[SOLVED] Screen not returning to Attract-Mode when exiting MAME

[huxman]

Hello everybody! I am hoping one of you will know exactly how to fix my problem. Attract-Mode launches a game through MAME with no trouble, but when I exit that game, my screen does not automatically return to Attract-Mode unless I click the left mouse button or Alt-Tab.

When exiting the MAME game, my screen seems to freeze on the latest image of the game that was running (almost like I pressed to pause instead of exit) until I click the mouse and then AM comes back to my screen immediately. If I just wait, AM never comes back on my screen, I must click the mouse or Alt-Tab for AM to show again. To be clear, I am not mouse-clicking anything specific, it is like Windows isn't returning the focus back to AM.

I am running Windows 10 home (64-bit, build 1803) and the newest version 2.4.0 (64-bit) of AM.

I have been using AM for a couple years without this problem. I don't recall anything specific I updated or changed when I first noticed this problem, but it began several weeks ago when I was using version 2.3. At the time, I didn't see anyone else on the forums mention my problem and I thought that it would be something I could either solve on my own or it might be fixed in the next update of AM. I am posting this today because I just updated to 2.4 and it is still happening to me.

It doesn't seem like this problem is related to any specific layout.

The only AM setting I have found which makes any difference is when window mode is set to "window". When AM is in "window", MAME ends and my screen returns immediately to AM like it is supposed to. When AM is in any other window mode (Fill Screen, Fullscreen, or Window (no border)), and I exit MAME, then I have to left-click the mouse for focus to return to AM.

It doesn't seem like this is a MAME issue, this problem does not happen if I use a different frontend like hyperspin or retrofe.

I am hoping someone has good ideas. AM is my favorite MAME frontend, and I would much rather be able to run AM in "Fill Screen" than it having to always be windowed. I have tried everything I can think of to fix it and am having no luck. Thank you for giving me a minute!

**********************
!!! SOLVED !!!
Disabling everything in the Windows Settings->System->Focus Assist seems to have fixed it.
**********************

[informix]

Try changing Multi Monitor setting to NO.. See if that helps..

[huxman]

Thank you for that idea informix, but that didn't fix the problem. I am still having this issue whether Multi Monitor is ON or OFF. Hopefully you or someone else has another idea.

A little more information about my setup I should have included in the 1st post:
Computer is an Acer laptop, Intel I5 (2.3ghz) processor, GPU is Intel HD 520.

Also, this problem with AM not returning to my screen when exiting a game happens regardless of what version of MAME I use. Yesterday I tried old version .139 I had archived, as well as ARCADE .199 (the new name for mameuifx), and it was still happenng. In all of these versions, AM starts the games with no problems, I can play them for as long as I want, and then when I press ESC to exit the game -- the game stops but AM does not return to my screen until I click the left mouse button.

All suggestions are welcome. 

[informix]

I was experiencing the same issue a few weeks ago.. But it wasn't 100% of the time.. It seemed to only happen every other or every 3rd game played..   I had some other issues and made some changes and it has seemed to have stoped happening..   The most notable thing I had done was to change that. (Multi Mon)  But In all the "fussing" i had done i know i changes a bunch of stuff.. But I don't know what if any stopped it from doing that..   
Side note.. here is a program i found for multi monitor setups that can lock you to a single monitor..  Dose a ton of other stuff.. But it "seemed" to help with that issue.. BUT i am NOT using it anymore  (yet)  As the issues is gone with whatever I did on my "reinstall" and rework 
http://dualmonitortool.sourceforge.ne

Let me know if you want to see my configs.. they are nothing special..  but i had the issue before and now it seems to be gone.

P.S.  are you using a Tankstick by any chance.?

T

[huxman]

Informix, I am glad to know that I am not the only one this has happened to. I hope that I will get lucky and it will go away like it did for you, or that someone will see this post and know exactly what the trouble is.

Over the last many weeks I have tried everything I can think of. I am finishing up with a cabinet build, and this game exit problem is what is holding me back. I love the nevato layout for AM and I love AM's romlist filters, and that is why I keep coming back to try to make AM work for me the way it should.

I do have a Tankstick, but this is happening when I am using my regular notebook keyboard and built-in monitor. I am not seeing any difference from running AM on my "stock laptop" as to when I plug in the tankstick and run HDMI out to a TV. I still get the same freeze on exit. I am not using a multi-monitor setup.

I did a fresh reinstall of AM 2.4. I have updated all my video and audio drivers. I have tried using the 32-bit AM instead of 64-bit AM to see if that changed things, and it did not. There is something happening here where Windows is not giving priority back to AM or that AM isn't taking control when MAME exits.

[huxman]

Maybe this is a Windows 10 relationship problem with AM. In the forums I have now found a couple similar posts but no good solutions:
http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2288.0
https://github.com/mickelson/attract/issues/199
https://github.com/mickelson/attract/issues/244

I just tried making the Quit function in AM not be the "ESC" to see if that helped (as was suggested as the solution in https://github.com/mickelson/attract/issues/244) and it did not fix it for me.

