bug on sprites that disappear

Problem Description

Sprite images disappear from project!

Observed Result

While working, all sprite images disappear. You start the project and get the error in the image. If you double click on sprites, all images are no more there... secon time it happens, need to close construct losing work done and open it again

Affected Browsers

all

Operating System and Service Pack

windows 10 latest

Construct 2 Version ID

244

Image:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jr9llroceyzrh ... 8.png?dl=0

I had this happen yesterday, I thought it was a fluke until I saw this report. I wasn't on the layout screen so i didn't notice there. I opened a sprite to see the image points and all the frames were blank except one around frame 12. A pop up opened saying that the PNG was corrupt and couldn't be read. I shut Construct down without saving and reopened and the pngs loaded fine. So I ignored it. I will keep an eye out for it happening again.

following as I have had this happen

2 things i've done before it happens

1- copy the directory content of my game for back up

2- resuming from standby with project left open (more probable cause)

Your post doesn't follow the Bug Report Requirements which means it is likely to be closed without investigation.

Your post doesn't follow the Bug Report Requirements which means it is likely to be closed without investigation.

Are you referring to the requirement of a capx?

The capx is useless in this case, as it's not related to it.

The capx is useless in this case, as it's not related to it.

Yeah, It falls under this:

[quote:2oz1fsgm]If you are reporting a bug in the editor itself, a .capx file can in some cases be unnecessary. However, if including a .capx file could in any way improve the report or save time, then it will be held to this rule.

But I am not sure if there was another requirement missing.

I've had this happen on even tutorial capx's that come with Construct. It is not the CAPX at all, and it is not consistently reproducible with any one capx. That is, there is no CAPX to be made this happens everytime you load it. Personally, I have only hit this once every couple of weeks.

When the bug occurs, it behaves almost like Construct for some reason lost access to the images/files required for the project to run or some other issue that gets the system (system being a combination of Construct and Windows) all confused. When it occurs, when you open up any image in Constructs editor, it is blank, a 0x0 pixel image. Closing Construct (shutting it down fully) and re-opening Construct will get it going again. There are no error messages within Construct itself when this occurs.

If you export the project when this occurs, the exported project will be corrupted and have very weird behavior. The project itself does not appear to get corrupted (as re-opening it seems to go back to normal). This behavior is what leads me to believe it is some sort of file changing or permissions error most likely caused by the perfect timing of events. When this occurs it can be confusing to a user who does not realize they are hitting this issue. So, if you get corrupted exports and before you go spend hours debugging your code you should try opening an image to see if you hit this issue. If so, simply close Construct and open the same project again re-exporting it.

I don't put my computer into standby, so I think that can get ruled out as the root cause — unless there is more than 1 cause. Instead, it would line up with my thoughts on it being a "perfect timing" issue, or permissions.

Unfortunately, unless Scirra has encountered this previously or already knows what might be causing it I don't see it getting fixed (although I wouldn't mind being proved wrong for the greater good). This is because the nature of this bug, Scirra would need to run a project for hours on end, and might not ever hit the issue (which makes brute force testing this bug not reasonable). The only way that makes sense to figure it out would be a version of Construct that has log outputs. Scirra can correct me here if I am wrong, but I don't believe they provide such a version of Construct.

Given that, I strongly recommend if you are not already to use a repository and back up your project often. Even though this bug does not corrupt your project itself, you should do this anyways for safe keeping. If you hit the issue, re-open Construct to keep working without a hitch.

You also mentioned you close Construct when this error occurs and lose work. Last time I hit this error, I actually tried saving Construct before re-opening it. My project appeared to be OK, so next time it happens try saving to see what happens and so you don't lose work. But, don't try this unless you have a recent back-up (just incase). Worst case scenario, you can try saving it as a brand new project.

Closing, please see the bug report guidelines - we need all that information to be able to investigate reports, especially the steps to reproduce. Without it there is nothing we can do. We can't debug screenshots!

The steps have been mentioned and are "use the (any) project until it happens." Given that, what exactly would you like included that is not already?

Incase you are interested, a few more details about the bug:

It just happened to me here (note: nothing special was done for this to occur and it has nothing to do with my project itself, as it can happen to the out-of-the-box tutorials):

https://imgur.com/sp9XVtW.png

You will see that the image is clearly loaded in Construct, but when you try to edit it the editor reports it being 0x0pixel. Trying to run the preview will result in odd behaviour, such as pcprice76. When this occurs, every single image has this behavior in the entire project.

Furthermore, if you try to export when this happens the export itself is corrupted and gets weird behavior.

There are no windows errors reported during this time.

Drivers are up to date. It happens on both old and new Windows 10 versions. I am unsure if it happens outside of Windows 10.

It happens on both NVIDIA and Intel Graphics.

Windows error checking reports no issues.

It happens to me pretty infrequently.

It happens on R252, and roughly r240. I cannot recall exactly the oldest version I used this occurred on.

Is there anything else you would need and just putting two and two together I would imagine given there is no solid way that is known to reproduce the issue, it will stay opened and unfixed. In that case, does the thread (or a new one created as you have requested) belong in closed, or would it stay in open bugs?

Lastly, what would you suggest we look out for, or collect when this issue occurs?

To be clear, I am asking:

1) What exactly do you require the new bug report to have, that is not already in this thread

2) What can be collected by end-users when the issue occurs that might hint at the issue

3) Is it possible to have a debug output version of Construct to try and capture information that might help determine the cause of the issue

4) Is there a point of a new bug report, or is it going to just be closed because you cannot realistically reproduce it? Or, can you use this one now that the steps have been clarified?

If following exactly guidelines is more important then solving this bug...ok. But, Ashley, i think we gave all information we could. Today happened again to me, had to exit my project without saving, losing some work, to prevent the loss of all sprites. And again, happened after a standby resume.

Not to be polemic, but happened AGAIN and i lost one hour of work!!!!!!!!! Is anyone in Scirra ever intended to solve it?

It's really annoying...

When this happens, the browser say this:

"The HTMLImageElement provided is in the 'broken' state"