Check your save setup

Every check reports to Window > Message Log > Rolly Save Checks, one page per run. A message names the actor or asset first (click it to select an actor, also one whose World Partition cell is not loaded, or to find an asset), then the problem and how to fix it, then its buttons.

Find problems when you save a map

When you save a map, actors of a World Partition map or a Save Rule, Rolly Save checks what you saved on the next editor tick, so the save never waits:

• a map: every actor in it, the classes they use and the Save Rules that match them;
• World Partition actors: those actors, and their Custom Save IDs against every other actor of the map, loaded or known from its World Partition data;
• a Save Rule: its paths and its ties with other rules, against the actors of the open map.

Warnings and errors go to a page named Saved with the map and time; notes are left out, and a check that finds nothing writes no page. Set how it reports in Project Settings > Plugins > Rolly Save > Editor Checks > Check After Saving:

Autosaves, cooks, other procedural saves, commandlets and saves during Play In Editor are never checked.

Check the open map

Choose Tools > Rolly Save > Check Open Map, or run rolly.save.check in the console. It checks every actor of the open map, unloaded World Partition actors included through their World Partition data, the classes in memory and every Save Rule, and opens the Message Log at a page that ends with a summary, such as “Checked Tavern: 412 actors (130 unloaded), 38 classes and 5 Save Rules: 0 errors, 2 warnings, 1 note.”

Class checks need the class in memory. When unloaded actors use classes nothing has loaded, a note names them with Load {N} Classes and Check, which loads them in the background and checks the map again.

Show Check Results in the same menu opens the Message Log at Rolly Save Checks.

Check the whole project

Choose Tools > Rolly Save > Check Project, or run rolly.save.check -project. It checks Project Settings, every Save Rule, the open map and every World Partition map under /Game from the World Partition data the asset registry holds, without loading their actors. Maps without World Partition exist only while loaded, so a note lists them: open each and use Check Open Map, or run the commandlet (see Command line), which loads them one at a time.

Fix a problem from the Message Log

Buttons under a message change one thing in one step of Edit > Undo, and each works once:

Open {Asset} opens the struct, rule or Blueprint, and Pick Properties for {Class} opens Pick Properties for the rule or component. After a fix, the check that found the message runs again over the open map.

Ignore a check for one actor, folder or asset

Ignore {Asset} writes Ignored Assets to Config/DefaultGame.ini at once, checking the file out of revision control or making it writable first; when neither works it changes nothing and says why. Edit > Undo takes the asset out again and writes the file again. Tags count for unloaded actors too, since World Partition data holds them.

Choose how strict each check is

Project Settings > Plugins > Rolly Save > Check Severities has a row per check. Default keeps the check’s own severity; Off stops the check; Info, Warning and Error report its messages as notes, warnings or errors. Only Error fails Data Validation, so it also fails a revision control submit and the commandlet.

Property Paths, Level Tool Setup and Actor Setup also set the severity of those messages in the Data Validation of Save Rules, Rolly Save components and level tools. The rows govern editor checks only; messages during play keep theirs.

Fail a submit or a CI build on errors

Revision control

Rolly Save adds its map checks to Data Validation: Tools > Validate Data, the DataValidation commandlet, the check before a revision control submit and scripts run them, and a message at Error fails the map. Saving does not, since Check After Saving covers it. To turn them off, add to Config/DefaultEditor.ini:

[/Script/RollySaveEditor.RollySaveMapValidator]
bIsConfigDisabled=True

Command line

UnrealEditor-Cmd.exe MyGame.uproject -run=RollySaveCheckProject [-Map=/Game/Maps/Tavern]... [-Path=/Game/Maps]... [-WarningsAsErrors]

Without -Map or -Path it checks every map and Save Rule under /Game; both repeat. World Partition maps are read from their World Partition data, other maps are loaded and let go one at a time. It prints:

Rolly Save check: 3 maps, 5 rules
ERROR   /Game/Maps/Tavern: DuplicateCustomId: Rolly Save: Door_2 and Door_1 in Tavern share ...
WARNING /Game/Data/DA_Lamps: PathNotApplicable: Rolly Save: ...
Rolly Save check: 1 errors, 1 warnings, 0 notes

Severity rows, Ignored Folders, Ignored Assets and actor tags apply as in the editor.

Check World Partition maps without loading them

A Rolly Save component writes its Custom Save ID into its actor’s World Partition data as RollySaveId each time the actor is saved, so the checks find duplicates among actors that are not loaded. Actors last saved before this version have no RollySaveId; a note, Unloaded Actors without Saved IDs, counts them per map. Load and save them once, or resave every such actor of a map with the engine’s Resave Actors builder:

UnrealEditor-Cmd.exe MyGame.uproject /Game/Maps/World -run=WorldPartitionBuilderCommandlet -Builder=WorldPartitionResaveActorsBuilder -ResaveDirtyActorDescsOnly -SCCProvider=None

-ResaveDirtyActorDescsOnly saves only the actors whose World Partition data changed. With revision control, give your provider instead of None, such as -SCCProvider=Perforce, so the files are checked out.

