TextMesh Pro ForceMeshUpdate(true) not working when object inactive

I'm trying to assign a text to an inactive TextMesh Pro text object, and then get the text info with

textInfo

. Before accessing

textInfo

, I call

ForceMeshUpdate(true)

to update the object; I would expect setting the parameter

ignoreActiveState

to

true

would update the object even if it's inactive, but it doesn't. Am I misinterpreting the parameter, or is it a bug?:

Code (CSharp):

1. textComponent.text = text;
2. textComponent.ForceMeshUpdate(true);
3. numCharsFromTextInfo = textComponent.textInfo.characterCount; // Returns incorrect data

For now it seems activating the object just before updating and deactivating it afterward works, but it's not very nice, and doesn't work if one of the parent objects is inactive.

 

Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback.

I'll take a look and make the necessary changes if required.

 

Thanks. By the way, I may have found a pair of other things that look like bugs, should I report them from Unity's bug report tool?

 

It is up to you.

If these are trivial and easily reproducible, you can report them here. If they are more challenging to reproduce, then submitting a bug report with Repro case is always best as I can focus on a solution as opposed to trying to reproduce something.

 

I have addressed the incorrect behavior of the ForceMeshUpdate(bool ignoreActiveState). This change will be included in the next release of TMP.

 

Was this fixed? I am still running into it. When the gameobject is inactive at the time of a ForceMeshUpdate(true) call the bounds are not updated. When the gameobject is active at the time of a ForceMeshUpdate(true) call the bounds are updated correctly.

 

What version of TMP are you using?

This should be working but once you let me know what version you are using, I can double check on my end.

 

I am using 1.3.0.

 

I'm seeing this behaviour in 1.2.4.

I instantiate a prefab with a TextMeshProUGUI component and parent it to another game object. activeSelf is true, but activeInHierarchy is false. I set the text field, then call ForceMeshUpdate(true) but the preferredHeight is not updated and the textInfo field still has the character count of the original text on the prefab. Using Unity 2018.2.12f1. I've also tried calling SetAllDirty but no dice.

edit: I updated to 1.3.0 but still no luck!

Thanks,
Sam

 

Let me take a look at this again. I should be able to get you an update tomorrow.

 

Any update on this? I'm running into the same problem (also on 1.3.0)

 

Happening to me also.

 

I did address this issue in the current version of the TMP package that I am working on which hasn't been released yet.

The release that will include the change will be 1.4.2 for Unity 2018.3 and 2.0.2 for Unity 2019.1 or newer.

I will try to lookup the specific changes and if they can be easily made in 1.3.0, will post those in the next few days.

Please feel free to re-post in this thread, if I don't provide an update on this within the next few days.

 

Seeing this in 1.3.0 in Unity 2018.2. Cant update my version of Unity at this time. Is there a work around?

 

I would suggest taking a look at the revised ForceMeshUpdate() in version 1.4.1 (since the source code is included with packages) and making the relevant changes on your end.

 

Hi had this same issue with the bounds not updating correctly so I invoke a method a frame later and that seems to fix things.

 

Experiencing this too on Unity 2018.4.5 and TMP 1.4.1.

 

I confirmed the same issue exists for 2019.2 and TMP downloaded with the Package Manager (2.0.1). It took me a while to figure it out!

If an object the script is attached to is a child of an inactive game object, then it will not work. It has to be a child of an active object. No errors printed out.

 

hmm im suffering this too, I simply cannot get the text to update even when I set it either with SetText or .text, using unity 2020.10a.12

 

Make sure you try with the latest preview package of TMP which is version 3.0.0-preview.3 and let me know if the issue still occurs.

 

I have to admit it was own logic error, I was doing findComponentsInChildren and not actually making sure that it was finding the right element. I did not realise that other items I had used were buttons etc. Once I checked against the name it actually worked perfectly and I removed all the hacks I had applied and it's still fine. So for now I think it is fixed and I am guilty of throwing a red herring into the works Thank you very much for the reply though, I am so happy when unity guys reply, Karl Jones (@karl_jones) has been fantastic in particular, that guy needs a nomination for helping the masses. Happy new year.

 

This thread confuses me. The parameter is called "ignoreInactive". So I would expect that setting it to true means "ignore this call if the object is inactive."

Everyone above is saying that ignoreInactive=true means that it should not ignore inactive, which seems completely backwards to me, and @Stephan_B has not commented on this.

In my testing it's not working either way, but I'd love some clarification on which way it's supposed to work.

 

I was looking at the same thing and as far as I can tell, the parameter doesn't actually do anything (regardless that it's named "backwards") on 2.0.1 2019.3.4f1:

Code (CSharp):

1. public override void ForceMeshUpdate(bool ignoreInactive)
2. {
3.     m_havePropertiesChanged = true;
4.     m_ignoreActiveState = true;
5.     OnPreRenderCanvas();
6. }
7.  

I guess I set my code to .ForceMeshUpdate(true); for now and hopefully m_ignoreActiveState or something will use the value in the future.

 

Please test this with the latest version 1.5.0-preview.8 as the following changes were made in Preview 1.

- Revised the ForceMeshUpdate() function as follows: public void ForceMeshUpdate(bool ignoreActiveState = false, bool forceTextReparsing = false).

 

Sorry for the late reply.

This functionality doesn't actually affect me, so I don't have a test scenario where it matters. (I use the method to force an update because I'm resizing UI elements after changing the text and I need to know the text size. But my elements get enabled before I update the text, so the flag didn't/doesn't matter.)

In any case, I tried both 1.5.0 preview.8 and 2.1.0 preview.8 (not sure what the difference is) and it works the same as far as I can tell. I tried both (false, false), (true, true) and (true, false) and saw no difference, but then I didn't expect to see any. At least I can say that nothing broke.

 

1.5.0 is for Unity 2018.4 and 2.1.0 for Unity 2019.x and 3.0.0 for Unity 2020.x.

 

Still having this problem on Unity 2019.2.21f1, TMPro package preview.8 - 2.1.0.

 

Can you provide simple steps to reproduce this behavior?

 

No idea if this is helpful?

Code (CSharp):

1. public class Testtt : MonoBehaviour {
2.     public TMPro.TextMeshProUGUI tmp;
3.  
4.     IEnumerator Start() {
5.         Debug.Log(tmp.textBounds.size); // 1
6.         tmp.text = "This is some text!";
7.         Debug.Log(tmp.textBounds.size); // 2
8.         tmp.ForceMeshUpdate(true);
9.         Debug.Log(tmp.textBounds.size); // 3
10.         tmp.gameObject.SetActive(true);
11.         Debug.Log(tmp.textBounds.size); // 4
12.         yield return null;
13.         Debug.Log(tmp.textBounds.size); // 5
14.     }
15. }

tmp.gameObject is set to inactive in the beginning. Only the fitfth Debug.Log() shows the correct value, all the others print "(-4294967000.0, -4294967000.0, 0.0)" for me. The 3rd and 4th already *should* print the correct size.

 

Is this somehow being worked on?

 

Have you tried if the behavior remains with the latest releases?

 

Thanks, it works now.

By the way, is there any reason TMPro would behave like this:



Specifically, setting a text (the title with the dark blue background) with autosize works the first time, but after setting the same text a second time, it ignores the autosizing apparently. It just overflows the text. (Which I don't actually allow, it should be an ellipsis.)

This drives me crazy, because there is no way to work around this, as it always behaves like that, even when waiting a few frames or setting it a third time, etc.

 

Are you using layout components? Perhaps the returned preferred values change.

I would have to get a repro project to figure out exactly why this is happening.

 

No, the hierarchy of this object doesn't use any Layout components.