[keilmillerjr]

I am using win10-1607 enterprise on actual hardware in my arcade machine, and virtual box install of same os on my iMac. Arcade uses jPac, iMac uses usb keyboard. I only use mame (usually updated to latest) and currently using attract 2.4. I do not experience this issue. Attract and mame use same exit key. I would be interested in actual os version rather than a generic “10”, because it works for me. I know newer revisions on windows changed some stuff pertaining to what we do here.

[informix]

Not sure what else might help...  Here is the "general" form attract.cfg..

Code: [Select]

general
language             en
exit_command         
default_font         arial
font_path            %SYSTEMROOT%/Fonts/
screen_saver_timeout 600
displays_menu_exit   yes
hide_brackets        yes
startup_mode         default
confirm_favourites   yes
confirm_exit         yes
mouse_threshold      10
joystick_threshold   75
window_mode          default
filter_wrap_mode     default
track_usage          yes
multiple_monitors    no
smooth_images        yes
accelerate_selection yes
selection_speed_ms   40
scrape_snaps         yes
scrape_marquees      yes
scrape_flyers        yes
scrape_wheels        yes
scrape_fanart        no
scrape_videos        no
scrape_overview      yes
hide_console         no
video_decoder       
menu_prompt          Displays Menu
menu_layout          nevato
and the mame.cfg

Code: [Select]

executable           c:\retro\mame\mame64.exe
args                 [name]
workdir              c:\retro\mame
rompath              c:\retro\mame\roms
romext               .zip;.7z;<DIR>
system               Arcade
info_source          listxml
import_extras        c:\retro\mame\catver.ini
artwork    flyer           
artwork    marquee         C:\Retro\Mame\marquee
artwork    snap            C:\Retro\Mame\snap
artwork    wheel           C:\Retro\Mame\wheel
And one other thing that i found was giving me issues.. Somehow  my shortcut for AM was setting the wrong working path.. (most my settings had hard path.. so still worked)  But i did correct that with my rebuild.. Fixed a few other annoyance issues..

[huxman]

Keilmillerjr, I try to keep everything updated to the latest versions. I am running Windows 10 home (64-bit, build 1803), MAME .199, and AM 2.4.0 (64-bit). You mentioned later revisions of Windows 10 changing stuff related to AM? Maybe that is my problem?

Informix, thank you for sharing your config files. I will check mine against yours tomorrow when I have an opportunity, I am curious to see if any setting differences have any bearing on this. One thing that appears to be different is that I have all of my MAME files inside the “emulators” subfolder within the AttractMode folder rather than being outside of AM completely. I believe in the settings I have all of my paths being relative to the main AM folder.

[huxman]

Informix, I checked mine against what you posted and I don't see anything different in our config files. Thank you though.

So everyone knows, I moved my MAME folder to be completely outside the AM folder and used hard paths instead of relative paths, and unfortunately that did not fix anything. I tried the new MAME .200 from this morning and AM's daily build from yesterday that didn't make any difference.

I mentioned in my original post but want to say it again, that the screen freezing exiting a MAME game until I left-click my mouse does not occur if I use another front-end. It does not happen in retrofe, hyperspin, or gameex. But I like Attract Mode best and I don't want to use any of the other front ends.

Also, this does not happen if AM general settings have Window Mode set to "window", only when AM is set to "Fill Screen", "Fullscreen", or "Window (no border)" am I dealing with having to left-click my mouse for AM to return to the screen.   

[keilmillerjr]

Keilmillerjr, I try to keep everything updated to the latest versions. I am running Windows 10 home (64-bit, build 1803), MAME .199, and AM 2.4.0 (64-bit). You mentioned later revisions of Windows 10 changing stuff related to AM? Maybe that is my problem?

Informix, thank you for sharing your config files. I will check mine against yours tomorrow when I have an opportunity, I am curious to see if any setting differences have any bearing on this. One thing that appears to be different is that I have all of my MAME files inside the “emulators” subfolder within the AttractMode folder rather than being outside of AM completely. I believe in the settings I have all of my paths being relative to the main AM folder.

Maybe something in this thread will help?

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=157016.0

Last resort, I know 1607 works. Is anyone else here running 1803?

[huxman]

Thank you keilmillerjr!!!

For anyone experiencing something similar to what I was, disabling everything in the Windows Settings->System->Focus Assist seems to have fixed it.

 

[rlaursen]

hi sorry for brining back an old thread but I am having this same issue and its driving me nuts.  I see the solution but I am running Windows 7 and there is no focus assist options to turn off.  Any idea what to do for this issue on Windows 7? thanks

[jedione]

maybe try this and let us know........move curser to bottom right corner of screen,,,right click now uncheck "peek at desktop"
logg out of windows  go back in make shure it stuck,,,   and now try...     

it seems that this helped me a long time ago...fingers crossed...

[rlaursen]

my PC is set to classic view/high performance so that option is grayed out/disabled already. I was testing it and the issue is definitely happening because the frontend is not the active window after exiting the emulator. Its like windows desktop is active until you do a mouse click to focus on the frontend then it unpauses. The front end is not in windowed mode though.