[APP] PinballX Database Manager 24.10.11.0 (supports Touch Play as well)

[MrGrynch]

5 minutes ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

Don't have an answer now, but will check tomorrow morning for you.

If you leave the exe open for multiple minutes, is it doing something else in the logfile?

The logfile never differs from the screenshot I sent.  I left it running over an hour

[scutters]

@MrGrynch can you attach your C:\PinballX\Config\PinballX.ini file?

(just wondering if there's some form of corruption or other issue with Database Manager reading that file)

Thanks

[MrGrynch]

3 minutes ago, scutters said:

@MrGrynch can you attach your C:\PinballX\Config\PinballX.ini file?

(just wondering if there's some form of corruption or other issue with Database Manager reading that file)

Thanks

See attached... BTW.  I deleted the database entirely and tried it... no joy

PinballX.ini

[MrGrynch]

I checked the Windows Update history, there was an update installed on 6/17/22 which I think was after the last table I installed via DBM.  This could be an issue with the update

[scutters]

19 minutes ago, MrGrynch said:

I checked the Windows Update history, there was an update installed on 6/17/22 which I think was after the last table I installed via DBM.  This could be an issue with the update

Looks like i got that update too. Still launching ok here.

PinballX.ini file looks ok to me as well, so the next file to check is your PinballX\Databases\Statistics.ini file (holds details on how often you've played a game etc). Can you attach that one as well...

[MrGrynch]

4 minutes ago, scutters said:

Looks like i got that update too. Still launching ok here.

PinballX.ini file looks ok to me as well, so the next file to check is your PinballX\Databases\Statistics.ini file (holds details on how often you've played a game etc). Can you attach that one as well...

So... I extrapolated your request and removed the file.  DBM failed to load, but this time, it exited as well.  So, I ran PBX to recreate the file and then ran DBM again, and voila!  It works!  I took a look at the original file and there's a huge line of NULL characters in the first line.  I removed them and it now works with the original statistics file.  I think this was caused yesterday by my son powering off the machine while inside PBX.  I chastised him soundly for that.

Thank you so much!

[scutters]

Excellent! , good thinking.

I think i've seen issues before on the forum with either the pinballx.ini or statistics.ini files getting corrupted by an unclean shutdown. Best to avoid that kind of thing, chastising fully justified ! 

[MrGrynch]

2 minutes ago, scutters said:

Excellent! , good thinking.

I think i've seen issues before on the forum with either the pinballx.ini or statistics.ini files getting corrupted by an unclean shutdown. Best to avoid that kind of thing, chastising fully justified ! 

@Mike_da_Spikeowes you a pint for saving him from looking into this rabbit hole

[scutters]

4 minutes ago, MrGrynch said:

@Mike_da_Spikeowes you a pint for saving him from looking into this rabbit hole

You listening Mike? 

Lol.. let's just call it evens, he's helped me out a few times!

[Mike_da_Spike]

5 hours ago, scutters said:

You listening Mike? 

Lol.. let's just call it evens, he's helped me out a few times!

You are always my life saver Scutters ! And think we are never even, as you helped me more. 

I had a good night rest,  and doesnt need to check the code in the morning. Good one @scutters!

 

[Mike_da_Spike]

@MrGrynch, do you still have the corrupted statistics.ini and able to post it ?

 

[MrGrynch]

6 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

@MrGrynch, do you still have the corrupted statistics.ini and able to post it ?

 

Unfortunately I do not, but I did some experimenting, and its not the NULL characters themselves that are the problem.. It's the line length.  The line was millions of characters long, and DBM was probably stuck parsing it, which explains the CPU utilization.  I played around with increasing character counts on the first line and could cause the program to take longer and longer to show the UI.  Looks like if I had waiting long enough, I would have either run out of memory, or the program would have eventually presented the UI

FYI

[Mike_da_Spike]

Thanks for testing. I was testing with 10.000 nulls , but started pretty quick on my system. I will try to create a million line as well and check if DBM can have a check in it.@scuttersalready had an idea to tackle this, but a reproduction scenario would be fine

[MrGrynch]

15 minutes ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

Thanks for testing. I was testing with 10.000 nulls , but started pretty quick on my system. I will try to create a million line as well and check if DBM can have a check in it.@scuttersalready had an idea to tackle this, but a reproduction scenario would be fine

If you do implement a mitigation, Can I recommend logging a “possible corruption in <file name>” message in the log?  Will help use diagnose problems for the user

[Mike_da_Spike]

3 minutes ago, MrGrynch said:

If you do implement a mitigation, Can I recommend logging a “possible corruption in <file name>” message in the log?  Will help use diagnose problems for the user

That was our plan as well

[Mike_da_Spike]

Small release to catch an issue with long lines in one of the INI files the program is using.
As discovered by @MrGrynchthat launching DBM will not show anything when a long line is in the statistics.ini, @scuttersand me made a small adjusted , that will notify the user by popup during launch of the Database Manager :

 

and the action log will also show :

Thanks to @scuttersfor helping @MrGrynchin the above thread to find the root cause.
With this root cause Scutters and I could make a check in the program.

As we don't have much other ideas for DBM and summer holiday is coming, we released this small update

[MrGrynch]

@Mike_da_Spike I have a feature request.  When recording videos, It would be nice to have an option to specify how long to wait for the table to load before recording?  Some tables take longer to initialize than others and the resulting table videos are less than ideal for an attract mode.  For example, Star Wars Death Star Assault (Future Pinball) loads completely and the recording starts, but the playfield doesn't start animating right away.  Being able to specify a delay (similar to PBX Recorder) would be useful in such cases.

