created DirectX BackGlass Window

19:04:59.6 1/17/2015: Created DirectX DMD Window

19:04:59.7 1/17/2015: Hiding Cursor

19:04:59.7 1/17/2015: Hiding Taskbar

19:04:59.7 1/17/2015: CPU: Intel® Core i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz

19:04:59.7 1/17/2015: GPU 1: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 645

19:04:59.7 1/17/2015: Displays: 2

19:04:59.8 1/17/2015: Load Game List

19:04:59.8 1/17/2015: Loading Database: Pinball FX2

19:04:59.8 1/17/2015: Loading Database: Pinball Arcade

19:04:59.8 1/17/2015: Finding and matching artwork and videos

19:05:00.0 1/17/2015: Loading Game Statistics and Scores

19:05:00.7 1/17/2015: Loading Surfaces

19:05:00.9 1/17/2015: Finished Loading Surfaces

19:05:00.9 1/17/2015: Initialize Audio

19:05:00.9 1/17/2015: Set Keyboard Controls

19:05:00.9 1/17/2015: Initialize Joystick

19:05:00.9 1/17/2015: No Joysticks Attached

19:05:00.9 1/17/2015: Started

19:05:11.1 1/17/2015: Launch System

19:05:11.1 1/17/2015: Waiting for threads

19:05:11.2 1/17/2015: Disposing display

19:05:12.1 1/17/2015: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe -applaunch 226980

19:05:13.3 1/17/2015: Error. Exiting

19:05:13.3 1/17/2015: Error in the application.

19:05:13.3 1/17/2015: at PinballX.Main.b(Boolean A_0, Boolean A_1, Boolean A_2)

19:05:13.3 1/17/2015: at PinballX.Main.ak()

19:05:13.3 1/17/2015: at PinballX.Main..ctor()

19:05:13.3 1/17/2015: Disposing Plugins

19:05:13.3 1/17/2015: Showing Taskbar

19:05:13.3 1/17/2015: Unhiding Mouse Cursor

19:05:13.4 1/17/2015: Bye

Pinball FX2 launches fine, but PinballX crashes (with the error above) and takes down the backglass display (on monitor 2 in my cabinet) - which was the entire reason I wanted to use PinballX.

Thoughts? I'm not sure what other configuration information would be relevant here - 2 displays; I am running the Steam version of Pinball FX2; latest version of Pinball X (1.93)

Any help would be appreciated. I've been tracking this down for hours and am at wit's end. I'm thinking I must be doing something silly here to generate this error/crash but really not sure what.

thanks,

Arn

[Draco1962]

I would recommend going through the latest documentation for setting up Pinball FX2 as put together by Zeenon. You will also likely need to go through the Support for Pinball FX2 thread to see if there may be a solution there as well.

[arnobarno]

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, those were the first two things I did before posting.

The documentation didn't show any differences from my installation. But the thread had some things that were different that shouldn't have mattered. I tested a number of them (with no difference). But I'll review the thread again.

PinballX shouldn't crash out though? Right? The error message doesn't lead one to understand why it crashed after I started to load Pinball FX2 - I see the "Loading" screen and then just before Pinball FX2 actually starts, the backglass on screen 2 disappears (I assume this is when PinballX crashed and cleaned itself up). Then Pinball FX2 splash screen appears.

I'm running Windows 8.1 (if that is important).

Thanks.

[Carny_Priest]

Other then the backglass, does FX2 start up and you are able to access the main menu?

If not, change properties for the Pinball FX2.exe to Run as Administrator

In Settings/PinballX.ini, is it set up like this?:

Windowed=False

FullScreenWindowed=True

This runs PinballX is a full screen window, non-exclusive mode allowing you to retain backglasses in-game.

[arnobarno]

Carny_Priest - Thanks for the reply.

My .ini has been set the way you said and Pinball X has been set to run as admin. I've always been able to access the main menu from FX2 startup.

I've made some progress though. The problem seems to be steam running or not. If steam isn't running then the backglass stays up, control transitions to Pinball FX2 and all is good. Until I go to exit - then it hangs and doesn't return to PinballX. Now then, I've connected via VNC at that time and if I kill the "steam client helper" task, then control transitions back to PinballX and all is good.

So, it seems like I have to make sure that somehow steam isn't running at the start and deletes itself at the end. Seems strange that I could be the only one with this problem. Any advice would be helpful.

[Draco1962]

I do not run PinballX at this time, but I believe that some get by with running a batch file via the run before and run after options to open the Steam client and kill it when exiting Pinball FX2.

[Carny_Priest]

I do not run PinballX at this time, but I believe that some get by with running a batch file via the run before and run after options to open the Steam client and kill it when exiting Pinball FX2.

Yes! When I was originally configuring FX2 to run (actually that goes for any Steam game), I found that I had to launch the Steam client from an AutoHotkey script rather than have PinballX do it. In other words, PinballX watches the AutoHotkey executable instead of Steam. Doing that solved all my focus issues.

