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Crash When Editing Platform with Missing Game Directory

Bug ReportKnown Issue

Summary:

LaunchBox may crash when attempting to edit a platform if its associated games directory is not available (e.g., located on an unplugged external drive).

Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Set a platform’s games directory to a path on an external or removable drive.

  2. Unplug or unmount the drive.

  3. Right-click the platform in the sidebar and select Edit.

  4. LaunchBox throws an error and crashes.

Error Example:

“A directory could not be created: [path to game]”

“Could not find part of the path ’[path to game]’.”

Impact:

Users cannot edit platform metadata (e.g., name, year, notes) unless all referenced directories are mounted and accessible. This behavior blocks even non-directory-related edits and makes it difficult to correct or update platform paths.

🛠 Status:

Known Issue – Under Investigation

TWe’re aware of this issue and have identified that it stems from a lower-level part of the code that attempts to access game directories during platform edits. While the ideal behavior would be to gracefully handle missing paths, addressing this would involve significant changes with some risk.

At this time, it’s under investigation for a possible future fix, but due to complexity and limited impact for most users, it hasn’t been prioritized yet.

Affected Product
OS Version
Windows 11
LaunchBox Version
Plugins
NA
Posted by AstroBob ·
Status: Completed5 comments

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Comments5

  • AstroBob changed status to Completed
    Team•

    Aug 18

    Pinned

    Hi there,

    With today’s release of LaunchBox for Windows 14.0, the fix for this is now available to everyone. You can update to the latest version from within the app to receive this.

    Notes on the release can be found below:

    LaunchBox for Windows - 14.0

    Please let us know if anyone is continuing to experience this issue, and thanks for bearing with us while we go that sorted.

  • xaos29

    •

    Nov 22, 2025

    Why is it that, even after I uninstall and reinstall Launchbox, LB erroneously continues to look for a storage medium that does not exist? Why is it the end user cannot simply direct LB to look in the right storage disk?

    This seems like a grave problem to me.

  • Games1

    •

    Sep 21, 2025

    Windows 11

  • AstroBob

    Team•

    Jul 22, 2025

    Hiya, thanks for the report here, we have an existing known issue report for this which I’ll merge this into so you can follow along with progress and any updates.

  • Brian Faeran

    Team•

    Apr 4, 2025

    Thanks for the report.

    This is a known issue that is caused by a systemic base piece of code that’s only caused when, like you mentioned, a directory is missing while opening the platform view.

    While it doesn’t feel this way, it would be a risky fix. We will keep this in the investigation phase until we have dedicated time we can work on this, but historically with it being high effort and risk and low value to the majority of users it’s always fell to the wayside.