I’m working on Unreal Engine Sequencer. Naturally, the viewport menu displays properly when I launch the engine. But when I spend time working on it, at some point the viewport menu disappears.
This is different from the game view function, which can be toggled by pressing the G key. I’ve had this happen several times so far and the only solution was to shut down the engine and run it again. It is cumbersome as you have to reopen the level and sequencer each time.
Why is the viewport menu disappearing? Are there any features or shortcuts related to this phenomenon that I’m missing?
Hey there @Mos_Sunghoon! Is this happening consistently and only when working with the sequencer active? Does anything occur if you it Ctrl + shift + T?
Secondly, if you can get it to occur again, could you access the widget reflector under tools and see if it can still recognize the border in the SlateUI? Basically you’ll get a green boarder when attempting to use it here.
I don’t use the sequencer/rendering tools too often, but I have a theory if it’s a quirk from that side and not a bug the slate bar should still exist, just be invisible.
I’m not sure as I spend most of my time in sequencer because of my role on the project, but it probably is. It’s a fuzzy memory, but I didn’t have this problem in the phase where I was testing FBX imports before the project moved to the Sequencer phase.
2. Try Load Default Editor Layout Solution
Also, I tried resetting it by loading the default editor layout, but the toolbar still disappeared.
3. Try Show Toolbar (Ctrl+Shift+T) Solution
This shortcut only works as a viewport toolbar toggle when Sequencer is closed. When Sequencer is open, it turns into a hotkey that launches a function that changes the time display format (frames/timecode). So Ctrl+Shift+T won’t work when the viewport toolbar disappears while working in Sequencer. Instead, it just changes the timeline time format of the sequencer.
4. Check Cases with Widget Reflector
After relaunching Unreal Engine to check the widget area, I also checked the widget area when I clicked Show Toolbar to hide the toolbar and the problem I was experiencing recurred.
Thanks for that incredibly detailed response. Since the panel that holds the toolbar is gone I’m learning more towards a bug. I thought originally it may have been a sequencer convenience feature gone wrong, but I couldn’t reproduce it.
How long on average does it take to disappear? Is it usually after playback?
I’m working on a workflow that consists of multiple shot tracks in a master sequence. It seems that it usually takes 15 to 30 minutes for the problem to occur.
I use dual monitors, the main monitor is lying down (horizontal monitor) and the sub-monitor is in an upright position (vertical monitor). I’ve had a bug in the past where the UI’s position was misaligned when using a vertical sub-monitor in a 2D animation program called TVPaint Animation. Could this also happen in UE? I’m not sure.
Anyway, I tend to work with a sequencer on the sub monitor, but at some point when I look at the main monitor, the toolbar is hidden. So I can’t pinpoint exactly when the toolbar disappears. I’ll use OBS Studio to record the screen, figure out exactly what action the toolbar disappears, and write a follow-up reply.
There have been previous visual bugs (certain UI disappearing like the context menu) and things like that, but usually the widget reflector can generally still see it while your monitors may not. In your case the widget reflector couldn’t even see the slate panel that holds it, kind of like it was removed entirely. So while it’s definitely possible and Unreal has a history of an issue like it, the hallmarks for that aren’t quite the same.
An example of driver/multimonitor setups causing shenanigans.
that said it’s not quite the same as your issue here.
After an hour or so of screen recording, I managed to capture the moment when the viewport toolbar disappears.
2. Bug description
2.1. Convenience feature of Sequencer: Hide UI elements during playback
The toolbar is hidden during playback so that it does not interfere with viewing the final result by the convenience function of the sequencer. This is normal behavior. The important thing here is to hide it during playback and show it again when playback is over.
2.2. A phenomenon in which the condition for hiding the UI is reversed
However, in the part I captured, the toolbar eventually disappears with the following process.
Naturally, the toolbar is clearly visible when the sequencer is stationary.
When the sequencer is played, the toolbar is hidden as a convenience function.
During playback, the toolbar suddenly appears. (Bug point)
When playback is finished, the toolbar disappears.
What’s odd is that the toolbar isn’t completely gone. The toolbar is displayed again when playback is resumed, and hidden when playback is finished.
