So, looking at variables while stepping through blueprints has been unreliable for years, but I recently discovered that even the actual stepping through nodes can be unreliable too:
Long video, but just believe me when I say that when I insert print statements between every node, the stepping through with breakpoint suddenly starts working, but not before:
I’ve calmed down a little, but it’s still problematic in 5.1…
It’s just so tedious when debugging itself isn’t reliable.
EDIT: Some more of the same…
I’m going to see if I can capture some For Each Loops as well, because for some reason, Unreal often steps into those even when you are stepping over nodes inside of the loop…
EDIT 2: Wow, what I show in the first couple of seconds in the above video has now reversed… I’m no longer allowed to add breakpoints even in the main event graph of my player controller (something I show working in the very same video). This must be another 5.1 glitch??
Hey there @eobet! I’ve seen a couple issues regarding the reliability of breakpoints, but it’s rare to see top level (not nested or looped) breakpoints being skipped even when the node itself is firing. I don’t even have workarounds for that issue as it’s not consistent enough to recreate all the time (at top level). However, being unable to place breakpoints sounds like a possible bug, do you have many breakpoints placed throughout the BP? Is the option just grayed out?
A workaround for the inability to place breakpoints seem to be to either select a different tab and then go back and see if the option has appeared, or just restart Unreal.
But yes, it’s the unwanted sporadic resumes when you click on the “step over” button that’s really killing productivity… at least the issues with for loops seem easy to reproduce…
With for loops the inconsistently is a bit of a known issue, but being unable to place them at the top level after a certain amount was definitely new to me. I can successfully recreate it, albeit inconsistently. Best I’ve got for now is submitting the bug report and hoping it’s not a core issue with how BPs work. Thanks for bringing the issue up, and that workaround is likely to help others out in the meantime.
So… I’ve been stepping through so much blueprint debugging that Unreal begins stepping through even though no game is running (this is 5.2.1 now):
And when I close out the editor, a new window pops up looking like this:
After that, I have to kill the project, and then remove all cached, intermediate and saved folders and restart…
Oh dear, so do breakpoints just begin constantly firing whenever the projects open?
No, but it often happens when I click the Content Drawer.
I’ve now worked out that if I press the “abort” button in that toolbar enough times, it stops firing after a while and then I can continue editing my Blueprints.
But this unfortunately only reinforces my view that Epic feels like Blueprint sadly is only for prototyping. They don’t seem to have an interest in ensuring that hobbyists who cannot code can actually develop a full game in it. Now, I get why since those hobbyists have basically no impact on Epic’s bottom line, but it’s still unfortunate since Blueprints is the best visual coding implementation out there today.