I hope I can create a repo soon. Right now it doesn't add the linebreak at the first time anymore, and I don't know why's that. The only case where it works is when I change the text manually.

 

Hopefully, you can get me some repro project on this. If submitting a bug report with the project makes it easier for you then please do that and once you get the email from Unity with the Case #, please post it here.

 

I can give you access to the project's repository via bitbucket. Could you PM me with the e-mail address I should use to add you?

 

I might be missreading but the OnPreRenderCanvas call is aborted of the object never called Awake before

Code (CSharp):

1. if (!m_isAwake || (this.IsActive() == false && m_ignoreActiveState == false)) return;

In other words if you call ForceMeshUpdate(true) it wont work if that object was never active before. May i suggest adding a second bool "Ignore Never awake"?

Technically you can just activate and deactivate the gameobject so awake gets called but thats just a codesmell tbh.

 

Awake is only called once in the life cycle of the object. If the text object has never been awaken, the above code will return.

If the object has been awaken, it might be disabled and if so it will return unless ForceMeshUpdate is forcing the update.

What is the scenario / case you are trying to handle?

 

Yes that is what I was trying to say with my Post.
I pointed it out because from my point of view the expected behaviour of using ForceMeshUpdate(true) on a object that was never awoken is that it would work anyway because its supposed to ignore the active state and therefore also that it was never enabled before.

Furthermore being forced to call

Code (CSharp):

1. if (!gameObject.activeSelf)
2. {
3.     gameObject.SetActive(true);
4.     gameObject.SetActive(false);
5. }

just so you can use ForceMeshUpdate(true) is pretty ugly in my opinion.

In my case the scenario involves a RectTransform whose sizeDelta needs to be readjusted based on the text that is put in it.

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. descriptionDisplayText.text = targetOption.Description.EnumerableString();
3. descriptionDisplayText.ForceMeshUpdate(true);
4. descriptionDisplayRect.sizeDelta = new Vector2(descriptionDisplayRect.sizeDelta.x, descriptionDisplayText.textBounds.size.y + descriptionDisplayTextPadding);
5.            
6. //The first ForceMeshUpdate was used so we can find out the text bounds, now we need to update it again because its canvas got changed
7. descriptionDisplayText.ForceMeshUpdate(true);

 

Active state relates to OnEnable and OnDisable. If the object has never been awaken, it will be awaken but that only happens once in the life cycle of the object.

Awake is required for initialization.

Why not use GetPreferredValues() to calculate what the size of the RectTransform should be.

 

Interesting, i did not hear of that function before. Sadly I dont seem to find any good documentation on it nor does Riders decompiled code help me much either.

I dont see a overload that gives the possibility to set a constant widht where I get the prefered Height back, am I missunderstanding something?

 

TMP_Text.GetPreferredValues()

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. /// <summary>
3. ///  Function to Calculate the Preferred Width and Height of the text object given a certain string and size of text container.
4. /// </summary>
5. /// <param name="text"></param>
6. /// <returns></returns>
7. public Vector2 GetPreferredValues(string text, float width, float height)
8. [/code

 

Ah from testing it I see my missunderstanding, what I thougth widht/height would mean is the that they would both be used as forced restrictions but it seems that the prefered width uses the input height and the prefered height uses the input widht. So I can call it with whatever height because I dont care about the prefered widht.

Thanks you for this information cleans up my code a bit ^^

 

Hi,

I'm still seeing the behavior with ForceMeshUpdate(true, true) on 2019.4.18f1, with TMPro 2.1.4.

I call SetText(), then ForceMeshUpdate() on an inactive TMProUGUI object, but the textInfo reports 0 characters.

Is there something I'm missing?

Thanks

Edit: I think this is actually due to a weird initialization/instantiation order that's specific to my setup. I'll figure it out on my end. Thanks!

 

Hello, I still get the same problem in 2020.3.19f1
Im trying to update a battle log when the object is inactive.