The behavior of the convenience function is reversed!!
Now, when you want to use the toolbar function, you can click the play button and quickly operate the toolbar before the playback ends. It’s a joke! Who would want to manipulate like that? After checking all this I restarted the UE.
I captured two GIFs. Seeing it with the text will help you understand the problem.
This is a GIF of the bug. The toolbar is not visible when stopped, but it is visible during playback.
This GIF showing normal operation after restarting the UE. When stopped, the toolbar is visible, and during playback, the toolbar is hidden.
3. How to reproduce the bug…??
By the way, I have caught the moment when this problem occurs, but I don’t know the exact conditions to reproduce the problem. I was just checking my animation by pressing the ↑ key and the ↓ key in sequencer quickly and repeatedly. But at some point, the show/hide condition of the viewport toolbar is reversed.
↑ : to move the header to the first frame ↓ : to play from the header position
Oh wow it just doesn’t trigger whatever function to return anymore, or if it does that function is failing for some wonderful edge-case. Considering it seems based on time or just pure random chance this will definitely be a bit harder to work on this one.
Was there any errors in the console as it failed? I doubt it as many of the slate issues I’ve seen quietly fail.
Usually I’d submit the bug myself but if this gets picked up they may need to gather some specific info from you directly since I can’t reproduce it on my side. (That said I only tried for about 20 minutes playing in the sequencer, going to try a bit more). However I’ll have to ask if you could submit a bug report.
Hmm… I have no experience with filing bug reports, but I think I can. (For sure, I can capture the moment when a bug occurs as a video file, so I think it will be advantageous for writing bug reports.)
However, I need to be more specific about my problem so the dev can reproduce the bug. For example, if an error message is displayed on the console, or if there are any other indications when the bug occurs.
I have a lot of other work to do, so I’ll try to write a bug report with a deadline of two weeks or so. Anyway, the project I’m working on now has bugs constantly, so I think I’ll have to restart the UE frequently in the future.
Oh no rush! If it’s not feasible I can put one together myself for it, just let me know. Though I can’t provide any more information if the bug gets picked up for reproduction and the team reaches out I could redirect them to this thread (or message you directly). I don’t mean to put any extra work on you, just an option going forward.
Yes I understood. If you can submit a report, please do so.
In my spare time, I’d like to make a video of the buggy moment and post it on this thread. I think that would make this thread more complete. If any further contact comes to me, I will sincerely respond.
No problem! I hope this doesn’t damage your workflow too much in the meantime! I’ll be doing a bit more research to see if this is consistent across others as well. (If anyone else has this issue and comes across this thread, feel free to let me know I’d be happy to take a bit of information that could help root it out.)
Thanks for being incredible with your information, and good luck with the project, looking good!
You are right. I also encountered this problem. In fact, it is caused by pressing spacebar to play the sequencer，it will automatically hide the menu of the viewport，but if you press the down arrow key, it will become the opposite display，because the down arrow key is also the play key, pressing spacebar again will display the menu，after stopping, the menu will disappear. This is a bug
That is excellent information. I’ll dig up my old report on this now. If you would be so kind to (if you hadn’t already) to possibly submit a full bug report?
It’s been 4 months and I’m still spending time on Sequencer. The bug where the visibility of the viewport UI is reversed still occurs, but as Adrian Tabacaru pointed out, simply clicking the Hide Viewport UI command in the Settings menu at the top right will return the visibility of the UI to its original state, so it is easy to fix. It is very convenient compared to shutting down and restarting Unreal Engine. But it would be best not to have this happen in the first place. I hope this bug gets attention from the developers and gets fixed.
Thanks! This is exactly this, the down arrow triggers the menu visibility switch but it can only start the playback and not stop it, contrary to the space bar.
2 possible fixes:
In sequencer, hit down arrow twice then space and it should have re-appeared.
Settings → Hide Viewport UI (message from AdrianTabacaru)
I did a bug report, as I could not find it there: https://issues.unrealengine.com/
I do hope this will be fixed in the next release
Thanks for reporting the bug. However, your link is to the main page of Unreal Engine issues. Could you please fix the link to point to your bug report page?
