Unable to Activate/Unload/Re-Activate Data Layers

Please select what you are reporting on:

Unreal Editor for Fortnite

What Type of Bug are you experiencing?

Assets

Summary

It seems that creating a repeatable activate/unload/re-activate flow for a single data layer isn’t working properly.

I’ve created an Activate and an Unload Level Sequence to manage showing/hiding a specific data layer.

The initial display works fine (in both cases where the Data Layer’s Initial Runtime State is either Unloaded or Loaded), as does the Unload, but the subsequent playing/triggering of the same Activate Level Sequence does not work for the second and beyond triggers.

On the second trigger, the assets are visible for a few frames then disappear. Any subsequent combo of unloading and retriggering and they never appear again.

I’ve provided 60 frames of pre-roll time for the activate call, tried adding unload, load and activate within the same sequence, and tried various combos of the Desired and Preroll state in the track’s properties, but the behavior for the 2nd+ activation remains the same.

Is this a supported flow or is there a different way i should be approaching it?

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Create a new data layer that is configured for Runtime, with an Initial Runtime State of Unloaded
  2. Assign assets to the the new data layer and verify they are displayed/hidden when changing the visibility of the newly created Data Layer
  3. Create a Level Sequence (and linked Cinematic Device) to Activate the Data Layer. It should contain 2 tracks, each configured to reference the Data Layer, that Load and Activate the linked data layer (also tried just Activate). It should have sufficient pre-roll frames (default of 60). For the Activate track, set the ‘When Finished’ parameter to Keep State and the pre roll state to Loaded and the Desired State to Activated
  4. Create a Level Sequence (and linked Cinematic Device) to Unload the Data Layer
  5. Create two buttons, setup to Play each of the cinematic devices
  6. Interact with the Activate button and observe the assets are correctly loaded
  7. Once the sequence playback has completed, Interact with the Unload button and observe the assets are hidden/unloaded
  8. Interact with the Activate button again and observe the assets are displayed for a few frames, then instantly disappear
  9. Interact with the Unload and then Activate buttons and notice the assets never appear again

Expected Result

Creators should be able to repeatedly load/activate/unload/re-load data layers.

Observed Result

The second onwards activation does not work. The second activation will display the layer for a few frames, then it disappears. The third, onwards activations, the data layer assets never appear

Platform(s)

PC, PS4

Island Code

7055-3740-3746

Additional Notes

Happy to provide more feedback or a sample project.
SayRunOsiris in the official UEFN Creator discord if you’d like to get in touch

I was also troubled by this phenomenon, so I verified a lot of things.

As a result, I found that existing props in Fortnite have the same bug, but imported original assets work fine.

2 Likes

The status of UCB-990 incident has been moved from ‘Awaiting Validation’ to ‘Needs Triage’.

Not sure if this will fix your situation, but if you right-click the transform in the sequencer you’ll see Edit Properties. Here, I put Keep State for everything. So after the sequence ends, the data layer stays. However, for some reason my game hitches for a sec but then works fine once data layers are updated.

Thanks for the reply. I did indeed have Keep State enabled.

The flow worked correctly for the first activate and the first unload but would then no longer work on the 2nd, onwards activate calls.

And yes, i tested with built in fortnite assets and not custom assets

2 Likes

I have experienced the same issue. Attempted to work around with a variety of methods to no avail. This seems like a bug with the editor and not user error.

Reproduction steps match the ones by @SayRunOsiris - a fix would be great!

Just wondering if there has been any fix for this or updates? I was just about to start working on something that would require loading and unloading of data layers on a continuous basis but don’t want to start if it’s still a known bug.

Haven’t heard or seen any update.

Fingers crossed it’s something that makes it in to 27.00

1 Like

So I can confirm that this issue only happens with Fortnite assets. The second time you try to activate the layer, the assets load in, then instantly or shortly unload.

This does not happen with custom imported assets.

1 Like

@SayRunOsiris looks like this is fixed in the new UEFN version! Can you confirm? So far it seems to be working perfectly for me now.

1 Like

@Bnerd @Bug-Reporter confirming that this flow appears fixed in 27.00 for both fortnite AND custom assets.

Safe to close this bug report!

Thanks for the fix! It’s really appreciated!

2 Likes

seems like this bug is back in 29.10

Yeah, the bug is back. 29.30