NukeLauncher does this, and I highly recommend it, but if the OP is committed to not having a table selector, then I can point to my script before I adopted NukeLauncher. Might be worth a try.

http://www.gameex.info/forums/topic/12837-support-for-pinball-fx2/page-11#entry130693

Strip out everything but the first eight lines at the start and the lines Process, WaitClose, Pinball FX2.exe and ExitApp at the end.

[Draco1962]

I thought that I had recalled your work on this. Your efforts have been a great contribution to the community. I hope that the OP is open to running that script and it resolves his problem.

[arnobarno]

Carny_Priest - thanks for your reply.

Your script worked perfectly for Pinball FX2 and I can go in and out of PinballX without any problems.

Now though, I'm getting further along with Nuke Launcher on Pinball Arcade and it seemed as if hitting escape within a game (to pause and view the PA menus) is bringing me all the way back to PinballX (ie PinballX must somehow have the keyboard focus instead of PA - or at least the escape key is somehow getting through). Which, of course puts everything in a bad state. As I write this it seems weird since other keys are going properly to Pinball Arcade - just the escape key is magically getting gobbled by PinballX.

So, I switched to using your script for Pinball Arcade (with appropriate changes) but it to is having the same focus problem. Not sure why Pinball FX2 is getting the focus for all keys (including escape) but Pinball Arcade isn't. In both cases, my escape button should bring me back to the menu in the app (and escape is set in PinballX to quit PinballX)

Any thoughts? I feel like I'm on the 1 yard line now... Thanks for all your help so far.

[by the way, the reason I don't want to use Nuke Launcher is that I'm still trying to figure out which games to demo/play in FX2 so I don't have any games bought yet. In PA, I have the first three seasons so I know what I like. Still, I'm finding Nuke Launcher is doing more than I want - makes it a little harder to switch on the fly between modes. I like getting the backglass from PinballX and the DMD animations]

[Carny_Priest]

I'm sort of the opposite. I have just about all of the FX2 tables and practically none of the TPA tables. So, I don't use NukePA.

However, there are settings in NukePA.ini that you should be using if you were looking to assign hotkeys for pause, look at instructions, and exit. And I'm assuming that you really are using a keyboard and not a joystick/joypad.

In the KeyBindings section, there is a setting for KB_Escape and the default is "esc". KB_Escape executes the instructions that tell NukePA to exit out of PA in the way specified in the ExitMethod setting. If you don't want the esc key to close down PA then you need to clear that setting or assign to it another key.

If you want your esc key to pause the game then you want the KB_Pause setting to be "esc".

[arnobarno]

Carny_Priest - again, thanks for the reply.

I tried what you suggested but the problem seems to be that PinballX is the one gobbling up the escape key somehow and throwing me out of the game.

I figured out a workaround (finally) which was to change the Keyboard input settings in PinballX so that "quit" and "exit emulator" no longer respond to the escape key but some other sequence I mapped in my iPac. So, now escape works as it should everywhere and I can go in and out of games at will. Not sure why PinballX was gobbling up those keys but I guess this is just how it works.

Last thing I was trying to do was to grab your "remove borders" code to get the DMD window to look a little better on top of the backglass. Unfortunately, my copy/paste didn't work - I probably need to put in some loop to keep checking for the DMD window to appear - it looks like your code handles this because the DMD window is already up by the time it is executing. Time to learn a little AHK I guess.

Again, thanks for your help.

[Carny_Priest]

Glad you got the esc key figured out.

Yes, the remove borders script works because I know that by the time I get to that point in the execution there will be a DMD window to operate on.

The idea for this springs from the code I cited in my comments

https://gist.github.com/ozon/2c3b98161329b583b4a5

It is a persistent script that resides in memory and checks for the existence of the DMD window. If one appears, the script will remove the borders. This is probably what you are looking for.

Of course, the easiest thing would be to use NukeLauncher. Even if you haven't actually purchased any DLC yet, you can still get Sorcerer's Lair for free and test with that and figure out how to incorporate it into PinballX as you want. Saves you the work of re-inventing the wheel (NukeLauncher is AHK-based).

[arnobarno]

Carny_Priest

That script worked well though not at first - very strange. But now working well.

Again, thanks for all your help.

[Draco1962]

Glad to see you have it all sorted and thanks to Carny_Priest for the assist! Are we OK to mark this issue as resolved?

[arnobarno]

Well, it is certainly resolved from my point of view.

Now then, there are still two underlying issues that will undoubtedly trip up someone else - one is the crash I reported at the beginning which is "hidden" now and the other is the way PinballX gobbles up keystrokes. The keystroke issue may just be my lack of understanding of how things with AHK type behavior nest (so call this a dumb user issue). But the crash (without any reasonable error message in the log) if steam is already running seems like something that should probably be looked at.

Thanks!