Code (CSharp):

1. battleResultLog.GetComponent<TextMeshProUGUI>().text = battleLogText;
2. battleResultLog.GetComponent<TextMeshProUGUI>().ForceMeshUpdate(true);

then i tried to get the height value for updating the scrollview content size

Code (CSharp):

1. // option 1:
2. Vector2 prefSize = battleResultLog.GetComponent<TextMeshProUGUI>().GetPreferredValues();
3. float prefHeight = prefSize.y + 15;
4.  
5. // option 2:
6. float prefHeight = battleResultLog.GetComponent<TextMeshProUGUI>().preferredHeight + 15;
7.  
8. DebugLog.text(prefHeight.ToString());

both options somehow didn't give the correct value (the Y size should be around 14,600 but it was 8749.9 instead)

Code (CSharp):

1. // set battle log content size
2. battleResultLog.parent.GetComponent<RectTransform>().SetSizeWithCurrentAnchors(RectTransform.Axis.Vertical, prefHeight);
3. // set scrollValue to default
4. battleResultLog.parent.GetComponent<RectTransform>().anchoredPosition = new Vector2(10, -prefHeight);

oh and about the script execution order, im not sure if i changed TMP's order or not (probably not), it's currently at:

1. TMPro.TextContainer at -110
2. TMPro.TextMeshPro at -105
3. TMPro.TextMeshProUGUI -100

*edit: right now, my only solution is to set the text value when the TMP's object is set to active. i was using BOLT visual scripting before i switched to C#, there was no problem with changing the text value when the object is inactive in bolt, but bolt is too slow so i switched all my script to C# in the end

 

What version of the TMP package are you using? The latest for 2020.3 is version 3.2.0-pre.2.

 

sorry for the late replay, i just checked and for some reason, my TMP package is at 3.0.6 - April 22, 2021 and i cant seem to update it. it says it's the latest one

 

This solution works by activating every parent in the tree up to the root, then restoring the active state of each.

Code (CSharp):

1.         public static int GetLineCount(this TMP_Text label)
2.         {
3.             var disableds = label.transform.EnumerateAllParents(true).Where(p => !p.gameObject.activeSelf).ToList();
4.             disableds.ForEach(p => p.gameObject.SetActive(true));
5.             label.ForceMeshUpdate(true);
6.             if (label.textInfo == null)
7.             {
8.                 Console.Log($"Label {label.name.Quoted()} doesn't have a 'textInfo' object. This is usually because it has not been 'Awoken' yet. activeSelf: {label.gameObject.activeSelf} activeInHierarchy: {label.gameObject.activeInHierarchy}");
9.                 // Try to salvage:
10.                 return label.text.Empty() ? 0 : (label.text.Count('\n') + 1);
11.             }
12.             disableds.ForEach(p => p.gameObject.SetActive(false));
13.             return label.textInfo.lineCount;
14.         }

Utility:

Code (CSharp):

1.         public static IEnumerable<Transform> EnumerateAllParents(this Transform go, bool includeSelf = false)
2.         {
3.             if (!includeSelf)
4.             {
5.                 go = go?.parent;
6.             }
7.             while (go)
8.             {
9.                 yield return go;
10.                 go = go.parent;
11.             }
12.         }
13.         public static string Quoted(this string s) => s == null ? "null" : $"\"{s}\"";
14.         public static int Count<T>(this IEnumerable<T> container, T v) { return container.Count(x => EqualityComparer<T>.Default.Equals(x, v)); }
15.         public static void ForEach<TSource>(this IEnumerable<TSource> source, Action<TSource> actor) { foreach (var x in source) { actor(x); } }
16.  

 

@Stephan_B I am experiencing similar issues on 3.2.0-pre.6. I update a label's text, use ForceMeshUpdate(true, true), and then try to access the line info and it is all still at default values (mostly 0s). This is resolved after a single frame, but I would like to react to the line info immediately upon text update.

 

Then you'll love my answer. ^