Question Label text does not change when text parameter is modified by a script

I have a pause menu with a title label that displays who paused the game. There is some placeholder text that my script replaces like so where "playerNameText" is the title label and the "canvas" is the UIDocument. component.

playerNameText.text = playerName + " Paused";

canvas.enabled = true;

I used a debugger to step through and what I found is that after the text is changed, the text property of the label remains on what I set it to, but the actual visible label does not update in game. I have other UI that uses labels that have their text changed this way and it works fine. None of my buttons in this UI trigger any code either despite having clicked actions bound in the start function (lines are executed as confirmed by the debugger).

 

I checked the debugger and the text was not being changed. I have tried before and after enabling the canvas and the result is the same. I will continue to investigate the timing thing, but this seems to happen specifically when enabling the ui document at the same time as changing the text. If I enable/disable the whole gameobject and leave the UI document component enabled it seems to work fine, as that is how my main menu works. The same thing seems to be true with the buttons where disabling the UI document component seems to mess with the button actions, they work fine when the whole gameobject starts disabled and is enabled though.

 

I did a bit more investigation with other UI I have, and I found that if the UI Document component itself gets disabled at any point during runtime, even if its through the gameobject (gameObject.SetActive), it malfunctions and stops registering any changes I make in code when reenabled. I have Mirror for networking and when an object I had went through a network switch (disables and reenables the gameobject in the same or next frame), the UI on that gameobject stopped registering changes (not shown in the UI toolkit debugger either), though print statements & vscode debugger show the statements are going through in code.

 

Am I supposed to submit it through Help -> report a bug in editor?

 

I encountered the same issue (for renaming an object field) and found a cheaty workaround that might work in your case as well where you set the object as null and then reassign it:

Code (CSharp):

1.            
2. charSelector.value = null;
3. charSelector.value = currentCharacter;
4.  

 

I have a companion script on the same gameobject as a ui document which serves as a sort of UI controller. I want to be able to turn the UI on and off without disabling the gameobject because I need the script to remain active. If this is not a bug, then recreating the UI document should at least delete the old objects and throw a nullreference when I try to operate on them, because right now no errors are thrown. As for workflow, I think it should be made more clear that you need to rebuild your c# references every time you reenable the UI Document. Ideally we should be able to turn the UIDocument on and off without having problems like UGUI and the canvas component. I have found a workaround for now which is setting the root visual element's visibility to false to give the same effect.

 

Hello, I need help about new ui.
I cant change ui element's label.text from another function, value is changing but ui is not changing. Do you know a solution for that?
It gets the first value from onEnable, but after that my function cant change that ui text value.

 

Hello @JuliaP_Unity

I call DecreaseMoveValue() function and line 14 prints the right value but line15 doesnt update ui and gives NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object exception.
I am newbie, sorry if I am mistaken, thanks for your help.

Code (CSharp):

1. public int movesLabelValue=5;
2. public Label movesLabel;
3.  
4. private void OnEnable()
5.     {
6.         var rootVisualElement = GetComponent<UIDocument>().rootVisualElement;
7.         movesLabel = rootVisualElement.Q<Label>("movesLabel");
8.         movesLabel.text= movesLabelValue.ToString(); //makes Ui movesLabel 5, that's ok.
9. }
10.  
11. public void DecreaseMoveValue()
12. {
13.             movesLabelValue= movesLabelValue-1;
14.             print("moves value2: "+movesLabelValue); // movesLabelValue decreases, that's ok.
15.             movesLabel.text=movesLabelValue.ToString(); //doesnt update the Ui with new movesLabelValue value!
16.  
17.     }
18.  

 

DecreaseMoveValue() is called from another class inside a function which is triggered when I swipe on screen, in that case, like I said before, line14 is working and swipe is detected (isnt it the proof for function call?), I am curious and want to know why line15 is not working and returning exception?

 

I'm referencing,
MyClassName myClassName = new MyClassName();
and then using as
myClassName.DecreaseMoveValue();

I am able to call DecreaseMoveValue() function with this reference. Is it weird?

 

@JuliaP_Unity Referencing my script by using GetComponent solved this problem. I am also studying on tutorials but I was confused when I see method is working partially and tried wrong way

Thank you very much for your help!

 

I want to say that the problem is still peristing, if you Turn the gameobject off and then activate it again, the values for the elements cant be reflected on the gamescreen.