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Mac OSX Project corruption errors, even though it works fine?

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IJsandwich

Guest
I have a project on MacOS Mojave, and I recently updated to 2.3.0

When I open my project I get warnings saying "Blank IdReference found - could be that the project is corrupt. "...despite the fact that all of my resources are intact. There are tons of these warnings that show up at the start, and it also says

"Image has no FrameId on Sprite spr_ removing bad frame
Resetting composite image as it's pointing to a bad frame on Sprite spr_"

for basically all of the sprites that I have, but again, the sprites in question are totally intact and the game runs fine. At one point I reloaded the project and some of my sprites actually had corrupted, and many frames had been deleted. I saw in the files that they were still there, so I reloaded again and all was well (though I still got these messages). Finally, at seemingly random points the project will give a message saying the "main project file has changed", or that "changes were detected in project directory", upon which it lists basically all of my resources. It gives me the option to reload or save; neither seem to do anything to curtail the issue (again, since the files were not edited at all), though in general reload seems like it causes the messages to go away more often. These messages seem to show up more often when I open the project file, even though I never change anything, I'm just looking to see if the files are intact (and they are).

What could be going on here? I have a backup file from a few days ago which seems to be error-less, but I hesitate to lose my progress without trying to fix this issue first.
 
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IJsandwich

Guest
It looks as though a bunch of my resource files (the .yy files) are duplicating themselves in their folders. I've seen other people talk about mysterious duplications in 2.3.0, and this may be the issue I'm running into.
 

Cpsy1714

Member
I had the same problem the solution is easy. In the curent version when you drag and drop a folder to another folder the folder and the assets inside the folder moves but other folders inside the folder you just moved dont seem to move. You dont see this until you save and reload your saved project. So you just easily need to move the assets individually and they stop duplicating. (I'am not %100 sure about this in my testing this was the case but it might work differently in other projects so take this with a grain of salt)
 
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IJsandwich

Guest
I had the same problem the solution is easy. In the curent version when you drag and drop a folder to another folder the folder and the assets inside the folder moves but other folders inside the folder you just moved dont seem to move. You dont see this until you save and reload your saved project. So you just easily need to move the assets individually and they stop duplicating. (I'am not %100 sure about this in my testing this was the case but it might work differently in other projects so take this with a grain of salt)
Are you talking about moving folders on the computer or in Gamemaker? I didn't move any folders in gamemaker (It automatically sorted everything alphabetically when it updated and I left it that way; maybe this is what caused it?), and I don't recall moving folders in the computer, but I did copy them to make a backup so that could be it, and it could also explain why every single asset is duplicating. Can you go into more detail about your solution? I'm not sure I understand
 

Cpsy1714

Member
Are you talking about moving folders on the computer or in Gamemaker?
I was talking about moving folders in gamemaker, more specifically the asset browser.

I didn't move any folders in gamemaker (It automatically sorted everything alphabetically when it updated and I left it that way; maybe this is what caused it?)
I dont think not moving folders or sorting everthing alphabetically caused the problem.

but I did copy them to make a backup so that could be it, and it could also explain why every single asset is duplicating.
That may very well be the case. That same error showed up when I copied my project folder and and pasted it in a USB drive then every asset was duplicated after that. I will try to test when I have some time.

Can you go into more detail about your solution? I'm not sure I understand
The thing is its not even a "corruption" like the error says, If I understand correctly the assets aren't even doubled (in my case in the project folder there was only 1 of every asset) so its just a visual bug. When I clicked the sprite above the other same sprite asset I could choose that one like normal and the one below it was NOT selected. But the interesting part is when I unchoose that sprite and click the one below it auto chooses two of them. Two of the sprites were highlighted when I just clicked one. Then I tried to delete the on the top which I could choose by itself. And boom two of them have been deleted even though I was NOT selecting (highlighting) the duplicate sprite that was under. If you can try this yourself I would like to know if the same thing happens to you. So probably it is just a visual bug and you don't have anything to worry about. If you just make a new folder, drag one of the duplicated assets into that folder (you might need to do that with all of the assets), save your project, quit gamemaker, then open gamemaker and load your project everthing should be fixed (at least mine was fixed but if yours are still duplicates after you try this you can try to edit the assets locations from inside the project folder).
 
I'm on Mac OS Mojave and also have a large number of 'Blank IdReference found - could be that the project is corrupt' messages. It also started after the upgrade to 2.3.0

I can't see anything wrong in my Asset Browser and the game runs fine. It's pretty disconcerting to be a number of months into a project and have a message tell you that it could be corrupt, but be unable to find the issue.
 
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IJsandwich

Guest
I'm on Mac OS Mojave and also have a large number of 'Blank IdReference found - could be that the project is corrupt' messages. It also started after the upgrade to 2.3.0

I can't see anything wrong in my Asset Browser and the game runs fine. It's pretty disconcerting to be a number of months into a project and have a message tell you that it could be corrupt, but be unable to find the issue.
Sounds just like my case; you should check where the project folder is saved and look in the folders for each asset/check the project file size. It might be stealthily copying itself on you like with me.
 
