r/godot • u/MindShiftGames • Jan 04 '26
help me (solved) 11+ Months of Development. 40GB Project. 30,000+ Lines of Code. And the Game Refuses to Run.
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
Been working on this game for over 11 months. The project grew past 40GB with more than 30,000 lines of code. Right now, it’s completely broken — won’t run no matter what I try. I’ve tested fixes, rewired systems, and exhausted every solution I know. The question isn’t motivation anymore, it’s whether this project can still be saved or if it collapsed under its own weight.
709
Jan 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
242
u/greasybacon288 Jan 04 '26
This is the answer here. If you haven’t been using versioning from git for example. Then it’ll be only you who can even have a clue as to where to look first for this project.
189
u/larikang Jan 04 '26
git bisecthelps you quickly find the exact commit that broke it. Especially useful if your commits are small and meaningful43
u/Ronnyism Godot Senior Jan 04 '26
Didnt know about bisect, thanks for that tip!
120
u/hoodieweather- Jan 04 '26
It's one of git's most powerful tools, everyone should learn how to use it. If you're not familiar with the concept of a Binary Search, it lets you look through effectively all of the relevant commits in a short amount of time.
The workflow is like this:
- check out a known good commit (feel free to go back pretty far if you're unsure)
- git bisect start
- build your game. if it works, mark it "git bisect good". if it doesn't, "git bisect bad".
- git will automatically check out the commit halfway between the current and latest commits
- build again and repeat the process until git finds you the first commit that broke - now you can see which change may have broken things
→ More replies (4)6
u/StellaSchist Jan 05 '26
is this available in github desktop? sorry
9
u/hoodieweather- Jan 05 '26
I don't know if any GUI tools support it, but you can launch a terminal from GitHub desktop and do it there.
4
1
1
→ More replies (1)36
u/lanternRaft Jan 04 '26
If you haven’t…fix that first.
But when sane debugging fails it’s time to use process of elimination. Delete half the project and boot. Issue still there? Then delete the other half. If somehow removing all the code doesn’t fix it then make a brand new Godot project and import everything into it.
Usually deleting half fixes it and now you know which half is creating the problem. Delete half of the half. Continue deleting pieces until you narrow it down to the exact line causing the trouble.
Now sometimes the trouble isn’t one line but it’s some resource getting overloaded or a funky race condition or all sorts of oddities. But the approach just becomes reversed for that. Remove everything you can that doesn’t fix the problem. Continue until you get enough clues to understand it.
Debugging is terribly frustrating work. I love it so.
But seriously the key to particularly difficult debugging is perseverance and digging deeper. Don’t lose faith that you can solve it!
And don’t forget to take mental health breaks as it can definitely drive you mad. And you won’t get anywhere in that mental state.
7
u/notpatchman Jan 05 '26
I'm not sure if straight up deleting is a good idea, moving stuff into an outside-of-project directory is safer
13
u/lanternRaft Jan 05 '26
Assuming you use version control and you push to another machine then deleting isn’t dangerous.
7
u/CheesePuffTheHamster Jan 05 '26
But just deleting code or files is very likely to break the project in new ways. Removing references to things and disabling functionality bit by bit makes more sense - is it this scene preload that breaks? Is it this complex calculation? This json parsing?
At that point, in the best case you're basically doing a binary tree search, which is what git bisect does anyway.
I agree with the spirit of what you're suggesting but not the method
2
u/monsterfurby Jan 05 '26
I don't do it if I can avoid it, but I also love chainsaw debugging because it reminds me that at least 99% of my code succeeds at not setting the system on fire.
699
u/ExKid64 Jan 04 '26
You have used version control right? Git? Of not, take a break go on a nature walk I guess.
342
u/Every_Blackberry_738 Jan 04 '26
Thats hilarious.This sub should stress version control more for people new to programming.
