UAudioComponent gets LOST after about 60 seconds

Development Audio
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1

While using the UAudioComponent, I noticed what I can only assume is a bug

After spawning a sound with UGameplayStatics::SpawnSound2D() (or similar functions) then capturing the UAudioComponent reference, the reference to that UAudioComponent WILL BE LOST after about a minute (90% of the time it happens almost exactly at the 60 second mark).

And once the reference is lost, there doesn’t seem to be a way to get it back either, so the sound will keep on playing until it reaches the end of the sound or is terminated out due to some concurrency settings.

I have prepared a fresh project demonstrating this bug (see below code for link), but the key part is in the Tick() function of the Music Player below, which constantly “swaps (fade in/out)” between two different USounds (think of it as switching between two audio tracks of the same song).

You’ll notice that after about a minute, the error messages will start to trigger.

void AMusicPlayer::Tick(float DeltaTime)
{
	Super::Tick(DeltaTime);


	if (bIsBGMPlaying)
	{
		currentTimeBGM += DeltaTime;

		if (currentTimeBGM <= currentBGMlength)
		{
			if (timeToNextSwap < 0)
			{
				if (spawnedBGM_1->IsValidLowLevel() && spawnedBGM_2->IsValidLowLevel())
				{
					if (playingBGM1)
					{
					spawnedBGM_2->FadeIn(swapDuration, 1, currentTimeBGM);
					spawnedBGM_1->FadeOut(swapDuration, 0);
					}
					else
					{
					spawnedBGM_1->FadeIn(swapDuration, 1, currentTimeBGM);
					spawnedBGM_2->FadeOut(swapDuration, 0);
					}

					playingBGM1 = !playingBGM1;
					timeToNextSwap = swapInterval;
				}
				else
				{
					FString Msg1 = ".";
					FString Msg2 = ".";

					if (!spawnedBGM_1->IsValidLowLevel()) Msg1 = "X";
					if (!spawnedBGM_2->IsValidLowLevel()) Msg2 = "X";

					UE_LOG(LogTemp, Error, TEXT("%s  |  %s"), *Msg1, *Msg2);
				}
			}
			else
			{
				timeToNextSwap -= DeltaTime;
			}
		}
		else
		{
			UE_LOG(LogTemp, Error, TEXT("==== TIMEOUT ===="));
			spawnedBGM_1->Stop();
			spawnedBGM_2->Stop();
			bIsBGMPlaying = false;
		}
	}
}

DOWNLOAD SAMPLE PROJECT HERE

I’m working on a work-around to this issue for the moment, but since I do believe this is NOT intended behavior, I’m sharing it hoping that someone can take a look at it one day.

Cheers.

2

I have not looked at your sample, but are your audio components marked as UPROPERTY? If not, they will be picked up by the garbage collector

3

Hi SlimeQ, I couldn’t respond right away because I wanted to double-check with my project (speaking of which, I had deleted my project on DropBox by accident; I’ve re-uploaded it in case you want to check it out).

Yes, all UAudioComponents are marked as UPROPERTY()… unfortunately. :frowning: