Confused why a node that's loaded in returns null?

[pearl garnet]

I guess that would mean it ISNT loaded in, but im just confused why this doesnt work.
outside_sad_global.gd (yes goofy ass name i know) is attached to the root node OutsideSad and the signal is emitted from dialogue in dialoguemanager, can someone help please? The error is thrown when the function is called so I know that the signal does emit well and all so no issue with dialogue manager.
"Invalid assignment of property or key 'animation' with value of type 'StringName' on a base object of type 'null instance'."

[halcyon finch]

you could put cheack in destroy function and not do anything when sandbox is null

[pearl garnet]

Then it doesnt change the animation at all tho :(

[halcyon finch]

then did you veriyfy that node path is correct

[pearl garnet]

Yes like a thousand times 😔

[halcyon finch]

from what i see dialog manager might be the issue it might be emitting the signal before node can initialize

and if not this then you could change onready into

export value and assign it manualy

[pearl garnet]

But if the signal emits only after interacting with the sandbox wouldnt that mean its initialized ?

[halcyon finch]

if that's the case then it should

another thing that may be happening is that you have some other code that deletes sandbox before it executes the signal

[pearl garnet]

No, at least i dont have anything like that explicitly written, idk maybe godot hates sandboxes LOL

[halcyon finch]

have you tried using export instend of onready?

[pearl garnet]

Not yet, hold on let me try to attach the script to the sandbox instead

Okay it doesnt crash anymore but I'm getting this error now? I'm guessing this was the cause of all the problems lol, not sure why it happens tho cause it even autofilled the name when i was typing it in the script ???

[halcyon finch]

your way of changing animation is werid you can just use play() function insted maybe that will solve it

[pearl garnet]

I tried play() at first and it didnt work either thats why I did it like that 😔

Im wondering if it could be a bug since This node was a regular Sprite2d at first then I changed it to an animatedsprite2d, Ill try to just remake the whole node again and see if that fixes it

Still nothing ☹️

This sandbox just dgaf i swear...

[halcyon finch]

have you tried redoing animation frames

[pearl garnet]

Yeah it doesnt work either :(

[halcyon finch]

do you have any other animated sprites like this or only this one

[pearl garnet]

The player has movement animation but its not triggered through a signal

Ive changed animations through signals like this before tho Idk why it doesnt work this time

[halcyon finch]

also dose it still shows the same error or just dosen't change animation

[pearl garnet]

No it doesnt crash anymore in the debugger it just shows an error

[halcyon finch]

there are two things that might do something one is to turn off looping on default animation and second one is to use different name than destroyed

but at this point i'm just guessing it might just be some really werid bug

and if you didnt reload project yet then you should it also might be memory corruption

[pearl garnet]

I played around with the looping stuff it didnt help either, I just changed the name as well and nothing :(

I reloaded the project as well and still nothing

[halcyon finch]

if you can try to remade the scene from scratch at least the relevant stuff and see if it still dose the same

[pearl garnet]

Oh man

Okay Ill try that

Also is this supposed to happen??

[halcyon finch]

i think so its internal resource so i don't think you can acces it like that

[pearl garnet]

Oh okey

Man why doesnt this work

[fringe blade]

Stupid question but do you maybe have a space before or after the animation name?
What do you need the path for?

Also, in the ready function try printing self to see if the AnimatedSprite2D is loaded properly

[rose nexus]

Does it work if you use an @export variable instead of @onready?

It is also better for this use case too. @onready is only really fit for scenes that don't instantiate any others and are self contained.

[pearl garnet]

Not a stupid question !! But no I dont I just checked

And I was just curious about the path

[pearl garnet]

Im not sure if im writing it correctly, like this? It throws an error still 😢

signal destroy_sandcastle
@export var sandbox_sprite: AnimatedSprite2D

func _ready() -> void:
    connect("destroy_sandcastle", self.on_sandcastle_destroyed)


func on_sandcastle_destroyed ():
    print("stompled") # this prints
    sandbox_sprite.play("stompled")

Mb its hard to read it from the screenshot

[rose nexus]

Ok, now that is weird.
It may be that the dialogue that triggers this is happening before the node is fully setup, does it crash instantly when running?