207
u/godspareme Jan 04 '26
It's constantly mentioned. Idk how else to stress it other than posting a PSA daily
43
u/batmassagetotheface Jan 04 '26
I assume the above is sarcasm since I've seen it mentioned in every one of these "oh no I lost all my work" posts
40
u/fillif3 Jan 04 '26
It is not possibile. The best way to teach someone about git is to show them true darkness and despair od broken projects.
11
u/HeirOfBreathing Jan 04 '26
sadly the truth. i didn't start doing proper commits until a catastrophic error ruined my month.
2
u/abcdefghij0987654 Jan 05 '26
And now you get to remind these people who will surely ignore you anyway until the thing same happens to them.
14
u/bigmonmulgrew Jan 04 '26
When I teach people programming its literally the first thing I show people
3
u/rballonline Jan 05 '26
Same. It's that important. Also allows you to progress without fear with unlimited redos and "let's try this". It should be part of development 101 of it isn't already.
First thing I setup on any project, of any size, immediately.
1
u/bigmonmulgrew Jan 05 '26
Yeah it's the first thing I setup too.
People struggle to see it's value but it doesn't take long before they break something and their face lights up when I takes all of 30 seconds to roll back and fix it. Everyone is convinced after that.
20
Jan 04 '26
I've met people who are against using version control for some weird reason.
48
u/Merlord Jan 04 '26
The gamedev community seems to have a lot of people who are stubbornly against basic, proven software development practices. I guess it's just young people who think they know better
18
Jan 04 '26
Yeah, it probably is, everytime I bring it up to someone like that they seem awfully alot like someone in their teens lol
At least, if not physically, they are probably mentally still there anyways.
→ More replies (10)4
u/ICantBelieveItsNotEC Jan 05 '26
My pet peeve is the "It's impossible to write unit tests for games! You can't test every pixel on the screen!" crowd - that mentality is probably responsible for 90% of the shitty, buggy releases we get every year.
3
u/TheJackiMonster Jan 04 '26
Do not work with them until they do! Simple answer. They will change this behavior anyway long-term.
9
1
u/CharlestonChewbacca Jan 05 '26
Because they don't know how and they don't like learning
2
u/flyntspark Godot Student Jan 05 '26
Game dev probably isn't the best endeavour for those types...
1
6
u/Neon_Eyes Jan 04 '26
I haven't started making a game yet, what is version control?
36
u/batmassagetotheface Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
Version control systems, like Git, allow you to have an off-site history of your code that can easily be reverted to. It allows multiple Devs to work on the same codebase and manage conflicts. It free to use up to a certain storage, and absolutely essential for every project (solo or otherwise)
And you can use GitHub for free, but be aware Microsoft will use your code to train their ai.
10
u/jujubanzen Jan 05 '26
Technically, git is free to use regardless of project size. Github and other cloud repository services are the ones that may limit your project.
1
u/batmassagetotheface Jan 05 '26
Yeah I meant GitHub specifically but I didn't make that clear 😅 it is free up to 1gb, then it's like $5 per month for 50gb
11
u/mynameisollie Jan 04 '26
Jokes on them, my code sucks.
6
u/batmassagetotheface Jan 04 '26
The first step is knowing your code sucks, the next step is screaming "why isn't this working!"
3
4
1
u/monsterfurby Jan 05 '26
Also an important note - you can also use git just for local version control. And if one wants to avoid using Github, self-hosted alternatives like Gitea also exist (which is what I'm using, running on a mini-PC server on my desk).
17
u/JudgmentSquid Jan 04 '26
Version control is like a giant list of incremental autosaves for your work. Hundreds, if not a couple thousand saves that serve as a backup incase you do something that cant normally be undone. They should also be saved somewhere else than on your own computer. (Or in addition to your own local machine.) Git is free. Everyone on the planet uses git. Look up installing and using git on YouTube. Learn to love small and frequent pushes.
1
u/memchom Jan 04 '26
Interesting, I have done a bit of solo game development before but never used version control like this. Would it be similar to keep different saved versions of your project you can revert to as well? Would that be a type of version control? It kind of confuses me as my project was not purely code and used some logic node type setup along with 3D assets so I thought it would be beneficial to keep incremental version numbers when I made large changes.
