[RESOLVED] Can't exit PinballX

[Itchigo]

I'm reconfiguring my bartop that I made several years ago. I made a new control panel and have a new I/O board (Keywiz USB Max). The Keywiz is working fine, mame sees it and uses it. It's also listed in my devices and printers.

I'm trying to setup  exiting Pinball X. I have ESC working to exit the game, then I get the menu exit/shutdown etc. I can't exit Pinball X entirely, I can't get past the exit/shutdown screen. Both quit and exit emulator are mapped to ESC.

For some reason I can't map anything in joystick input settings (even an external keyboard). (When I press hit a key nothing happens). But, keyboard input settings will accept settings. I upgraded to 6.95 hoping it would fix this. I have to use CNT/ALT/DEL log off to exit PinballX. What am I missing??

 

BTW Happy Thanksgiving all!!

log.txt PinballX.ini

[scutters]

From the log PinballX isn't seeing a joystick attached  - "No Joysticks Attached", that's probably why you can't map buttons.

The log does show mame errors as well;

04:53:42.25  11/27/2025:  C:\PinballX\Databases\MAME\mameUI64.exe hunchbak.zip
04:53:42.31  11/27/2025:  An error occurred trying to start process 'mameUI64.exe' with working directory 'C:\PinballX\Databases\MAME'. The system cannot find the file specified.
04:53:42.31  11/27/2025:     at System.Diagnostics.Process.StartWithShellExecuteEx(ProcessStartInfo startInfo)
04:53:42.31  11/27/2025:     at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start()
04:53:42.31  11/27/2025:     at ao.a6()

I suspect you need to change your Working Path for the Mame system.

14 minutes ago, Itchigo said:

I have ESC working to exit the game, then I get the menu exit/shutdown etc. I can't exit Pinball X entirely, I can't get past the exit/shutdown screen

Esc takes you to the exit menu but you can't select the exit option?

[Itchigo]

3 hours ago, scutters said:

Esc takes you to the exit menu but you can't select the exit option?

That's exactly correct.

 

I'll check out the errors later this afternoon.

[Itchigo]

Just to add to this:

I can quit the game and get to the exit menu, but not exit PinballX.

I see on my cab I am using XPadder for an extra key to quit PinballX. I'm not sure why, but that's the way I had the cab working, and I looked at the cab to see how I did it there. (The cab used to be Mame and Pinball, now it's just pinball, and the bartop is all Mame). I have XPadder on the bartop, but XPadder won't see the Keywiz USB to program a key. PinballX also won't see the KeywizUSB in the Joystick settings, but it will see it in the Keyboard settings. Windows sees the Keywiz USB as another keyboard. Does PinballX recognize multiple keyboards?

 

I don't know why I have a path error. The working path and table path are correct. It's pulling a different xml by default. I'll have to look at that further.

[scutters]

7 hours ago, Itchigo said:

I can quit the game and get to the exit menu, but not exit PinballX.

Ahh, i think i see it now - you have Launch and Select mapped to the same key (k), so when you select Exit from the menu whatever table/game is shown launches instead?. Try changing the Launch key to something else.

7 hours ago, Itchigo said:

I have XPadder on the bartop, but XPadder won't see the Keywiz USB to program a key. PinballX also won't see the KeywizUSB in the Joystick settings, but it will see it in the Keyboard settings. Windows sees the Keywiz USB as another keyboard. Does PinballX recognize multiple keyboards?

Not sure on that, would need @Tom Speirs to clarify.

 

[Draco1962]

I may be incorrect but my guess is that PinballX will see one keyboard. Even if it recognized multiple keyboards, if you have X set to exit using one, you don't get another X to use from another keyboard. Have you tried mapping Exit for PinballX to ALT+F4?

[Itchigo]

Ok, I'm not sure what happened, but it's working now. I have it to Esc quits, left/right moves the menu, and then start/select exits PinballX. I would have thought exit emulator would be the shutdown, but whatever lol. Mark that as fixed, but I can't tell you the solution other than using the start/select instead of exit emulator. FYI, PinballX will see 2 keyboards as it's working correctly with both plugged in. (I like to keep a keyboard plugged in in case I have to fix something).

I still get an unhandled exception error when I'm in the setup wizard and verify, but I don't see any errors in the log or anything. The paths are correct, because Mame works correctly without errors. This doesn't affect anything during normal use.

 

Unhandled exception.txt log.txt PinballX.ini

[Draco1962]

I don't know if you saw it but Tom uploaded v6.96 a short while ago..

[scutters]

2 hours ago, Itchigo said:

I still get an unhandled exception error when I'm in the setup wizard and verify, but I don't see any errors in the log or anything.

I'd guess it's a .net thing on win7

2 hours ago, Itchigo said:

I have it to Esc quits, left/right moves the menu, and then start/select exits PinballX. I would have thought exit emulator would be the shutdow

It should be Exit Emulator to exit a game, Quit to bring up the exit menu and Select to either launch a game or exit pinballx from the exit menu (i.e. by selecting the exit menu option)

Most people (i think) will have Exit Emulator and Quit mapped to the same key/button.

2 hours ago, Itchigo said:

The paths are correct, because Mame works correctly without errors.

Maybe those errors in the first log were from when you were trying to exit pinballx but were launching a game from the exit menu instead (because of the key mapping being the same for launch and select). Not sure PinballX expects to launch a game from there so maybe the paths get messed up.

[Itchigo]

Thanks everyone. It works, so I'm going to roll with it.

