'Cannot find project file for animation frame' bug

Hi all,

A bug where opening your project gives the error "Cannot find project file for animation frame" has been reported many times now. (FYI you can usually work around it by ignoring or hitting 'retry' - the project will load and you can find the missing images and replace them - but it's still a frustrating and possibly serious bug.)

I hoped to have fixed it in the last build (r73), but it seems not - it's still been reported since then. It is incredibly difficult (sometimes impossible) to fix bugs if I can't reproduce them myself, and despite lots of reports, I'm still clueless how to set up a project and reliably make this happen. I have a feeling it might be to do with renaming objects or animations, but I'm not sure.

Can anyone provide any extra info on the cause of the bug? Better yet, can anyone reproduce it? With a reliable repro I can probably fix it immediately for the next build, and this bug has lasted for a long time now. It's especially frustrating since it appears to be the last serious bug in Construct 2 (plenty more less serious ones though!) and I really want Construct 2 to be bulletproof in terms of stability, and this is a bit of a nasty blemish on what I think is otherwise a very reliable bit of software.

So, any help much appreciated on this one!

This has never happened to me, but I'm pretty sure that the problem is when people move the images they imported to a new directory OR they rename the file of the image OR they rename the sprite OR they rename the animation.

Either way, I've never had it happen to me.

Cross off this one move the images they imported to a new directory, Just tried and that isn't the problem.

Closer to reproducing it, let me try the others.

EDIT

This isn't it: rename the file of the image

EDIT

None of these:

rename the sprite

rename the animation

Found something similar!

<img src="http://screensnapr.com/e/BZhgei.png" border="0" />

I deleted the Temp folder in "AppData\Local" whilst my project was open. And then debugged my project and got that.

I have a heavy feeling people have automated thing which deletes the Temp folder every so often.

OMG, I REPRODUCED IT!!

<img src="http://screensnapr.com/e/gwKmhy.png" border="0" />

I saved my project as a project (Not a single file) and then closed C2, Wen't into the project animations folder and into one of my sprite folders, then renamed the folder of one of the animation names. Then opened the project in C2 and got it!

Sorry dcrew, it doesn't count if you delete or rename files manually in Windows Explorer while Construct 2 is using them! Of course that will break it. I don't expect anyone who is encountering the bug is doing that. I think it is something in the editor which causes it, not modifying files outside of C2.

Sorry dcrew, it doesn't count if you delete or rename files manually in Windows Explorer while Construct 2 is using them! Of course that will break it. I don't expect anyone who is encountering the bug is doing that. I think it is something in the editor which causes it, not modifying files outside of C2.

You could be right, but I'd consider asking people if they did anything to there files first before that, you never know! People may decide to rename/delete files for reasons I don't quite understand, Sorry if I couldn't help <img src="smileys/smiley18.gif" border="0" align="middle" /> <img src="smileys/smiley18.gif" border="0" align="middle" /> I tried <img src="smileys/smiley9.gif" border="0" align="middle" /> But failed <img src="smileys/smiley11.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

I think this is the same error...got it today.

After a bit of digging about I found a couple of Temp files that might help you narrow it down. (if i help you solve it I want one of the special profile badges)

Heres the details:

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22173473/3boxes.png" border="0" />

Heres what i did:

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22173473/crashtoday.png" border="0" />

Forgot to mention that the 2 files named New project have been given the wrong time...I didn't alter them.

Happen to me many times. It forced to start saving different file names with revisions:

dl.dropbox.com/u/47035927/temp/SandBox-R007.rar

Here, if I save the project in file format, close, open, save in folder again, close, open, it will show up, sometimes, a missing sprite inside the >Background folder, copying the sprite there, the file still opening normal.

The missing sprite always happen only for the >Background folder in this project.

My workaround is save in file every Release and save in folder sometimes, so, if something goes wrong, I can set backup and in the most hard case, use the source code to restore the project and folders setups.

The first sample file (the C2 samples) I tried to reproduce on Chrome,

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47035927/temp/SCREENSHOT.png" border="0" />

I was using Chrome in privative navigation and it started a common navegation window, showing the error up.