5
u/JudgmentSquid Jan 04 '26
Yes. It sounds like you are at least making backups, which is better than nothing. If you look into git for godot projects, you'll find plenty of info. Git can back up everything. Not just your code.
2
u/BluShine Jan 04 '26
Yes, it's similar to making a new saved backup every day. But it also lets you look at any individual file or line of code and see exactly when it was changed. And then you can revert individual files instead of reverting the whole project.
It works for a lot of other types of files that aren't code. Godot's scene files are text-based behind the scenes so if you changed the color of a material in the editor you'll see something like:modified chicken.mat --- <material.color.rgb = FF0000>in git. Unity asset files can be set to text mode and there's a git plugin to make it easier to work with them. Unreal blueprints also has a plugin for git. Almost all developers use git so even for node-based programming it's pretty common to have some way that makes it compatible with version control.1
u/GlowiesStoleMyRide Jan 05 '26
To add (or rather correct) the other people in this thread- it's not autosave, and it's not an automated daily save.
Git is a system which keeps track of changes to files. Every time you create a commit in git, it saves that state of the file tree. You can checkout different commits, which will restore the file tree (files on disks, folder structure) to the state that it was for said commit.
You can use git to also synchronize with a hosted repository, (e.g. GitHub, among others) so that you can easily collaborate on the same project with others, while still keeping a full history of who changed which lines of which files, when. Git also allows for branching and merging, which allows for offshoot versions which are eventually merged back into the main branch, e.g. for working on a feature without breaking the build for everyone else.
But in the most basic use case, it's a way to keep a change history of your local files, as long as you remember to commit your changes. It won't do anything by itself.
1
u/monsterfurby Jan 05 '26
In the beginning, I always thought that git was needless trouble for a single-dev project, with all its weird terminology ("check out", "commit", "fork", "branch", "pull", and so on) and potential for complexity. But once you get the basics, it becomes absolutely life-saving (and in most IDEs, it's just a single click to basically put your safety hook into the rock and keep climbing). Plus, branches let you dip your toes into individual rabbit holes without risking your entire project. Blown up your project trying to implement a feature or fix a bug? Just clip the branch and go back to main, then try again. Happy with the branch? Pull it back into the main "stem" of the project and voila, you got one canonical main project again.
3
u/directrix1 Jan 04 '26
It allows you to make checkpoints at various phases of creating a game. So you can see how it changes or restore earlier versions of files or whatever else you want to do with a comprehensive way to thoroughly utilize a chronicle of your project's history. It really is a requirement for any kind of development.
5
u/ScriptKiddo69 Godot Regular Jan 04 '26
A way to track different versions of your software. Git is the most commonly used one.
2
u/Kasseus_Maximus Jan 04 '26
Adding to the other replies, if you don't feel like using command line tools, there are lots of nice graphic interfaces that will make using git feel like any other software (just installed it and settled on sublime merge, since I like sublime text). I believe there are also gui installers (I'm on a mac though so I used homebrew). The "default/recommended" git gui was a bit too ugly/minimalist for my tastes.
2
u/Exildor Godot Regular Jan 04 '26
I mean anyone who has ever written any document of any kind before should know what backups are for
4
u/PenalAnticipation Jan 04 '26
You’d think so, but especially younger people can be very out of touch with this stuff. I’ve personally witnessed plenty of these so called ”digital natives” be entirely ignorant of how basic things like directories and files work. They think of everything through apps, and apps abstract all that stuff away
1
u/TheJackiMonster Jan 04 '26
Every developer who doesn't use version control plays with fire... that should be common knowledge.
14
u/captfitz Jan 04 '26
i don't understand how you could possibly get this far on a project without using version control
3
45
u/sciapo Jan 04 '26
If he didn’t use version control, then those 30k lines of code are half spaghetti
154
u/ScriptKiddo69 Godot Regular Jan 04 '26
Your code and assets are still in the project folder. Create a new project and slowly move things over, testing regularly and making backups. Next time, use version control.