 

I'll check out the .net version, but the pc I made it from is very old. I don't know what it will support. I'm kind of amazed it works now because it's an old HP Pavillion with 1gb ram and no graphics card. Then again, how much pc do you need to run old 8 bit games lol.

 

LOL! I saw he uploaded 6.96 right after I downloaded 6.95!

[Draco1962]

1 hour ago, Itchigo said:

Thanks everyone. It works, so I'm going to roll with it.

 

I'll check out the .net version, but the pc I made it from is very old. I don't know what it will support. I'm kind of amazed it works now because it's an old HP Pavillion with 1gb ram and no graphics card. Then again, how much pc do you need to run old 8 bit games lol.

 

LOL! I saw he uploaded 6.96 right after I downloaded 6.95!

Your Windows version should determine the maximum .NET version your rig can handle. The maximum version of the .NET Framework that can be installed on Windows 7 is .NET Framework 4.8.

[Itchigo]

31 minutes ago, Draco1962 said:

Your Windows version should determine the maximum .NET version your rig can handle. The maximum version of the .NET Framework that can be installed on Windows 7 is .NET Framework 4.8.

Actually, I have higher than that on my pincab. I think I have like 7 or 8 on the pincab running 7. But, the pincab is designed for 10, but I made it run 7 because I hate windows10. I had to use a ps/2 mouse to get 7 installed. (AMD X470 mb, Ryzen5 2600). But the pincab is much more stout, even if the build is 10 years old.

[Itchigo]

I had everything working, but now I'm getting this error. PinballX opens up and shows 0 tables, I hit select and it exits entirely. Do I have a bad xml or something?

SetupWizard.log PinballX.ini log.txt

[scutters]

Logs shows an error;

22:56:44.36  12/4/2025:  Initial load gamelist took: 0ms
22:56:44.36  12/4/2025:  Finding and matching artwork and videos
22:56:44.36  12/4/2025:  Took: 0ms
22:56:44.36  12/4/2025:  Started
22:56:55.67  12/4/2025:  Error. Exiting
22:56:55.67  12/4/2025:  
22:56:55.67  12/4/2025:  Index was outside the bounds of the array.
22:56:55.69  12/4/2025:     at ao.bb()
22:56:55.69  12/4/2025:     at ao.b4()
22:56:55.69  12/4/2025:     at ao.b6()

And no database/gamelist is found, so yes a corrupt database xml file is possible.

I think only system_1 (MAME) is enabled so C:\PinballX\Databases\MAME.xml is the suspect. If you add games manually to the xml you might have made an error, so switch to a backup and try that (if you have one), or attach a copy of the suspect MAME.xml here (i can try and load it in PinballX to confirm if it is the issue)

[Itchigo]

I'll have to check my mame.xml then. It was the latest one I created, so it's entirely possible. I do them manually in notepad, maybe I missed a tag or something. You're right that only 1 system (Mame) is enabled as I don't think this rig could even handle vp8 lol. I was thinking that I may have a bad xml, but I loaded it in my Hyperpin Editor x64 and usually it won't load if I'm missing a tag or something. But I saw "Index was outside the bounds of the array" and didn't know what that meant.

 

Thanks Scutters.

[Itchigo]

So I checked my xml's and can't find anything wrong. I found 1 game that had a tittle of ' 88 Games, and I took the ' out with no success. I also tried moving the xmls (so it couldn't find the potentially bad xml) with no success.

I also tried updating/reinstalling .net 4.8 and I still have the unhandled exception error in the settings wizard when I verify the setup. I don't have any Pinballx errors when verifying the setup, just a windows error about visual styles.

Mame New.xml

[Draco1962]

Did you use the GameEx generated XML for MAME as your original base?

[Itchigo]

I normally use another xml as a base.

I copy

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
<menu>

 

Then I add this block for each game and change the gamename/mfg, etc

  <game name="beertruck">
    <description>BeerTruck</description>
    <manufacturer>Custom</manufacturer>
    <alternateexe>beertruck.exe</alternateexe>
    <year>2002</year>
    <type>Other</type>
  </game>

 

Then I paste the closing tags

</menu>

 

I do have the old Hyperpin editor, but I use that to check my lists and I don't create xmls with them. But if there's an error such as a missing tage, the Hyperpin editor will not open the xml, and that's not the case here.

 

 

[scutters]

8 hours ago, Itchigo said:

So I checked my xml's and can't find anything wrong. I found 1 game that had a tittle of ' 88 Games, and I took the ' out with no success. I also tried moving the xmls (so it couldn't find the potentially bad xml) with no success.

I've used your mame xml with your pinballx.ini and PinballX opens ok with it for me. So it's not the xml.

You don't get a "Loading Game Statistics and Scores" entry in the log file though so it might be the statistics.ini file in the databases folder that's messed up somehow. Try renaming that.

I don't think it'll fix your issue but update PinballX to the latest from v6.95 as well anyway.

[Draco1962]

https://forums.gameex.com/forums/topic/21848-setting-up-mame-in-pinballx/#findComment-184113

[Itchigo]

I got this fixed. I had also installed GameEx (when I was having exit key problems I tried GameEx, but never set it up. I deleted it for the sake of not having something else conflicting with PinballX. I reinstalled 6.95 (it's what I had on the desktop) and that did it. I think it was the reinstall that did it, not Game Ex. But, I wanted to make sure I didn't have 2 things fighting each other to read an xml- stranger things have happened...

 

Thanks guys. 😀