Realtime Clocks only seem to work if you’re staring at them?
I wanted to make an event that started at say, noon GMT “tomorrow” and then repeated every six hours for 99 repetitions.
it doesn’t seem to work. If you’re present for the first one, it does, but if you log in after the initial timer, the clock just reads 0:0:0:00 instead of 0:5:59:59
Please select what you are reporting on:
Unreal Editor for Fortnite
What Type of Bug are you experiencing?
Devices
Steps to Reproduce
make a map with a realtime clock in it. set it to some future date/time and have it repeat every, who knows, ten minutes.
wire up an audio device to trigger some sound when the clock hits 0.
make a private version.
play it.
log out, wait 15 minutes, play again
Expected Result
if you log in as the first time hits, you’ll hear the sound play.
if you log out and log back in again, you’d expect the clock to say there’s 5 minutes left. (because you’ve used up half the 10 minutes) and then it would play the song again
Observed Result
clock just reads all 0 and doesn’t repeat when you told it to.
Platform(s)
xbox
Island Code
4970-2691-2291
Additional Notes
lots of islands are doing cool stuff with live events. The documentation makes it sound like the devices should “just work” without verse. They don’t seem to?
Am I doing it wrong?
I don’t understand.
”play at this date and time, then repeat event every 4 hours afterward for the next 30 days” is what the settings imply.
The current (unless things have changed) implementation seems to be “play at this date and time, and repeat every 4 hours afterward for the next 30 days as long as you were here when initially triggered, and haven’t left the server, in which case, you’ll never know it happened in the first place”.
Are there any examples of maps that are using this device as a standalone feature, or does it require verse to work properly?
The amount of time that this triggered experience lasts, each time it is triggered (because Instant is an option in the pulldown)
The amount of time allotted for the entirety of the experience’s initial and recurring lifetime. All Weekend, for example.
In the case of 1, it is assumed that I could ENABLE a spawner/vfx/etc and that it would remain on until the duration ends. This interpretation seems to be supported by the “On Duration Elapsed Send Event To” event. Which one can assume would then DISABLE the previously enabled objects.
One could see the value of the Second, as it involves less math when determining how many times to repeat the clock’s activation over, let’s continue using The Weekend. You could say “repeat 99 times” but if there’s only room for 11 repeats during the duration, it would only ever happen 11 times.
I’m going to go over to Developer Assistant and give it a hypothetical to resolve and see what it says.
This bug has been there for ages, I had made this document some time ago REAL TIME CLOCK DEVICE - Google Docs outlining the issues I had, keep in mind this was made in 2022 so some stuff could be fixed or changed since then.
I would recommend avoiding the real time clock devices repeat functions and if you are on UEFN I would advise using verse since it can get the current time as a float using the GetSecondsSinceEpoch() function.
Appreciate the sanity check.
I’m going to do a test where I put 12 vfx in with clocks that trigger every hour, twice a day, and if I log in and I can’t tell what time it is (by hour, don’t care about minute) when I log in, I’m going to continue poking this.
I’d love to make a clock-tower at some point in the future.
I think the solution may be to ignore the device and base everything on the value from this verse function. (Edit: I got distracted by Mineblos doc and missed that he mentioned same function!)
wait, is THIS the issue? I’m setting up a test to do a real-ish 12-hr clock, and it just occurred to me that the clock UI might not reset to anticipate its next repeat window… that if it hit its initial activation, it might just APPEAR dead.
I assume all epic can see private codes
**9652-5441-2571
array of 12 nodes. each of which turn on one hour after each other and last for 6 hrs. They then repeat ever 12 hours.
hypothetically. **
you can see the 8pm one properly counting down, but since the 7pm one ORIGINALLY occurred IN THE PAST, it doesn’t care about it anymore.
I’m not sure why this works “correctly” in editor.
^ Please see above videos, which verify that it’s not working as documented.
If there’s user error, please advise.
if player is present, event binding and clock repeat appear to function correctly.
if late, or if you relog after activation:
clock doesn’t reset to count down to next activation. reads 0,0,0,0,
VFX are not enabled during the expected duration
I have not done a test of logging in and being present, but outside of streaming range at the right time, then approaching the objects, to see if they’re active properly, as long as I was logged in during the active game. I might try that today.
As expected, if you log in now, since the clocks all activated during 10pm PST last night, eveything will be 0,0,0,0. (summary/reason: clocks do not repeat properly unless you’re there when they initially trigger, and only show countdowns if the initial trigger is in the future).
the INTERESTING thing, was I had someone in Australia with me, who saw the VFX trigger at the right times, if they were there the moment they were activated.
HOWEVER. none of the clocks were counting down for them.
Why? because IT’S TOMORROW THERE. All of my clocks were set to 2200 on the 9th. They were at something like 1800 on the 10th.
I’m amazed that they saw the VFX play, actually, since the clocks were broken due to international dateline or whatever.
I’ll put up a clip/highlight later. otherwise, you can find the vod on the same channel as the above links. I don’t want to spam it here because there’s further normal NB BR at the end of it.