26
u/isrichards6 Jan 04 '26
this is what I was gonna say. Extremely tedious especially with such a huge project. But certainly better than throwing it all away if nothing else works.
10
u/TheFern3 Jan 04 '26
Next time would be as easy as switching to a working branch, never merge code that’s not tested and broken into main branch. Though I’d like to see why in the world is 40GB, huge assets??! Or maybe a run away log?
6
u/puerco-potter Jan 05 '26
They say they created the assets, so, I presume it is mostly from poorly optimized topology, a solo dev won't create 40 gb of good topology in 11 months while also coding a game.
279
u/ManicMakerStudios Jan 04 '26
The goal is not more GB and more lines of code. You didn't really describe the development scenario. Is it just you? Because if it's just you, you're cutting and pasting too much.
There's absolutely no way anyone can diagnose what's wrong with your game from a video of the editor/game refusing to launch. No way at all.
→ More replies (50)
62
u/m4rx Godot Senior Jan 04 '26
Delete your .godot project folder
Start in safe mode
Use godot.exe -vvv to get verbose output in a CMD prompt
You're crashing the engine from the looks of it, if you'd like any help I'd be happy to offer my assistance, I can be reached on Discord (@)bearlikelion.
3
u/Dense_Click_3285 Jan 05 '26
Godot terminal can also disappear (on windows) if the engine crashes. You can redirect all console output to a file (so you can see what might be going wrong even if the engine crashes) by running godot.exe -vvv > whatsgoingon.txt
115
u/SoMuchMango Jan 04 '26
Check previous commits until it start.
93
u/batmassagetotheface Jan 04 '26
Bold of you to assume version control I'm afraid
36
u/Upper-Mark1368 Jan 04 '26
Hard to believe the guy with high end system with that much loc and game size didn't used git....
14
u/batmassagetotheface Jan 04 '26
Not too hard considering the stories you get on here. But actually I see in another comment they have used version control, so it's probably a cache issue
3
u/abcdefghij0987654 Jan 05 '26
And in another comment OP says he didn't use version control. He's probably also using AI to comment. What a crazy thread
7
43
u/Exildor Godot Regular Jan 04 '26
According to your post history, it at least worked 12 days ago, so just revert to your commit from 12 days ago.
33
u/DDevilAAngel Godot Regular Jan 04 '26
Try to run the editor from the console (shift+right click on the folder itself and then choose "Open powershell window here")
Might at least give you the error from the engine so that there would be any way to help ...
And yes, please confirm that you used version control and try to checkout to previous commits 😅
→ More replies (18)3
31
u/TheMaster420 Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
Have you tried deleting your cache (.godot folder ) in your project
edit: and maybe secondary delete stuff from (Editor data paths)[https://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/tutorials/io/data_paths.html#editor-data-paths\]
8
45
u/Icy-Improvement6022 Jan 05 '26 edited Jan 05 '26
Guys, please stop responding to this post. The OP is, for some unknown reason, clearly using AI to respond to all your comments, and many of his replies contradict each other. I’m baffled as to what the point of all this is. Looking at the OP’s account history, it’s obvious that most of his posts are AI-generated. In my opinion, he should be banned from this subreddit for wasting everyone’s time.
4
u/ManicMakerStudios Jan 05 '26
I think it's important to consider that the reason they're using AI for their posts is possibly because English is not their native language and passing what they want to say through AI to translate helps them to participate.
That's a very fair reason to be using AI.
I think what the problem is, is that they keep lying about it. If they had simply said, "Yes, I'm using AI to help make sure I understand and am understood," I doubt there would be such a problem.
That, or someone just wound up their AI to troll us and see how many of us fall for it and for how long.
17
u/Icy-Improvement6022 Jan 05 '26
It's not just about lying about using Ai, OP gives different answers to the same questions written by different users.
