[ABANDONED] Theme issues and crash

[cdbrown]

Was able to play a little more with GameEx last night and decided to try out one of the themes rather than the default. Picked GameEx Arcade Draconus Theme in the setup program, downloaded the theme and enabled it on the following page. Started up GameEx and it stuck with the default, exited, checked the setup program and it was still set to the Draconus Theme. Back into GameEx and still default theme. Decided to try out the theme picker inside Gameex and that's where it hung for a while. Gave up and tried again this morning, again it was set to draconus, but started up in default, went into the theme selector and chose Draconus from there, but it just wouldn't load the theme, tried out a different theme (unfortunately can't remember the name exactly but something like Retro Arcade which is mainly a yellow background) which did load but then crashed out.

Attached the various files I've seen being asked to help the Theme (1).ini is the one for Draconus.

As a side question - when doing the manual download and install of GameEx, is it normal for the installer to overwrite the gameex.ini files? or to change some settings to default? A lot of my settings were in place but all the mame paths had reverted to default, so had to go through and set them all again, go into gameex and get it to generate the lists.

Any tips or advice?

Cheers

-cdbrown

Theme (1).ini

Theme.ini

SetupWizard.log

LogArtWorkDownload.txt

GameEx (1).ini

log.txt

Edited October 6, 2017 by cdbrown
Unable to follow instructions, now using GE Arcade

[KRC]

Isn't the Draconus theme for GameEx Arcade Edition?

I don't think that will work in Normal GameEx.

Are you trying to Load that theme in GameEx (Not Arcade Edition)?

 

[cdbrown]

That is what I'm trying to do and wasn't aware the themes didn't apply to normal GameEx. So normal GameEx doesn't do themes at all? Any reason there is the option to use the themes from the menus within normal GameEx?

[KRC]

Yeah Normal GameEx has a ton of themes.

They can be downloaded through the Setup Wizard, Download Section on the Forums and within GameEx frontend itself.

Also, I know what you are referring to when GameEx hangs on the Theme Picker. If you give it a few moments it will load the theme list and then you can choose one.

[RedDog]

GameEx Arcade and GameEx are similar animals, but they are not the same. It would be unwise to use themes from GameEx on GameEx Arcade and vice-versa.

GameEx Arcade does not actually support custom themes through the software. Draco, the author of the GameEx Arcade Draconus theme, commented in the description that it has to be installed manually. You could consider the theme a hack in a way, but Draco also knows his stuff very well, so I would be very comfortable in saying that it is safe to use with GameEx Arcade...but just GameEx Arcade.

An easy fix for your problem should be to go to the GameEx\Themes folder and rename the Arcade Draconus folder to something else. Then,  open the Setup Wizard and navigate to the Themes page. The entry will be empty. Choose the theme you had before (or Default-Default), advance the page and exit. Try running GameEx. I expect it will load.

[cdbrown]

So the themes I downloaded through the setup wizard will work with normal GameEx as that's the one I'm playing around? To be honest when I was looking at the theme list I just picked some that I liked the name of and had 1920x1080 resolution. 

Any idea on why GameEx would crash when picking the other theme (that I had previously downloaded through the setup wizard)?

 

Edit - I should probably be playing around with GameEx Arcade considering it's on my MAME machine and I'm unlikely to use the HTPC component.

[KRC]

2 hours ago, cdbrown said:

Edit - I should probably be playing around with GameEx Arcade considering it's on my MAME machine and I'm unlikely to use the HTPC component.

GameEx Arcade Edition has a lot less options than original GameEx and is perfect for a MAME machine.

[cdbrown]

I just tried GameEx (MAME only) which loaded up the GameEx Ultra theme, however when I went to access the mame game list it crashed and burned. But this time it wouldn't crash out back to windows, just stayed black with some arcade background sounds playing. Alt-tab and clicking on the X wouldn't close it, started task manager to try and kill the process but couldn't get it to focus on the task manager (I could see it in the alt-tab list of progs). Ended up having to sign out of windows account to get it cleared. When it did crash a pop up asked if i wanted to debug, but then said I didn't have the JIT something to do the debug. Urgh.

Time to download GameEx Arcade

[RedDog]

It may be something in your GameEx.ini file that was added when you tried to use the GameEx Arcade theme. Hard to say though.

Before giving up on GameEx, you may want to clear your emulator cache, download the GameEx installer, and install a new copy over the existing install. To clear the cache, go to the GameEx\DATA folder and delete any file with the .dbcache extension. Note that a reinstall will not affect your GameEx.ini file.

And just an FYI, if you do install GameEx Arcade, you do not need to remove GameEx. Both can be installed at the same time as they are separate programs, have separate Setup Wizards, etc. Then you can remove one later if you decide to.