Black Hole B2S Won't Sync to Game

[DJOMaverick]

Oddity that I've run into that I'm at least suspecting is related to some recent change in either VPX or VPinMame (running latest of both), but unclear when.  Using Blacksad's B2S for Black Hole, which has previously worked fine.  Now it turns on, and displays the last score from nvram from whenever, but then fails to react to anything that happens in the game (no score update, or anything else).  This is the only game that appears to have this problem, and it's true using other older B2Ss for it from VPF as well.  Is there any means of logging B2S to see what's going on?  Or any suggestions?

[Cliffy]

2 hours ago, DJOMaverick said:

Oddity that I've run into that I'm at least suspecting is related to some recent change in either VPX or VPinMame (running latest of both), but unclear when.  Using Blacksad's B2S for Black Hole, which has previously worked fine.  Now it turns on, and displays the last score from nvram from whenever, but then fails to react to anything that happens in the game (no score update, or anything else).  This is the only game that appears to have this problem, and it's true using other older B2Ss for it from VPF as well.  Is there any means of logging B2S to see what's going on?  Or any suggestions?

right click on the backglass and make sure it's running in exe mode

[DJOMaverick]

19 hours ago, Cliffy said:

right click on the backglass and make sure it's running in exe mode

It is, or appears to be.

[Cliffy]

28 minutes ago, DJOMaverick said:

It is, or appears to be.

and the b2s server is registered? Here's mine

[DJOMaverick]

Yes, as it works for absolutely everything except this one specific backglass.  And even then, this is a recent error.  And it still pulls up, it appears that it is just not communicating with VPX (or VPM).

[Cliffy]

7 minutes ago, DJOMaverick said:

Yes, as it works for absolutely everything except this one specific backglass.  And even then, this is a recent error.  And it still pulls up, it appears that it is just not communicating with VPX (or VPM).

drop another gottlieb system 80 b2s in there like haunted house and rename it to black hole, see if it works

[DJOMaverick]

1 hour ago, Cliffy said:

drop another gottlieb system 80 b2s in there like haunted house and rename it to black hole, see if it works

That was a fun experiment, with baffling results.  Haunted House backglass worked properly.  Yet no iteration of Black Hole backglass I can find (except the Taito variant) is working for me now.

[Cliffy]

13 minutes ago, DJOMaverick said:

That was a fun experiment, with baffling results.  Haunted House backglass worked properly.  Yet no iteration of Black Hole backglass I can find (except the Taito variant) is working for me now.

try the bh glass with haunted house. also, try deleting the nvram or user file

Edited January 24, 2025 by Cliffy

[DJOMaverick]

36 minutes ago, Cliffy said:

try the bh glass with haunted house. also, try deleting the nvram or user file

I already tried nuking the nvram, no luck.  No user file exists that I can see.

 

Tried using the BH glass with Haunted House, and same behavior; BG score fields no longer update, but it appears to be accurately picking up nvram state at initial load.

 

This is particularly perplexing because the thing used to work, and (prior to this process) I hadn't messed with any settings for that individual glass.  Also weird that it does the same thing no matter which glass version used.

[Cliffy]

11 minutes ago, DJOMaverick said:

I already tried nuking the nvram, no luck.  No user file exists that I can see.

 

Tried using the BH glass with Haunted House, and same behavior; BG score fields no longer update, but it appears to be accurately picking up nvram state at initial load.

 

This is particularly perplexing because the thing used to work, and (prior to this process) I hadn't messed with any settings for that individual glass.  Also weird that it does the same thing no matter which glass version used.

yeah I'd download a new glass and also try a different version of the table maybe? what version vpinmame are you using? here is a looper for ya- are you using the 7 digit b2s with the 7 digit game rom? Can't mix 6 digit glass with 7 digit rom and vice versa

[Thalamus]

Can confirm, there is some oddness going on with Black Hole again. What it is - is currently unclear to me. My testing seems very random and the db2s' (3 in all) I've tried, all have issues. In most cases I don't get any scoring. But, I've seen it being very very delayed. So, if you give it time, the scores might come up and this continues. I estimate up to maybe a 20 seconds.

 

I tested with the pinmame I had, it was fairly new. Then I upgraded to the newest from today - still the same problem. I haven't tried going back in time or downgrade db2s server which is running 2.1.3 right now. Since it is all 3 backglasses. I have a feeling that this is pinmame related some how. But, that is just me guessing. I don't know enough about how the communication between pinmame and db2s works.

 

The odd thing though. IS that my real-dmd is updated constantly and looks to be unaffected.

[DJOMaverick]

7 hours ago, Thalamus said:

Can confirm, there is some oddness going on with Black Hole again. What it is - is currently unclear to me. My testing seems very random and the db2s' (3 in all) I've tried, all have issues. In most cases I don't get any scoring. But, I've seen it being very very delayed. So, if you give it time, the scores might come up and this continues. I estimate up to maybe a 20 seconds.

 

I tested with the pinmame I had, it was fairly new. Then I upgraded to the newest from today - still the same problem. I haven't tried going back in time or downgrade db2s server which is running 2.1.3 right now. Since it is all 3 backglasses. I have a feeling that this is pinmame related some how. But, that is just me guessing. I don't know enough about how the communication between pinmame and db2s works.

 

The odd thing though. IS that my real-dmd is updated constantly and looks to be unaffected.

Thanks for confirming I'm not crazy, ha!  I made much the same assumption and tried rollback of Vpinmame, VPS, and B2S...  think I've isolated it, so feel free to check me.  Looks like the regression is in db2s 2.1.2.  Glass seems to work consistently in 2.1.1 or earlier.

[Thalamus]

11 hours ago, DJOMaverick said:

Thanks for confirming I'm not crazy, ha!  I made much the same assumption and tried rollback of Vpinmame, VPS, and B2S...  think I've isolated it, so feel free to check me.  Looks like the regression is in db2s 2.1.2.  Glass seems to work consistently in 2.1.1 or earlier.

Ah. Nice to have someone that does the job for you. 👍 I will give you findings a shot. Problem is though. We kind of need to go forward with db2s to get games like Nags to work. Hope they find the issue.

[Thalamus]

21 hours ago, DJOMaverick said:

Thanks for confirming I'm not crazy, ha!  I made much the same assumption and tried rollback of Vpinmame, VPS, and B2S...  think I've isolated it, so feel free to check me.  Looks like the regression is in db2s 2.1.2.  Glass seems to work consistently in 2.1.1 or earlier.

 

Update. I started testing this on my other Win10 machine. There, I don't get this problem. Wife just home with food - so, I'll have to re-visit this later on. But, my very quick look-over gave me a WTF. I believe the db2 version is the same on both machines. Upstairs though. One monitor with VPX in a window mode.

 

And, we're talking 2.1.3 323-801 on the working machine. Pretty sure it is that one on the cab as well ... will have to double check.

 

I can't really find anything being different from my Desktop and Pin .. except that on the Pin I haven't installed all the .Net packages I've got upstairs. This is a real mystery.

Edited January 25, 2025 by Thalamus

[DJOMaverick]

Of interest: brand new version made by Khalidibn on VPU DOES work fine. So this seems to be isolated to the more detailed lineage of ones based on (I believe) Teamtechnic's original.