Pause Troubleshooting

How to request help

Read the questions/answers below first to see if your problem has been documented already!

If the below Q/A did not answer your questions and you still have problems or found a bug, follow these steps before making a bug report:

• Mostly important!!! It is mandatory to follow the steps bellow before reporting anything. If you do not do it, you run the risk to never have your question answered!!!

1. Update your RocketLauncher.exe and Pause.ahk files. Make this even if you think that you have the latest version!!! Additional improvements and small bugs are crushed even without a full release notification. Test Pause again!!!

2. if it is still not working: backup and delete "Global Pause.ini" file, at RocketLauncher\Settings folders, and "Pause.ini" file, in the "RocketLauncher\Settings\%System%\Pause.ini" folder. Open RocketLauncherUI and enable Pause at the Pause tab. Test Pause again!!!

3. if it is still not working: disable all Pause sub-menus, except one, in the Pause tab at RocketLauncherUI. Test running Pause enabling one menu at time until you find the menu that is causing you problems.

4. if it is still not working: open RocketLauncherUI, go to General Settings tab and choose the log level to troubleshooting option. Test Pause again and copy your RocketLauncher.log, in your RocketLauncher folder, to the pastebin homepage. Copy the pastebin URL and make a post in the forum with every information possible describing the problem that you are facing. Screenshots or videos go a long way to helping solve your issue. Do not send a private message to the authors. All information about issues should be openly discussed on the forums so it could help other users in the future.

• If you do not post your RocketLauncher log with the TROUBLESHOOTING level, if your Pause and RocketLauncher VERSION are not the most actual ones and if you do not give enough DESCRIPTION information about the issue that you have, we cannot answer your question and we will not be able to help you at all. Only forum posts with all the necessary information described above will be answered!!!!

My Pause does not show. What should I do?

• You are using a RocketLauncher version 3.0.0 or above?
• Do you have the following files in your RocketLauncher folder?

• COM.ahk, Gdip.ahk, VA.ahk, RIni.ahk in "..\RocketLauncher\Module extensions\"
• Pause.ahk in "..\RocketLauncher\Libs\"

• You are using the correct keyboard key to call Pause?
• Do you have Pause_Enabled ini key set to true in "RocketLauncherUI" (global or system setting)?
• If all answers are Yes:

• Read and follow exactly the recommendations made above about how to send a bug report.

My Pause works in some systems but in others it makes weird things with the screen.

• The emulator that you are using is on the list of verified emulators?
• If it's not, just try for yourself to add these labels to your emulator module and apply autohotkey commands to minimize the emulator before launching Pause or just be patient that some day we will work in that emulator for you.

HaltEmu:
Return
RestoreEmu:
Return
MultiGame:
Return

When I enter in Pause MAME crashes.

• Pause has known issues with multiple monitor setups. If it is your case, try to test it with only one monitor before reporting any issues.

• We have plans in the future to work on these issues.

When I exit Pause MAME returns as a black screen, and I can still hear the game going on on the background.

• Some MAME versions do not redraw the screen if MAME is restored after minimizing it. This usually only happens if you have HLSL enabled. If this is the case, after Pause becomes the active window on the screen it is possible that MAME restore as a black screen after exiting Pause.
• Try to test if you can ALT-TAB without problems MAME to see if this is the case. If it returns as a black screen after minimizing it, there is not much that we can do as it is MAME that is causing this behavior. The only current solution is disable the MAME HLSL features until something can be worked on.

My Pause works but its contents look weird or empty. What should I do?

• Did you installed the fonts in the "..\Pause\RocketLauncher\Media\Fonts\" folder?
• Do you have at least one default background image at the "..\Pause\RocketLauncher\Backgrounds\_Default\default.png"?

My save state and load state only works sometimes. What should I do?

• Try to increase the Delay to Send Keys option in the Pause ini files in the save and load state options section. (you can use RocketLauncherUI to change it).
• Try to increase the Set Key Delay option in the Pause ini files in the save and load state options section. (you can use RocketLauncherUI to change it).
• Try to change the Pause_Save_State_Keys and Pause_Load_State_Keys at your "global emulator.ini". You can change the key pressed and the delay between the keys in this ini parameter. Take a look at the MAME save state ini keys for an example about how to define the save state keys.
• Make sure your emulator accepts directinput. Rawinput emulators will not work with keys sent from autohotkey scripts.

My save state and load state takes too long to work. What should I do?

• Try to decrease the Delay to Send Keys option in the Pause ini files in the save and load state options section. (you can use RocketLauncherUI to change it).
• Try to decrease the Set Key Delay option in the Pause ini files in the save and load state options section. (you can use RocketLauncherUI to change it).
• Try to change the Pause_Save_State_Keys and Pause_Load_State_Keys at your "global emulator.ini". You can change the key pressed and the delay between the keys in this ini parameter. Take a look at the MAME save state ini keys for an example about how to define the save state keys.
• Make sure your emulator accepts directinput. Rawinput emulators will not work with keys sent from autohotkey scripts.

My screenshots are black. What should I do?

• There is a know bug with Windows screen capture dll that could make your screenshots appear like entire black screens. If this is happening to you please try to disable aero at your Windows display settings.

Where RocketLauncher Pause searches for media?

RocketLauncher searches for most of its media following this order:

• Folders with the game name:

   ex: RocketLauncher\Media\Media Name\Sony Playstation\Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc x)\Any Name.png 
   where, media Name, can be Artwork, Guides, Manuals, ...

• Folders with the game name without the disc info:

   ex: RocketLauncher\Media\Media Name\Sony Playstation\Final Fantasy VII (USA)\Any Name.png 
   This search only works if you follow No Intro naming scheme differentiating your disc files by the strings (Disc 1), (Disc 2), (Cart 1), (Cart 2),...

• Parent game media folder:

   ex: for a clone game like sfar1, RL will search for media on its parent game folder sfa.
   RocketLauncher\Media\Media Name\MAME\sfa\Any Name.png
   This search only works if the option "use parent media" is set to true on the Pause options.

• Folders with the system name:

   ex: RocketLauncher\Media\Media Name\Sony Playstation\_Default\Any Name.png   

• Default folder:

   ex: RocketLauncher\Media\Media Name\_Default\Any Name.png   

• After that, any frontEnd media defined on the FrontEnd plugin is added to the media list used by RL and pause.

Pause will look for files with the following file extensions: png, gif, tif, bmp, jpg, pdf, txt, cbr, cbz If you disable the option support additional Images, pause will look for images with only the png extension.

Pause is also able to display these valid files if they are inside compressed files with extensions: zip, rar, 7z, lzh, gzip, tar

For the case of video files, pause will display by default avi, wmv and mp4 files. You can add additional file extensions on the supported video extensions on RLUI. Just make sure the videos can be played at windows media player before.