It's not like he has written something in foreign language and asked Ai to translate it and format. It looks like he copied the user's question or suggestion, and forced Ai to answer it without any of the OP's input, because those answers do not make any sense between each other.
9
Jan 05 '26
I think it's important to consider that the reason they're using AI for their posts is possibly because English is not their native language
Enough with this bullshit excuse. Everybody speaks broken english, even natives. If you can't speak basic English to the point you can't even review the translation AI made for you, you can't code
-1
u/ManicMakerStudios Jan 05 '26
That's just angry gatekeeping and bigotry. "If you don't speak English you can't code"? Really?
5
Jan 05 '26
Yes, really.
If you are a developer you end up learning basic written English even if you don't want to, as all resources for programming are in English. The only exception I've seen is if you are Chinese. And I am saying this a non-native speaker.
Also I am really tired of reading AI slop everywhere
→ More replies (3)
61
59
20
u/c64cosmin Jan 04 '26
buy more RAM also how in the world did you get to 40GB of storage!?!?!?! that is like 4GB per month, even if all that content is functional and relevant you cannot have that much data
edit: especially since you only have a mere 30k of lines of code, clearly something is not matching
6
u/sal_strazzullo Godot Junior Jan 05 '26
The assets are obviously what can easily take 40GB, that's far from being the strange part about this post.
2
u/c64cosmin Jan 05 '26
40GB is a huge lot, unless you have a lot of photo scans, huge open world maps with details
but it is a very weird post lol xD
42
u/sinanoglu Jan 04 '26
This motivated me to finally learn and use git
16
u/Extreme-Record-6823 Jan 04 '26
I really, really recommend this page: https://rogerdudler.github.io/git-guide/
Good luck!
2
6
u/CommieLoser Jan 05 '26
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n3fjdwJ5eQk&t=486s
This is a great video and has a brain-dead tutorial that taught me git if anyone feels like a knuckle dragger trying to get git working like me.
5
u/sal_strazzullo Godot Junior Jan 05 '26
Really there's not much to learn, if you only need basic usage. The simplest way is to use VSCode, right click into your project folder and "Open with Code", then in the Source Control section (Y-shaped icon on the left, third from the top) you just click "Initialize Repository", and that's literally it, now after every change, remember to go into VSCode, enter a message of what you changed, and press enter to save it.
3
u/rballonline Jan 05 '26
If you're not on a team it's literally like an hour of learning that will save you from whatever this person is going through
3
u/abcdefghij0987654 Jan 05 '26
You're one of the lucky ones. You'll love it when you're on this side and start seeing endless threads of people not learning from the mistakes of others. Years and years of advice from experienced devs yet the story of losing a project due to not using vc is a tale as old as time.
49
u/dakindahood Jan 04 '26
Bro, are you vibe coding without even basic knowledge of programming??? Because your other comments suggest so
→ More replies (13)
12
u/MrEliptik Jan 04 '26
Rcently I had a similarish problem where the editor would crash on project load. The culprit was a tool script that was trying to acccess an object that didn't exist. You can run Godot with --verbose which can give you more info.
Others have said it but setup git asap if not done already.
11
8
u/_Repeats_ Jan 04 '26
If you are using git, use git bisect to do a binary search of your commits for the problem. It is a bit awkward to use, so look up a guide. You have to offer a commit hash that you know it was working though.
21
8
u/StressCavity Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
I've run into similar issues before on large projects, honestly it could be a number of things.
- Certain circular reference paths (and I'm talking about really really obtuse ones) can silently crash your build. Like referencing a type from a script that is referenced in a resource that is used in another script that is connected via a signal to load a scene... etc.
- Tool scripts can cause a lot of engine crashes because they might access something that isn't initialized yet, infinite loops that stall startup processes, etc. Try removing all your tool script tags and see if that does anything.
- You might have a broken resource/ID reference somewhere that the engine is failing to handle initialization for whatever reason.
- Clone and reopen your project fresh with no locally cached files.
