WithCancelingThrough("<Keyboard>/escape") also cancels with "<Keyboard>/e"

Just the latest of many issues with the new Input System, I found today that specifying "<Keyboard>/escape" for cancelling an interactive rebinding operation will also cancel the rebinding operation if the user presses the E key on the keyboard, meaning that we cannot rebind the input action to E. Suspecting the system was matching the substring of "<Keyboard>/escape" with "<Keyboard>/e", I changed the cancelling key to "<Keyboard>/backspace". And pressing B on the keyboard now cancelled the rebind operation. Substring test confirmed.

We're trying to use this for a commercial game, but I do not think that Input System, even at version 1.3.0, is ready for commercial use yet.

 

Implemented a work-around. In the onComplete callback, check the candidates for the desired cancel inputs and cancel it ourselves.

Code (CSharp):

1.         bool canceled = operation.canceled;
2.         if (!canceled)
3.         {
4.             // RebindingOperation has a bug where WithCancelingThrough("<Keyboard>/escape") matches
5.             // "<Keyboard>/e" so it looks like have to do it manually
6.             foreach (var candidate in operation.candidates)
7.             {
8.                 if (string.Compare(candidate.path, "/Keyboard/escape", ignoreCase: true) == 0
9.                     || string.Compare(candidate.path, "/Gamepad/start", ignoreCase: true) == 0)
10.                 {
11.                     canceled = true;
12.                     break;
13.                 }
14.             }
15.         }
16.         if (canceled)
17.         {
18.             Debug.Log("Rebind canceled");
19.             inputAction.ApplyBindingOverride(bindingIndex, previousBinding);
20.         }
21.  

 

Any ETA for 1.4?

Experiencing the same bug.

 

Great to know, thx!

 

Any updates on this?

 

Bump @Rene-Damm any updates about the release date? We are experiencing this bug as well

 

Guessing it's held up in QA :|

And yeah, I've had angry negative reviews about this too.

 

@Rene-Damm are you ok?

 

If anyone's looking for a gross solution in the meantime, override the cancel operation with total gibberish and manually handle in OnPotentialMatch:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. ongoingRebind = action.PerformInteractiveRebinding(bindingIndex)
3.     .OnPotentialMatch(operation => {
4.       if (operation.selectedControl.path is "/Keyboard/escape") {
5.          operation.Cancel();
6.          return;
7.        }
8.    })
9.    // bug which prevents binding to the `e` key...
10.    // .WithCancelingThrough("<Keyboard>/escape")
11.    .WithCancelingThrough("an enormous string of absolute gibberish which overrides the default which is escape and causes the above bug")
12.  

 

Similarly, I have had bad reviews and negative public comments because of this issue... it would be great to get a fix; and for unity to stop sitting on critical fixes for so long. Its not the first time I experienced this long of a delay for a fix and I am starting to question unity after using it for 10 years.
The package system was supposed to stop this kind of update delay problems. It must be hard to work at unity when this keeps happening and something is slowing down or blocking them from making the product better in a reasonable way.

 

@Rene-Damm

Also stopping by to check on this issue, any news on a release? Also does it resolve all the issues with the name matching, as I'm pretty sure "a" matches "anyKey" and "r" matches "rightStick/up | rightStick/down | rightStick/left | rightStick/right"... and any other potential matches.

 

The Pull Request #1492 shows this fix to be in ComparePathElementToString() so while I can't say for certain, it does appear to be a general case fix for those problems as well, yes.

 

Thank you so much for this. Had some time to try it out and it appears to work perfectly. I've added a check for "/Gamepad/start" too since I have both controls bound with the same method.

 

I should probably point out this should no longer be needed in the latest Input System 1.4.1 but I haven't upgraded yet so I can't say for certain.

 

You are genius. Thank you so much

 

@jukibom Thank you very much for the workaround!

 

-

 

A year later and 1.4 still hasn't shown up in the package manager.

 

I just stumbled across this. I thought I was going insame (pressing E and getting cancel events).
1.3 is still the default recommended version users will get through the package manager. Heck "<Keyboard>/escape" is even used in the documentation and tutorials.

To be frank. This is worrying. How someone decided that a patch for something like this is not being backported (within a YEAR) to the version you ship in the package manager by default is beyond me.

 

Thanks.

To give a bit of background and why I find this lack of backporting problematic. I am using the 2020.3 release (so no 2019 or older). I do this because I am adding InputSystem Support to one of my Assets. Unity 2020 still is the min version for Asset Uploads and users expect it to be supported (~18% are still on 2020 according to Unitys on stats). I therefore can not switch to 2021 nor can I know which version they will use.

While I understand the "you are using an old version and you should upgrade" logic, it simply is no option if you are dealing with an average Unity user. They will never do this:

Especially if the 1.3.0 version is the only one with the "verified" badge. For all practical purposes 1.4 and 1.5 do NOT exist until they are verified for older Unity versions. The gif was recorded in Unity 2020.3.30f1

That's why I would strongly argue that someone (please) backports this patch into 1.3.0. Things like this make the life of an Asset Dev truely hard sometimes.

And I also firmly believe that 1.3. should never have been shipped as it was. Recognizing Escape instead of E is just not something a INPUT system should do.

*Sorry for the ranty nature of my post. I am just frustrated at the moment. <3

 

For those who, like me, still need to support 1.3. I have extended jukiboms patch to be a bit more generic. It's a bit lengthy as it also supports multiple cancel paths.