[pearl garnet]

It is It crashes right when the option that emits the signal is pressed

[rose nexus]

I meant as soon as the scene loads.
By the point you press that the node should be done setting itself up.

You don't add this sand castle trough code, right?

[pearl garnet]

My bad No it doesnt crash as soon as the scene loads
And nope it just chills there at all times...Sorry it's hard to see it behind the 5 million collision shapes

[rose nexus]

May be worth to save the playground as its own scene so you can test in a more encapsulated way.

You can right click the node and do "Save Branch as Scene"

[pearl garnet]

Pls I dont even know what to test for anymore it seems like nothing works

Maybe i have evil godot

For now Ill just leave it like this maybe itll work for some lucky player

[worn dove]

If you look at the remote tree when the game crashes, is the node tree how you'd expect it to be? Have you attached this script to multiple different nodes? Do you get any errors in the debugger panel about how a node path was invalid?

[boreal cedar]

yep check if it's attached to the node where you are expecting it to be attached and no other nodes. just make sure that is the only node with that script

[pearl garnet]

The playground node becomes seperate like this is this supposed to happen ??

And the script is only attached to Playground (area2d

[boreal cedar]

how are you adding the playground node to that scene..?

that looks like preload(".../.gd").new()

[pearl garnet]

It was just a regular node inside of the scene at first but I clicked save branch as scene

[pearl garnet]

What does that mean ?

[boreal cedar]

did you add it through code or did you add it to the main scene through the editor?

[pearl garnet]

I added it to the main scene through the editor

[boreal cedar]

if you are adding it through code a common mistake is to load the script and instantiate that instead of loading the scene, which leaves all child nodes from that scene behind

okay

then for some reason all child nodes are being deleted or lost for other reasons

show your main scene that includes playground

[boreal cedar]

i don't see the OutsideSad node in this remote tree?

[pearl garnet]

Wait leme try again

[boreal cedar]

ah did you launch just the playground scene alone?

[pearl garnet]

Should I show the tree for the main scene or justthe playground scene ?

[pearl garnet]

Yeah

[boreal cedar]

okay

still seems like you have two playground nodes in that case

[pearl garnet]

Huhh How does that happen

[boreal cedar]

are you perhaps loading the playground scene another way

[pearl garnet]

Not on purpose at least ☹️ I dont know how else that would happen

[boreal cedar]

Check your project settings global> autoload tab

[pearl garnet]

Ohh..I have the script set as a global, could that be causing the problem ? I needed it to be a global so that I could emit its signal from dialoguemanager

[boreal cedar]

Making it global adds another node to the scene tree

See that global node in the remote tree? That’s there because it is an autoload

[pearl garnet]

That makes sense... Thank you for finding the issue Do you know how else I oculd emit the signal :( Through a different global script ?

[boreal cedar]

Depends how you want to emit and connect the signal, you usually don’t really need them to be global if it’s just connecting up the tree

Otherwise just add that signal to Global instead

[pearl garnet]

Okay Ill do that, Im using dialoguemanager so the signal has to belong to a global

Thank you so much for the help!!!

Thank you to everyone who helped you guys are lifesavers 🙏

[pearl garnet]

Sorry how can I connect a signal to a function in a different file ? Do I have to preload that file or would that just cause the same error since im connecting it from global ?

[boreal cedar]

Every global node can be accessed by its name, so

Global.some_signal.connect(do_something)
Global.some_signal.emit()

[pearl garnet]

I meant like since I can only emit global signals from dialogue manager I could just put the destroy_sandcastle signal in Global and then in global.gd connect that signal to on_sandcastle_destroyed in sandbox.gd , is that possible?

[boreal cedar]

easier to connect in sandbox.gd exactly because you can acces the global everywhere

loading the script like that won't work exactly because you need to get that specific instance of sandbox, not just any sandbox

like with the playground issue you suddenly had two playgrounds you can't just load a second sandbox and expect that to connect to the first

[pearl garnet]

OH MY GODS IT WRKS

WORKS

Thank you so much dude

I didnt know you could connect signals like that

[boreal cedar]

you might have been using godot3 tutorials, godot 4 added this way