No check sees an actor moved to another sublevel or replaced with Replace Selected Actors: it gets a new name and loses its saved state (see Give an actor an ID of its own).

Keep Custom Save IDs unique in level instances

An actor with a Custom Save ID inside a level that a map embeds twice or more, as Embedded level instances whose actors join the map’s World Partition, has that ID in every copy, so each copy saves under its name instead (Custom Save ID in a Level Instance). Clear the Custom Save ID on the actor inside that level, or set Level Behavior to Standalone on those level instances: each Standalone copy keeps the ID as its own, and Duplicate Custom Save ID compares IDs within each Standalone level instance only. Ignore {Asset} on the message adds the level to Ignored Assets.

Keep Reset Areas where they can reach their actors

A Reset Area in a streaming sublevel or a Standalone level instance exists only while its level is loaded, so it cannot reset the actors of other levels inside its shapes while that level is unloaded. Reset Area in a Streamed Level warns when its shapes reach saving actors of other levels, loaded or known from their files, naming up to 10 of them. Move the area to the persistent level, place it in the map instead of inside the level instance’s level (the message’s Open button opens that level), or fit its shapes to its own level’s actors. Areas of the persistent level and of Embedded level instances, whose actors join the map, never warn. The check after a save reports an area when the save holds the area or an actor it reaches, as the two are in different levels.

Keep replicated collections from abandoning pieces

A geometry collection component with Enable Replication and Enable Abandon After Level both on under Network, as the engine sets the latter, makes the server turn off each piece of a level past Replication Abandon After Level once it breaks: saves keep no break past that level, and clients show none of a load’s restore. Replicated Collections That Abandon Pieces names each such collection of a loaded actor whose Destruction is not Off, with the fix: untick Enable Abandon After Level. A listen or dedicated server says the same in the Message Log once per collection while playing. An actor that is not loaded is checked once it loads.

Keep the engine’s debug commands off the quick keys

When Play In Editor starts with Enable Quick Keys on, Debug Commands on Quick Keys names each of the engine’s debug commands bound to a quick key without a modifier key, such as viewmode shadercomplexity on F5 and shot showui on F9 from Engine/Config/BaseInput.ini: outside Shipping they run on the key beside the quick save or load. Remove Them adds a -DebugExecBindings line for each to [/Script/Engine.PlayerInput] in Config/DefaultInput.ini, checking the file out of revision control or making it writable first, as one step of Edit > Undo; when neither works it changes nothing and says why. The setup panel’s Quick save keys row has the same button, for the keys it shows.

Catch struct members that do not save

A SaveGame variable that holds a struct saves only the members that have SaveGame ticked too. Rolly Save warns:

• Struct Members without SaveGame, for a Blueprint struct, naming up to three members, nested ones as Inner.Count. Press Flag Every Member of {Struct}, or tick SaveGame on the members you want in the struct editor.
• C++ Struct Saved in Part, for a C++ struct. Save the members you need by path in Pick Properties, mark them SaveGame in C++, or save them in a Save Handler.
• Property GUIDs Not Cooked, for a Blueprint with SaveGame variables whose Should Cook Property Guids? gives No: renaming one of those variables later loses its saved value in packaged games. Not checked when Project Settings > Cooker cooks property GUIDs for every Blueprint.

Structs that save whole, such as vectors, transforms and C++ structs with a serializer of their own, are never reported.

With Editor Checks > Check Blueprints on Compile on (the default), compiling a Blueprint that Rolly Save saves through SaveGame (actors, components, the game instance and its subsystems, Save Handlers and profiles) adds these warnings to its Compiler Results. Blueprints of the engine’s Save Game class save their structs whole and get none.

Find handlers that save nothing

Data Validation of a Save Rule or Rolly Save component warns (NoTargets) when an engine state handler it attaches finds nothing to save. A component’s check looks at its actor. A rule’s check runs when Match Mode is All Lists, Match lists Classes and every listed class is loaded; it counts each class’s components, its Blueprint components and timelines and, for the AI handlers, those of its AI Controller Class. Child classes of the listed classes may add components, so the rule’s message ends “their child classes were not checked”, except when the classes are controllers, whose child classes are controllers too.

The component’s Effective Settings shows the same: such a handler’s line reads “finds nothing” with the reason beside a warning icon (see Save materials, timelines, sequences, montages and sounds).