Spoiler

Code (CSharp):

1. string[] abortControlPaths;
2.  
3. _rebindingOperation.OnPotentialMatch(operation =>
4. {
5.     if (InputSystem.version.CompareTo(System.Version.Parse("1.4.1")) < 0)
6.     {
7.         // We need a workaround for InputSystem < 1.4.1 due to this bug
8.         // https://forum.unity.com/threads/withcancelingthrough-keyboard-escape-also-cancels-with-keyboard-e.1233400/
9.         foreach (var cancelPath in abortControlPaths)
10.         {
11.             // Convert paths like "<Keyboard>/Escape" to "keyboard/escape".
12.             string path = cancelPath;
13.             if(path[0] == '<') path = "/" + path;
14.             path = Regex.Replace(path, "[><{}*]+", "");
15.             path = path.ToLower();
16.  
17.             string controlPath = operation.selectedControl.path.ToLower();
18.  
19.             // We'll only fix the diverging endings here.
20.             // All other cases may still fail but the users should upgrade
21.             // to InputSystem 1.4 anyways.
22.             // If path ends with a long word (like ../escape) but controlPath
23.             // ends short (like .../e) then ignore the comparison.
24.             int controlPathIndex = controlPath.IndexOf("/");
25.             int controlPathDelta = controlPath.Length - controlPathIndex;
26.             int pathIndex = path.IndexOf("/");
27.             int pathDelta = path.Length - pathIndex;
28.  
29.             if (Mathf.Abs(controlPathDelta - pathDelta) > 1)
30.             {
31.                 continue;
32.             }
33.  
34.             if (InputControlPath.Matches(cancelPath, operation.selectedControl))
35.             {
36.                 _rebindingOperation.Cancel();
37.                 break;
38.             }
39.         }
40.     }
41.     else
42.     {
43.         foreach (var cancelPath in abortControlPaths)
44.         {
45.             if (InputControlPath.Matches(cancelPath, operation.selectedControl))
46.             {
47.                 _rebindingOperation.Cancel();
48.                 break;
49.             }
50.         }
51.     }
52. });

 

I

am on Unity 2021.3.0f1 and I still only see Input System 1.3.0. Why can't I see a 1.4.4?

And I agree that by 1.3 you shouldn't have such a showstopping bug as E cancelling the bind when the ESC key is the one set.

I am getting highly frustrated with things like this. I'm just trying to make games, but it seems I get stopped constantly with problems here there and everywhere. I don't have time to spend hours investigating all of these problems and ways around them, I'm trying to do this around my full time job, and my time and sanity just gets killed.

Please send help!!!

 

Thanks. I didn't realise it wouldn't break anything, so I just left it alone. I try not to update anything unless I need to.

I managed to install it by changing the manifest, but I guess I could install .8 as well.

 

I am using 1.5 and with the following test code when pressing 'tab' (or anything else excluded), it binds the action to 'anyKey'. Is that a regression, or am I doing something wrong?

Code (CSharp):

1. private void RebindInteractively(InputAction action, int bindingIndex)
2. {
3. Debug.Log("Prebind: " + action.bindings[bindingIndex].effectivePath);
4.            
5. RebindingOperation rebind = action.PerformInteractiveRebinding(bindingIndex).WithControlsExcluding("<Keyboard>/tab");
6.            
7. rebind.OnComplete(r => { r.Dispose(); Debug.Log("Rebind:" + action.bindings[bindingIndex].effectivePath); });
8.            
9. rebind.Start();
10. }

 

Quick and dirty workaround for the 'anyKey' bug with similar shortcomings to the initial issue in this thread:
Hook into rebind.OnPotentialMatch and filter out '/anyKey'. Rebinding will still complete, but not override the original path.

Code (CSharp):

1. rebind.OnPotentialMatch(r => WithControlsExcluding(r, "/anyKey"));
2.  
3. private RebindingOperation WithControlsExcluding(RebindingOperation rebind, string pattern)
4. {
5.     InputControlList<InputControl> candidates = rebind.candidates;
6.  
7.     for (int i = candidates.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--)
8.         if (candidates[i].path.Contains(pattern))
9.             rebind.RemoveCandidate(candidates[i]);
10.  
11.     return rebind;
12. }

 

I don't think I've ever upgraded a full unity version on a project without getting at least some errors. To be fair, they are usually minor, but still often something I couldn't resolve without our programmer.

It is a bigger problem however when a (critical) plugin you are using hasn't updated and is blocking you from updating to newer unity version.

Also, people would probably rather stick with one working unity version for the length of one project and only upgrade if absolutely necessary. For above mentioned reasons.

 

By full version I mean Major version update from, say Unity 2019.4.x to 2020.x.x or to the latest Unity LTS version. Of course, the newer Unity version you're using, the less problems you will get when updating through versions. 2019->2022 is quite a change and I don't really expect it to go smoothly.

Oh yeah, if the new patch, or even a minor version, has a fix that you need then absolutely you should update. The risk is pretty much zero with version control and with minor releases nothing major(heh) usually breaks. However if I don't have problems, I rarely update versions mid project, but I do glance through the patch notes to see if there's something big. We might start updating the patches bit more frequently based on this conversation.

 

thanks for this post, else I wouldn't have found the solution to this problem I was experiencing and racking my brain over. Can't believe this bug is still present a year later. Unity has more bugs than "A Bugs Life", more bugs than the amazon rain forest and more glitches than Metal Arms 2: Glitch in the system.

Can't find any solution so now I must choose between players unable to bind the E key or being able to bind the escape key. Will have to go with the latter. 11/10 worth paying monthly for Unity Plus for.