Question Loading sprite in Unity Editor fine, error when run as executable

Hello,

I am using a

Resources.Load<sprite>()

to load a filepath for a sprite. This works fine when I run it in editor or if I choose the "build and run" option, but once it is built and run directly from the executable, it cannot find the sprite file. Does anyone know how to fix this?

 

Find out what's failing first.

Keep in mind there is no

sprite

class in Unity. It is spelled

Sprite

Time to start debugging! Here is how you can begin your exciting new debugging adventures:

You must find a way to get the information you need in order to reason about what the problem is.

Once you understand what the problem is, you may begin to reason about a solution to the problem.

What is often happening in these cases is one of the following:

- the code you think is executing is not actually executing at all
- the code is executing far EARLIER or LATER than you think
- the code is executing far LESS OFTEN than you think
- the code is executing far MORE OFTEN than you think
- the code is executing on another GameObject than you think it is
- you're getting an error or warning and you haven't noticed it in the console window

To help gain more insight into your problem, I recommend liberally sprinkling

Debug.Log()

statements through your code to display information in realtime.

Doing this should help you answer these types of questions:

- is this code even running? which parts are running? how often does it run? what order does it run in?
- what are the names of the GameObjects or Components involved?
- what are the values of the variables involved? Are they initialized? Are the values reasonable?
- are you meeting ALL the requirements to receive callbacks such as triggers / colliders (review the documentation)

Knowing this information will help you reason about the behavior you are seeing.

You can also supply a second argument to Debug.Log() and when you click the message, it will highlight the object in scene, such as

Debug.Log("Problem!",this);

If your problem would benefit from in-scene or in-game visualization, Debug.DrawRay() or Debug.DrawLine() can help you visualize things like rays (used in raycasting) or distances.

You can also call Debug.Break() to pause the Editor when certain interesting pieces of code run, and then study the scene manually, looking for all the parts, where they are, what scripts are on them, etc.

You can also call GameObject.CreatePrimitive() to emplace debug-marker-ish objects in the scene at runtime.

You could also just display various important quantities in UI Text elements to watch them change as you play the game.

Visit Google for how to see console output from builds. If you are running a mobile device you can also view the console output. Google for how on your particular mobile target, such as this answer for iOS: https://forum.unity.com/threads/how-to-capturing-device-logs-on-ios.529920/ or this answer for Android: https://forum.unity.com/threads/how-to-capturing-device-logs-on-android.528680/

If you are working in VR, it might be useful to make your on onscreen log output, or integrate one from the asset store, so you can see what is happening as you operate your software.

Another useful approach is to temporarily strip out everything besides what is necessary to prove your issue. This can simplify and isolate compounding effects of other items in your scene or prefab.

Here's an example of putting in a laser-focused Debug.Log() and how that can save you a TON of time wallowing around speculating what might be going wrong:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/coroutine-missing-hint-and-error.1103197/#post-7100494

"When in doubt, print it out!(tm)" - Kurt Dekker (and many others)

Note: the

print()

function is an alias for Debug.Log() provided by the MonoBehaviour class.

 

Alright, I'll try printing out the process. It's just weird to me how it works perfectly in the editor, but not when built and run as an executable.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/differences-between-build-build-run.44359/

In this thread, Tactical Axis describes a problem that sounds very similar to mine but fails to mention how they solved it. I also don't see the log report at that file path.

 

I realize my wording isn't very clear. There isn't an "error" when I run it as an executable in the traditional sense. It just can't find the file.

 

Nothing weird at all about that. There's about ten million ways this could happen, all of them well-understood.

Since you posted almost zero technical details, nobody can suggest anything.

How to report your problem productively in the Unity3D forums:

http://plbm.com/?p=220

This is the bare minimum of information to report:

- what you want
- what you tried
- what you expected to happen
- what actually happened, log output, variable values, and especially any errors you see
- links to documentation you used to cross-check your work (CRITICAL!!!)

If you post a code snippet, ALWAYS USE CODE TAGS:

How to use code tags: https://forum.unity.com/threads/using-code-tags-properly.143875/

 

Well, I'll remember that for next time.

Anyway, I figured out that it wasn't loading the XML document I was using during runtime because the file path didn't exist. Had to use Resources.Load() on the XML document too.