Random PinballX freezing on exiting VPX 10.7 tables

[scutters]

Hi Tom,

VPX 10.7 process threads are a lot slower to close than in 10.6 on exit (in 10.6 the threads close almost instantly, in 10.7 on my desktop they take 5secs). This causes a longer black screen on table exit in PinballX than before, showing for the full 5 secs before the Exit Screen image (if enabled) is shown.

I think this is because PinballX monitors the vpinballx.exe threads and waits for them to exit completely before doing anything else, as on my desktop where i have VP set up as an 'Other System' if i change the system type from visual pinball to custom the black screen time is a lot less (but i assume this comes at the cost of PinballX not retrieving high score data etc)..

This time in the logs between Exit System Control Pressed and Created DirectX BackGlass Window, here for the other system using visual pinball as system type;

08:18:32.72  25/01/2022:  C:\Visual Pinball\VPinballX.exe -minimized /play -"C:\Visual Pinball\Tables\Attack from Mars (Bally 1995) MOD1.vpx"
08:18:32.74  25/01/2022:  C:\PinballX32\vpauto.exe 
08:18:59.81  25/01/2022:  Found PinMAME ROM: afm_113
08:19:01.94  25/01/2022:  Visual Pinball Player window foreground: 29
08:19:10.08  25/01/2022:  Exit System Control Pressed
08:19:15.86  25/01/2022:  Created DirectX BackGlass Window

and here using 'custom' as system type;

08:26:36.06  25/01/2022:  C:\Visual Pinball\VPinballX.exe -minimized /play -"C:\Visual Pinball\Tables\Attack from Mars (Bally 1995) MOD1.vpx"
08:27:14.33  25/01/2022:  Exit System Control Pressed
08:27:16.54  25/01/2022:  Created DirectX BackGlass Window

Is there anything you can do about the black screen time for VPX 10.7 exit from a PinballX point of view (e.g. showing exit screen as soon on Exit System Control Pressed event or if not enabled just show the playfield video straight away and then wait for the vpx threads to exit in the background)?

Thanks for any help!

 

log VP System.txt log Custom.txt PinballX.ini

[Tom Speirs]

Are you sure PinballX is the problem?

[scutters]

13 hours ago, Tom Speirs said:

Are you sure PinballX is the problem?

Well, yes, and no! It's just more obvious now with the slower exit of VPX10.7.

If i enable exit images (set as 5 secs) i then get 5 secs of black screen followed by 5secs of exit screen (basically just adds another 5secs before going back to the pinballx wheel)

09:57:29.03  30/01/2022:  C:\Visual Pinball\VPinballX.exe -minimized /play -"C:\Visual Pinball\Tables\Attack from Mars (Bally 1995) MOD1.vpx"
09:57:29.05  30/01/2022:  C:\PinballX32\vpauto.exe 
09:57:56.32  30/01/2022:  Found PinMAME ROM: afm_113
09:57:58.53  30/01/2022:  Visual Pinball Player window foreground: 29
09:58:09.53  30/01/2022:  Exit System Control Pressed
09:58:20.81  30/01/2022:  Created DirectX BackGlass Window

What i think should happen is the exit screen is shown immediately on 'Exit System Control Pressed', so in my example that would be shown for 5secs while VPX exits out rather than waiting for VPX to exit out showing a black screen and then the exit image being shown (which seems like a needless delay). It's probably always been like this, but like i say just more obvious now.

Ideally, on 'Exit System Control Pressed' i'd like the wheel to appear immediately (with no exit image) and just let VPX close in the background, but i'd settle for the exit image being shown instead to cover the exit time if it's not possible to let VPX exit in the background.

Hope that makes sense..

 

log.txt PinballX.ini

[Tom Speirs]

Okay, ill take a look. Thank you.

Cheers.

[SixOfTwelve]

Got another weird one:

PinballX will randomly freeze after I close vpx tables.

I tried running PinballX in windowed mode to check for error messages, but there is none. It just stops working, stuck on the loading animation.

Event viewer simply tells me the program has stopped communication with Windows.

I first noticed the problem on tables that utilize Pinup Player, but now it seems other tables are affected too.

The problem seems to affect newer tables rather than older ones.