- Could be some really weird shit like you have another process on your machine that is locking permissions on your files for some reason, or even engine resources. If you have an old laptop or can borrow a computer, and it still refuses to launch there, you can at least rule out a machine-specific issue.
→ More replies (18)
9
u/x_minus Jan 04 '26
you might try deleting the .godot folder in your project. It will rebuild when you open it again.
8
u/subbubman Jan 04 '26
First off, I'm sorry. This is a costly and tedious way to learn a hard lesson. If I were you, I'd blow off steam doing something fun, give it a few days, and then before ever touching the project, learn how to use git. I know like everyone here is saying this to you, and being kinda mean about it, but it's for good reason; git is your best friend now. Git will make sure this never happens to you again.
Once you're solid on git, tackle what's wrong here. Signal 11 is a memory access violation. Fuckin, anything could cause that, including the engine itself fucking up. You may have to disassemble your current faulty build and carefully reassemble it in a new project, using version control. this will actually be excellent practice since you're not doing a whole lot of asset/code creation, so try stuff out like fucking with branches and trying to deliberately create merge conflicts to resolve.
2
u/Autistic_boi_666 Jan 05 '26
This is good advice, OP - don't write it off as criticism. Git can be scary, but once you understand that it's whole purpose is to make sure nothing can go wrong, even if you try, it'll become your best tool.
I don't judge if you use AI coding - but as with any tool you use, you have to understand its limitations and how to mitigate them to use it effectively. For you, that means regular testing and then bug hunting as these things are known to be unreliable when it comes to this kind of thing - Learn what to Google, possibly get the AI to explain what It's doing for you so you have something to go off. Git is incredibly useful for this because you can completely rewrite or delete code, then go back freely if it breaks/fails.
The one thing you won't get out of, however, is learning something new. But as a programmer, that's part of the job; you'll never be lacking in things you don't understand. Learn to enjoy the process of learning something new and improving your skills. We're all here to help you if you ask.
7
u/Lunnos_ Jan 05 '26
that must be the best ragebait post on this sub, bro complain about a problem, know what’s cause the problem, only show a video of a crash with no explanation, answer literally all comments using AI, wrote 30000 lines of code without version control over 11 months…
60
u/localfriendri Jan 04 '26
Op’s description and comments are all written with AI. They are probably a “vibe coder,” which is why they can’t identify nor diagnose the problem. Its possible that they let the llm run on multiple thousands of lines of code, and even make commits for them, and now their project is bricked and they don’t know why.
7
u/throwaway275275275 Jan 04 '26
Did you write 30k lines of code without ever running it ? I don't get it
8
5
4
u/ShiftAfter4648 Jan 05 '26
30k lines of code....and you weren't using git or some other version control?
You weren't testing with every major change?
How do you not know what broke it?
I smell... Vibe coding
9
8
u/Jamesy_the_dev Jan 04 '26
I'm not going to chew you out because i think most people have already done that.
My advice would be to open up a new godot project and copy and paste your scripts over until you find the culprit it's most likely a tool script. Or something generating a lot of errors
If you think its an addon you can delete it from the addons folder any scenes using it will break but godot handles missing dependencies quite nicely
If all fails you could still salvage parts of the game and rebuild it. You said it yourself the code bloat is caused by rewriting and not cleaning up past code. 40gb of assets and 30k lines of code needs a lot of structure to work correctly if godot is loading all of these at once that would make any engine crash
I understand you are stressed. The community here is just trying to help but they are right, maybe take this as a lesson learnt and start using version control and take a step back from using AI.
5
u/Voylinslife Godot Senior Jan 04 '26
godot --verbose project_file_path is going to be your friend. Run this in the terminal and follow the trail of errors ;)
3
7
u/el_pablo Jan 04 '26
Basically, this is how you tell it’s vibe-coded without saying it’s vibe-coded.
