[RESOLVED] Couple of retrobat issues

Loving this program so far however am getting a few issues which are still happening even if I try a fresh install.

As others have noted, preview videos simply will not play despite them being named etc exactly as they should be.

Also, after the first boot where you get the retrobat splash screen, further boots afterwards, result in a black screen and it doesn't play the splash screen again.

Another issue is, it won't update the program.  It tells me one is available, then it downloads and asks me to restart.  I do this and it's the same version as before and it again tells me an update is available.  It downloads it, just it never applies the update.

Thank you for your feedback,

but you just say it doesn't work, and you don't give any details. What version of retrobat are you using? what is your PC config etc ..? just telling us it doesn't work, it doesn't help.

Make us screenshots etc...

Sorry

I'm installing the latest stable release (4.0.2-202-10710)

My pc is windows 10, with an i5-10600k, 16gb ram, gtx1650.

If I double click retrobat.exe then the program starts with a blank screen, no splash video.

If I look in emulationstation/videos I can see the 4 standard videos but they do not play. However if I open up Batgui, I have ticked play random intro and random video bit nothing plays. If I click a file name and point it directly to one of the videos, it still does not play.

ok, and screenshots?

show me your BatGui.exe and "emulationstation\.emulationstation\video" (not \emulationstation\video) folder for exemple?

Hopefully you can see these

OK, thank you, and the 4 videos into "emulationstation\.emulationstation\video" play fine outside Retrobat ?

(remember to activate the display of file extensions in windows.)

They play fine yes if I just click on the videos to play them.

The video plays once, on a new installation, then never will again unless I uninstall and reinstall.

I don't know what to tell you, you are the only one, out of several thousand users, to have these issues.

I have figured out what the problem is and how to repeat it.

If I do a clean install on the latest version, it's fine.

This is until it tells me there is an update available (a beta update - which appears to be OLDER than the stable version).  If I download this and reboot, my version stays on the latest stable build, but my videos will not play.

So basically retrobat is saying that a beta update is available, that is older than the stable release and if you allow the update, things stop working.

I just did a fresh install of Retrobat 4.0.2 and I don't understand why you are on the BETA channel.
I am on the STABLE channel.

Lorenzolamas wrote:I just did a fresh install of Retrobat 4.0.2 and I don't understand why you are on the BETA channel.
I am on the STABLE channel.

I am on the stable version. But it tells me there is an upgrade to a beta version which is older than the stable version. If you download this it messes the entire program up.

I tested this also on my laptop just to be sure and the problem is reproduced. Surely retrobat shouldn't be saying an update is available that is older that what you have already installed, regardless of whether it's beta or not?

but maybe your anti-virus removes the es-checkversion.cmd ( "\emulationstation" ) file, and that's what causes you to get an update message from Retrobat.

Lorenzolamas wrote:but maybe your anti-virus removes the es-checkversion.cmd ( "\emulationstation" ) file, and that's what causes you to get an update message from Retrobat.

Its a totally fresh Windows build with nothing at all installed apart from retrobat. The machine I'm building is solely for emulation purposes and nothing else. It doesn't have any other software installed apart from what Windows comes with

Either way the issue is solved now. And again, this really is an amazing piece of work, it's so easy to use!

kristianity77 wrote:

Lorenzolamas wrote:but maybe your anti-virus removes the es-checkversion.cmd ( "\emulationstation" ) file, and that's what causes you to get an update message from Retrobat.

Its a totally fresh Windows build with nothing at all installed apart from retrobat.  The machine I'm building is solely for emulation purposes and nothing else.  It doesn't have any other software installed apart from what Windows comes with

Yes, but Windows 10 is delivered with Windows Defender AntiVirus.

Lorenzolamas wrote:

kristianity77 wrote:

Lorenzolamas wrote:but maybe your anti-virus removes the es-checkversion.cmd ( "\emulationstation" ) file, and that's what causes you to get an update message from Retrobat.

Its a totally fresh Windows build with nothing at all installed apart from retrobat.  The machine I'm building is solely for emulation purposes and nothing else.  It doesn't have any other software installed apart from what Windows comes with

Yes, but Windows 10 is delivered with Windows Defender AntiVirus.

It's possible, I haven't checked, but why would windows defender do that by default? There seems no logical reason for it to want to allow that to happen.

It also sorted out my problem of videos not playing in previews for games. That too was related to this.

For some time the anti-viruses have been behaving strangely ... do you have the .cmd file present in the \emulationstation folder?

Yes I have that file

and is not empty ?


and you are using retrobat-v4.0.2-20210710-installer.exe ?

If I double click on it I just get a black window pop up with nothing on it, then it closes after a few seconds

Lorenzolamas wrote:and is not empty ?


and you are using retrobat-v4.0.2-20210710-installer.exe ?

Yes that exact version from the website

So on your fresh install if you check for update and click beta, does it tell you nothing is available?

if you are on Beta:



this message appear is you "start update" :




If the es-checkversion.cmd file is missing or empty ( 0ko )

this message appear if you "start update":

That's exactly what I get. If I change to beta it asks me if I want to install to 4.0.0 as in your above picture.

I never got the 3rd message in your pictures, not even once

Mistakenly, I clicked yes to that, and when you restart retrobat, it still shows as stable 4.0.2, but you lose all access to video playback whether it's the splash screen, or video previews etc.

I know this is an old thread and is marked resolved, but it was only resolved by doing a fresh install. I found this thread when I was looking for a solution to the same problem. I'd updated to a beta version, and any subsequent attempts to update resulted in a "loop" where nothing happened and the update was not installed. In my case, I noticed that two files in the emulationstation folder, es-update.exe and es-checkversion.exe, did not exist. There were two files however named es-update-test.exe and es-checkversion-test.exe. I made copies of these and renamed to the proper names and voila, updater now works again. I hope this helps someone who went down the rabbit hole as far as I did.