I realize I could use my GPU to record the video on demand, but then I have the added steps to remove the audio and rotate the video.

 

[Mike_da_Spike]

10 hours ago, MrGrynch said:

@Mike_da_Spike I have a feature request.  When recording videos, It would be nice to have an option to specify how long to wait for the table to load before recording?  Some tables take longer to initialize than others and the resulting table videos are less than ideal for an attract mode.  For example, Star Wars Death Star Assault (Future Pinball) loads completely and the recording starts, but the playfield doesn't start animating right away.  Being able to specify a delay (similar to PBX Recorder) would be useful in such cases.

Good request, but unfortunately @scuttersand I are not able to control that part as we use PinballX API for recording the videos
If you want to have an delay to record through PinballX, you can request this via Pinballx Enhancementsfeatures Requests

If it was for me and just for 1 single table, I would remove the video's I want to create (if exists), launch the table withing PBX and hit the video recording button at the moment you want to start it.

10 hours ago, MrGrynch said:

I realize I could use my GPU to record the video on demand, but then I have the added steps to remove the audio and rotate the video.

To my opinion, I would set PinballX to use your GPU to record the playfield video's. This will skip the audio, and will record in 60Fps (instead of the 30fps from PinballX itself)

btw. I thought that Future pinball tables should always be recorded via your hardware GPU to record, as Ffmpeg is not able to capture the screen.

[MrGrynch]

6 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

If it was for me and just for 1 single table, I would remove the video's I want to create (if exists), launch the table withing PBX and hit the video recording button at the moment you want to start it.

I agree this is the way to go, but it doesnt work.  The hotkey I've assigned for recording does not work when Future Pinball is running.  I haven't looked into why yet, could be a key assignment clash, siimilar to the ALT+F9 issue with NVidia and FP

6 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

To my opinion, I would set PinballX to use your GPU to record the playfield video's. This will skip the audio, and will record in 60Fps (instead of the 30fps from PinballX itself)

btw. I thought that Future pinball tables should always be recorded via your hardware GPU to record, as Ffmpeg is not able to capture the screen.

I always use the GPU for screen recording, but as I mentioned I cannot manually trigger recording while in Future Pinball.

 

[Denys06]

Hello, I'm coming back after a few months because I've finished setting up my Pincab.

I miss more than the possibility of making video capture of DMDs via PinballX Database Manager to reflect my own DMDs on Pinball X (and not display those that I found on the internet which are not identical to the real tables) .

Could you find a solution to capture video from DMDs when using real DMD ?

[Mike_da_Spike]

20 minutes ago, Denys06 said:

Could you find a solution to capture video from DMDs when using real DMD ?

Too bad. There is no easy automated way to capture real dmd videos.

I create videos, based on wheel images and company logo and year images.

If you want to create real dmd videos, use freezy's dmddevice.dll.  in the dmddevice.ini set video to true and select a path.

This will create avi files. I use this for creating godmd clock animations, but should work for dmd videos in the frontend as well

[Denys06]

Hello, thanks to your instructions I was able to create 1 video individually for a game by clicking on this option:

This is already a good step forward, but it is however impossible for me to make videos of my 320 tables at the same time because when I click here, the capture starts then stops immediately without launching the table:

Do you know the source of this restriction?

[Mike_da_Spike]

2 hours ago, Denys06 said:

Hello, thanks to your instructions I was able to create 1 video individually for a game by clicking on this option:

This is already a good step forward, but it is however impossible for me to make videos of my 320 tables at the same time because when I click here, the capture starts then stops immediately without launching the table:

Do you know the source of this restriction?

Sorry, not sure what you mean. Is this for creating your real dmd videos ? The bulk videos, is not for real dmd videos creations, ou for lcd. 

Edit: if you modified dmddevice.ini and want to start all your tables, you can  use 'bulk videos' by selecting to record only the backglass and not to skip existing tables.

This will recreate all your backglass videos and launch all your tables. You need manually add the video file that is created to the table media 

[Denys06]

@Mike_da_Spike, I managed to create the DMD videos by enabling the option in dmddevice.ini as well as enabling the option to hide the backglass in the XML file : It worked!
The videos carried the name of the original rom and I had to rename everything by hand which took some hours, but in the end it worked, thank you.

 

I will now tackle the FX3 videos : Do you have an idea of how to deactivate the cinematic camera at the beginning of the FX3 tables because it is zoomed each time which prevents having a video of a beautiful playfield. Thanks for your advices.

[Mike_da_Spike]

I

2 hours ago, Denys06 said:

@Mike_da_Spike, I managed to create the DMD videos by enabling the option in dmddevice.ini as well as enabling the option to hide the backglass in the XML file : It worked!
The videos carried the name of the original rom and I had to rename everything by hand which took some hours, but in the end it worked, thank you.

Nice one ! There is no automation of it, but this was an option I used in the past as well. Maybe you can upload the realdmd videos to ftp to share it with other people as well

2 hours ago, Denys06 said:

I will now tackle the FX3 videos : Do you have an idea of how to deactivate the cinematic camera at the beginning of the FX3 tables because it is zoomed each time which prevents having a video of a beautiful playfield. Thanks for your advices.

Fx3 real dmd videos are on ftp server as well. And for the pf, i could never find a way to stop the fly over camera. The only way is to start the table, but than attract mode is stopping