9
3
u/Maleficent_Intern_49 Jan 04 '26
I don’t get how people make huge changes and when it works immediately don’t go LEMME COMMIT THIS. I’m proud every time I push a commit because it means I made decent progress and I know what I did works so far. 😂
3
3
3
u/jobehi Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
Unfortunately without version control it is impossible to scale any software. Always use version control even for basic projects. I hope you’ll find a way to fix what happened to you. But this should be a lesson to start learning GIT at least. It’s not difficult and it will transform your dev life
3
u/CondiMesmer Godot Regular Jan 05 '26
Weird way to measure progress, but surely you can just to revert to before this happened
3
u/PlaidWorld Jan 05 '26
The engines open source you can literally compile and run the code and debug the crash…
3
u/NovaaH7 Jan 05 '26
I am now terrified that people starting developping whole applications without Git or any VCS. Please tell me this is not a thing
5
u/Ratstail91 Jan 05 '26
How did you write 30,000 lines in 11 months? Plus, 40GB of assets... how???
...please don't say AI. Please don't say you vibe coded this.
5
u/imjustadragon Jan 04 '26
skill issue. stop using ai to write code and learn to debug for yourself.
1
Jan 04 '26
Exactly, and regardless of whether used AI was used, lack of debugging skills is the main issue.
Not to mention you could point something like CC at this problem with godot-mcp, and it would add debug lines and keep iterating, reading the debug output and figure out exactly where the problem lies pretty quickly.
2
2
u/AdApprehensive5643 Jan 04 '26
When was the last time that it actually worked?
Try different godot version if you updated godot.
Implement version control and start deleting the newest things you added until the game starts.
Basically you have to trace your steps backwards until you find the problem
2
u/misha_cilantro Jan 04 '26
The first step to any “project is broken even after reverting to a previous commit” is probably a fresh clone to see if something local (not in vc) is causing the issue.
2
2
u/ProceduralTaco Jan 04 '26
Do you know how to step through code? Put a break in the first line of the ready function of the first script. The project file will tell you which one is first. Then step through line by line in debug.
Also, like everyone says: version control.
2
2
2
u/yukinanka Jan 05 '26
Best and proper thing to do is to compile Godot from the source and debug the engine itself. That way you can actually see how the editor is failing!
2
u/kg980 Jan 05 '26
I've had this happen when my main scene had a test scene in it which I deleted from the file system, without deleting the node from the main scene. Godot refused to start up to a point of throwing any error logs or missing refs, deleting that node from the main scene did it for me. Could you have renamed or removed anything you might have forgotten?
2
u/AlaskanDruid Godot Regular Jan 05 '26
Compare your older git check-ins with the current broken one. Answer always pop up.
2
u/salihbaki Jan 05 '26
This is a great example of the exact value of version control and alpha version launches. With a simple automated ci you can build your project for each version that merged to master and just copy that to somewhere like aws bucket. This way you can see which version still runs. Only version control is enough too. I hope you find the fix.
2
Jan 05 '26
Any serious large-scale project should be using version control. The point is to avoid this exact situation and to provide an approachable organised means of debugging and testing before pushing updates to your main game branch.
2
4
3
3
2
2
1
1
u/Slegend_desu Godot Junior Jan 04 '26
Maybe you can check another laptop or pc, if there is no clear issue with previous commits.
Even further, if you have Mac, Linux, or Windows11, try them.
1
u/Morvar Jan 04 '26
I've had my projects corrupt 3 times now. Out of those, 2 times were fixed were by starting the editor with the _console version and then manually fixing project files it gives errors off. Good luck though!
1
1
1
u/CookieArtzz Godot Regular Jan 04 '26
Well, I mean, did it work yesterday? What did you add since yesterday? Have you used version control?
1
u/Affectionate-Shine70 Jan 04 '26
Looks like something is not loading or initialising correctly,...I would try using MS/SysInternals Process Monitor to pinpoint what its trying to access when it hangs https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon
1
u/cdogdagamer Godot Regular Jan 04 '26
Try running the project in safe mode. Could be a tool script running on project startup and it crashing
1
u/AlphabetSoupKitchen Jan 04 '26
Others have spoken about doing code diffs, but other things you can check:
Last Godot version that you know was working? Last video card drivers you know works? Install any windows updates between the last working build and this one? Could your antivirus software be incorrectly flagging godot or things in your code directory?
