Problem with VLC Media Player in latest update

[dbrow]

First let me compliment you on Great FrontEnd!!! I have been using GameEx for about a year. I do have a problem that showed up with the last update. If you or a member of the forum could please be of assistance. I've got VLC media player set up as a emulator. I'm using it to play .img and .iso files stored on the hard drive. The set-up is such that I have a folder that contains .lnk files or shortcuts to the actual .img and .iso files. This folder is what the emulator's rom location is set to. The rom filter is then set to *.lnk. Everything was working great until last update. After that update, GameEx is failing to launch the VLC player. GameEx still shows the roms listed on the screen, but when the rom (or shortcut) is clicked the screen goes dark for a few moments and then comes back to the GameEx menu. The VLC Media player never launches. I rolled GameEx back to the previous state/version prior to this last update and it works great. I've now turned off the auto-update in the cofig, but sure hate to miss out on any new features you may be adding in future.

Could you let me know what has possibly changed in this last update that would be causing this condition? Thanks in advance for your assistance!

[Brian Hoffman]

First let me compliment you on Great FrontEnd!!! I have been using GameEx for about a year. I do have a problem that showed up with the last update. If you or a member of the forum could please be of assistance. I've got VLC media player set up as a emulator. I'm using it to play .img and .iso files stored on the hard drive. The set-up is such that I have a folder that contains .lnk files or shortcuts to the actual .img and .iso files. This folder is what the emulator's rom location is set to. The rom filter is then set to *.lnk. Everything was working great until last update. After that update, GameEx is failing to launch the VLC player. GameEx still shows the roms listed on the screen, but when the rom (or shortcut) is clicked the screen goes dark for a few moments and then comes back to the GameEx menu. The VLC Media player never launches. I rolled GameEx back to the previous state/version prior to this last update and it works great. I've now turned off the auto-update in the cofig, but sure hate to miss out on any new features you may be adding in future.

Could you let me know what has possibly changed in this last update that would be causing this condition? Thanks in advance for your assistance!

Did you check the RUNITGAME.bat.. To see what command its issuing?

C:\Program Files\GameEx\DATA\runitgame.bat

[dbrow]

Did you check the RUNITGAME.bat.. To see what command its issuing?

C:\Program Files\GameEx\DATA\runitgame.bat

[dbrow]

I had to update GameEx again to recreate the problem. With the update and the VLC not launching, this is what is contained int the runitgame.bat

CD ""

"C:\Documents and Settings\db\Desktop"

Prior to the update with the same click of the rom/shortcut, VLC is launching the file and this is what is contained in the runitgame.bat:

Z:

CD "Z:\dvds"

"Z:\dvds\Constantine.iso"

[Tom Speirs]

I had to update GameEx again to recreate the problem. With the update and the VLC not launching, this is what is contained int the runitgame.bat

CD ""

"C:\Documents and Settings\db\Desktop"

Prior to the update with the same click of the rom/shortcut, VLC is launching the file and this is what is contained in the runitgame.bat:

Z:

CD "Z:\dvds"

"Z:\dvds\Constantine.iso"

I can see the problem. The dosfucsation broke support for .lnk shortcuts in the latest release. Ill get it fixed asap. Sorry about that.

[dbrow]

I can see the problem. The dosfucsation broke support for .lnk shortcuts in the latest release. Ill get it fixed asap. Sorry about that.

[dbrow]

Thanks Tom!

[Tempest]

I can see the problem. The dosfucsation broke support for .lnk shortcuts in the latest release. Ill get it fixed asap. Sorry about that.

I googled "dosfucsation", it came back with no entries, and asked If I meant "dysfunction"

Maybe I did, But I was thinking "dosfucation" might be a dirty word...

[headkaze]

I googled "dosfucsation", it came back with no entries, and asked If I meant "dysfunction"

Maybe I did, But I was thinking "dosfucation" might be a dirty word...

I think Tom meant to say obfuscation but one of the software programs to do this is called Dotfuscator. Dotfuscator is a software product that performs various operations on .NET compiled apps to obfuscate them. With .NET's reflection capabilities programs like .NET Reflector allow anyone to pretty much view the source code to anything written in .NET. Obviously programmers don't always like their hard work available for everyone to see.

Obfuscation can cause issues in software, for example using enum's in .NET it's quite normal to use ToString() to convert an entry to it's string equivalent. But if the program has run through an obfuscator beforehand the names of the enum entries are renamed. You can see the effect of renaming when an error occurs and you see strange output like a.b() b.c() etc. This can make debugging harder also.

[Tom Speirs]

Yeah I failed English

Its meant to try to defer the casual cracker, rather than folks looking at my shoddy coding

[Tempest]

I think Tom meant to say obfuscation but one of the software programs to do this is called Dotfuscator. Dotfuscator is a software product that performs various operations on .NET compiled apps to obfuscate them. With .NET's reflection capabilities programs like .NET Reflector allow anyone to pretty much view the source code to anything written in .NET. Obviously programmers don't always like their hard work available for everyone to see.

Obfuscation can cause issues in software, for example using enum's in .NET it's quite normal to use ToString() to convert an entry to it's string equivalent. But if the program has run through an obfuscator beforehand the names of the enum entries are renamed. You can see the effect of renaming when an error occurs and you see strange output like a.b() b.c() etc. This can make debugging harder also.

So if I understand you correctly, he runs it through Dotfuscator (or something similar) to try and keep people from reverse engineering Gameex.

Thanks for the reply, I really am curious about everything

[daweinst]

First let me compliment you on Great FrontEnd!!! I have been using GameEx for about a year. I do have a problem that showed up with the last update. If you or a member of the forum could please be of assistance. I've got VLC media player set up as a emulator. I'm using it to play .img and .iso files stored on the hard drive. The set-up is such that I have a folder that contains .lnk files or shortcuts to the actual .img and .iso files. This folder is what the emulator's rom location is set to. The rom filter is then set to *.lnk. Everything was working great until last update. After that update, GameEx is failing to launch the VLC player. GameEx still shows the roms listed on the screen, but when the rom (or shortcut) is clicked the screen goes dark for a few moments and then comes back to the GameEx menu. The VLC Media player never launches. I rolled GameEx back to the previous state/version prior to this last update and it works great. I've now turned off the auto-update in the cofig, but sure hate to miss out on any new features you may be adding in future.

Could you let me know what has possibly changed in this last update that would be causing this condition? Thanks in advance for your assistance!

This is a very clever trick. The GameEx dvd player works for me...it just doesn't play the movies in Dolby Surround Sound. I just followed your description to setup a DVDs "Emulator" to launch movies with Winddvd.

Thanks for the idea.

Dan