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IJsandwich

Guest
I was talking about moving folders in gamemaker, more specifically the asset browser.


I dont think not moving folders or sorting everthing alphabetically caused the problem.


That may very well be the case. That same error showed up when I copied my project folder and and pasted it in a USB drive then every asset was duplicated after that. I will try to test when I have some time.


The thing is its not even a "corruption" like the error says, If I understand correctly the assets aren't even doubled (in my case in the project folder there was only 1 of every asset) so its just a visual bug. When I clicked the sprite above the other same sprite asset I could choose that one like normal and the one below it was NOT selected. But the interesting part is when I unchoose that sprite and click the one below it auto chooses two of them. Two of the sprites were highlighted when I just clicked one. Then I tried to delete the on the top which I could choose by itself. And boom two of them have been deleted even though I was NOT selecting (highlighting) the duplicate sprite that was under. If you can try this yourself I would like to know if the same thing happens to you. So probably it is just a visual bug and you don't have anything to worry about. If you just make a new folder, drag one of the duplicated assets into that folder (you might need to do that with all of the assets), save your project, quit gamemaker, then open gamemaker and load your project everthing should be fixed (at least mine was fixed but if yours are still duplicates after you try this you can try to edit the assets locations from inside the project folder).
In my case there is only one of each asset in gamemaker, but in the project folder they duplicate, kind of the opposite of your case, but it may be caused by the same bug. I think tomorrow I'll copy my project/use a backup to try to see if deleting the copies of these assets has any effect
 
Sounds just like my case; you should check where the project folder is saved and look in the folders for each asset/check the project file size. It might be stealthily copying itself on you like with me.
Yeah, for me it seems to be something to do with duplicating sprites. I looked in the project folders, and sprites I'd duplicated since 2.3.0 had multiple .yy files. They had the original file as well as the new duplication. e.g. I have a health powerup sprite I'd like to iterate on. I duplicate it and call it powerup2. In the project folder for spr_powerup2 there is now spr_powerup2.yy as well as a spr_powerup.yy. The original spr_powerup.yy is also still living in his own original folder.

I made a back up and deleted all the sprites I'd been duplicating/working on since 2.3.0 and all the error messages disappeared.

I then tried to recreate the problem by creating a new sprite and duplicating it but didn't get any error messages! So, still not much the wiser.

It's pretty annoying because I'm following the same working practices since before 2.3.0, duplicating sprites to iterate on them, but I've never had any problems before.
 
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IJsandwich

Guest
So I think I've found a working solution, at least until YYG fix the underlying issue. If anyone else has the same issue, it seems like best practice to not open any of the external project files/folders while the project is open in gamemaker. If it gives that warning ("main project file has changed", or "changes were detected in project directory"), hit "reload", not "save". There'll be nothing lost anyway if you didn't actually change anything and GMS is just bugging out, as it is for me. If you hit save, this is where it seems to create these duplicates in the project folders. It also seems safe to delete the duplicated .yy files (the ones with numbers after their name). I'll keep investigating.
 
So I think I've found a working solution, at least until YYG fix the underlying issue. If anyone else has the same issue, it seems like best practice to not open any of the external project files/folders while the project is open in gamemaker. If it gives that warning ("main project file has changed", or "changes were detected in project directory"), hit "reload", not "save". There'll be nothing lost anyway if you didn't actually change anything and GMS is just bugging out, as it is for me. If you hit save, this is where it seems to create these duplicates in the project folders. It also seems safe to delete the duplicated .yy files (the ones with numbers after their name). I'll keep investigating.
I guess I have a different problem, because I got the error messages before I started looking in the external project folders. The more I look into this, the worse it gets. I opened a backup file and imported an object from the problem project and got about 60 of those messages. When I saved the file and reopened it the messages had disappeared, but there were odd new issues, e.g. the thumbnail of the sprite for a collision event being empty. Anyway, I guess I'll sign off here and report it as a bug.
 
I've reported my case as a bug, YoYo have confirmed and added the bug to their database. When I first got the warning message everything else about the project seemed fine and I continued working. The project subsequently corrupted and is now unusable. If you see the 'Blank IdReference found - could be that the project is corrupt' warning, it might be an idea to roll back to a version of your project before the message appeared.
 
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IJsandwich

Guest
Update:

I've cleared all the "Blank IdReference" errors from my game, at least for now. I saw a reddit post where someone linked their errors to a sprite, so I followed their lead by copying my project and deleting a bunch of sprites from the copied folder, to see which sprites were responsible. I found about 5 sprites which were causing my errors, so I wholesale replaced them by creating a new sprite into which I copied or imported the images (not duplicating the sprite). Then I deleted the old sprite and renamed the new one to take its place. If you have a room/object which has its sprite set to this sprite, you'll need to make sure it still has it set right. Once this was done, the error messages were gone. I'm still gonna keep an eye out for if this problem resurfaces.
 
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