Future Pinball tables that use the PuP Player will exit back to the menu normally. So will all other emulators I've set up. It seems to be purely a VPX issue.

The tables launch without errors from VPX standalone, and will close back to windows without issues.

From day one I've had the problem that Esc doesn't close VPX for me from out of PinballX, so I wrote a start script that on Esc kills pretty much everything that VPX could reasonably start. I've attached it as pinkeysx.ahk .

Things I've already tried:

- deleted the temp folder

- reinstalled latest version of PinballX

- reinstalled latest version of Pinup Player

- reinstalled latest version of Backglass Server

- reinstalled latest non-beta version of VPX (10.7.0)

- installed latest Windows updates

- checked VPX, PinballX, VPinMAME and Backglass Server exe files: None of them are running as admin, none are set to compatibility mode.

 

I'm at my wits' end. A few days ago, everything was working fine. I can't think of anything else I changed, apart from applying the 4GB patch to the Backglass Server exe in order to run the newly released Wizard of Oz table. But after my problems started, I copied back the original exe. And at any rate, I reinstalled and re-registered the backglass server, so the new version is unpatched.

 

Another issue I've noticed, which may be related to the problem: When I restart PinballX after a crash, the starting game will NOT be the one I last exited successfully (in my case, "Alle Neune"). I don't know where PinballX is pulling this game from. Even weirder, if after the restart I start a VPX table and am able to exit it successfully (in my case "AC/DC"), the PinballX menu will NOT display AC/DC after exiting the table, but "Alle Neune" again. Maybe my database is corrupted? If so, are there ways to fix it?

 

Speculations:

- Is the database corrupt? To test this, I added an additional system named "VPX Test" which also runs VPX tables. This leads to the same crashing problems, leading me to believe that the database isn't the problem.

- Not enough memory? My system is an i7 with 8GB of RAM, running in cab mode with 3 screens, no LED toys or similar, just a VirtuaPin plunger. I have ample hard disk space left. I could see that maybe RAM may be an issue, but until a few days ago, everything was running smoothly. Then again, I have just cracked the 300 tables mark on PinballX. Could that affect things?

log.txt PinballX.ini pinkeysx.ahk

[Mike_da_Spike]

I have 1000+ vpx tables, so no limit on tables.

Not sure about the minimum requirements of pbx. You have an i7 , but 3rd gen. Not sure about your video card.

Do you have any errors in eventlog ?

My assumption is that it is somewhere a limitation on a hardware component 

[SixOfTwelve]

I think I may have cracked it:

The error doesn't seem to occur when I launch my VPX tables in windowed fullscreen instead of exclusive fullscreen. I've been testing random tables (scripted, VPinMAME, with DMD and without, with Pup-Packs and without) for the last 45 minutes without any issues.

Of course not having exclusive fullscreen may lead to the problem of some tables not having focus when they start up, but that's easily fixed with a script that watches for the "Visual Pinball Player" window and activates it if it's not on top.

I'll keep the thread open for a bit longer while I do some more testing.

[SixOfTwelve]

After some more testing, I think I can say that that it was definitely turning off exclusive fullscreen mode in VPX that did the trick.

Weirdly enough, it never made trouble before. Maybe a Windows update changed something in the way my graphics card handles things, I don't know.

[Tom Speirs]

I've tried to improve exit of Visual Pinball in 5.43 (just released). Could you guys please try?

I know Scutters or Mike also reported some issues a while back about slow exit. Does this release help?

[scutters]

Hi Tom,

Still getting the same close behaviour with V5.43, ~5secs to close VPX with black screen, then ~5secs of the exit screen.  If i choose not to show the exit screen then it's ~5secs of black screen before returning to the wheel. 

07:40:07.24  02/06/2022:  Exit System Control Pressed
07:40:19.94  02/06/2022:  Created DirectX BackGlass Window

log.txt

[Mike_da_Spike]

Same behaviour for me as well 

[SixOfTwelve]

I'll be able to try tomorrow, but seeing as I exit Visual Pinball via a script that kills the vpinballx.exe process, I'm not sure how much help my findings will be.

I will report back though!

[SixOfTwelve]

Got finished earlier than I thought and was able to test it.

No change for me either, and as soon as I switch to exclusive fullscreen, PinballX does the "freezing on exit" again.