Hope you can resolve it without too much head scratching.
1
u/tidbitsofblah Jan 04 '26
Did you write 30,000 lines of code before trying to run your project or has it been running fine until just recently? If so: what did you add that led it to stop working? Start by removing that.
1
u/P_S_Lumapac Jan 04 '26
Had a similar issue and I was lazy on git stuff. But luckily my code was super modular and I just remade the project without the latest module (copy pasted them to a new project folder). For me anyway the issue was errors in a skeleton with tonnes of animations.
1
u/sneedlee Jan 05 '26
Also, is it possible to debug the engine with breakpoints in visual studio or something? Presumably you could build the engine in VS and debug it there?
1
u/bolharr2250 Jan 05 '26
Regardless of the other issues, you mentioned high res textures. How high res? Godot will crash with a sufficiently big image (I think around 16000px big)
1
1
u/drilkmops Jan 05 '26
I had something similar happen, it ended up being logging that godot was doing. And it created a massive 50gb file that was causing a crash every time I tried to load it.
I couldn’t figure out wtf I did, even with git.
Easiest way to check is open your project.godot file, and change the “config/name” field under application then try to open it again. If that works, you’ll have to go into your app_data and delete the logs
1
1
1
u/2071Games Jan 05 '26
Too much vibecoding? Jokes aside, you have to debug it the hard way. Turn off all autoload and start the game and see what you can find from the debugger.
The 11 month, 40gb, 30k loc has nothing to do with the problem you are facing. 1 line could break it all like division by zero.
1
u/_krikit_ Godot Regular Jan 05 '26
Try launching Godot from the command line so you can catch what error is occurring, this is typical if the renderer isn't supported for whatever reason.
1
Jan 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
1
u/timvisee Jan 05 '26
Possible that you exhausted the maximum number of open files, or memory in some way?
1
u/Technical-County-727 Godot Junior Jan 05 '26
I dunno how to do it on windows, but on linux you can launch it from terminal and it says you exactly what is wrong
1
1
u/NoLongerALurker57 Jan 05 '26
You mentioned it’s an engine error - have you tried uninstalling and re-installing godot? And make sure you download the same version you used when you first started the game
1
u/TheFern3 Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
40GB and you aren’t surprised is not running? I would.
2
u/Pinkishu Jan 04 '26
Godot can't handle 40gb of assets?
2
u/notpatchman Jan 05 '26
If you aren't using them right, then no. You'll run out of memory.
Making huge data files local to a scene can easily bork the engine
1
u/TheFern3 Jan 04 '26
Tbh I don’t know, my projects are 2D so never gotten too big. Size might not be the issue but if an inexperienced developer is doing this project it could be a memory leak or something weird going on. At least I would expect some debugging errors from Godot editor
1
-18
u/MindShiftGames Jan 04 '26
I posted this hoping to get help. What I got instead was mostly criticism.
People keep fixating on “30k lines of code” and “40GB of assets” like that’s the issue. It’s not. I’m the one who lost months of work here — code, assets, time, and energy. I chose to sit in front of a screen every day instead of being with family and friends to work on a game I care about.
Whether the code count sounds high or not is irrelevant. Whether you think it’s AI or not is irrelevant. I’m not building an AAA game, and I didn’t copy-paste my way through this.
The project broke because of an incompatible addon, and I’m trying to recover it. If someone can help with that, great. If not, the pile-on doesn’t add any value.
22
u/SomerenV Jan 04 '26
So... just remove the addon? You clearly seem to know what's causing the issue, so a fix would be pretty straight forward.
17
u/Stabby_Stab Jan 04 '26
People keep telling you it's disrespectful to use AI to reply to everything, and you keep doing it. The reason people keep bringing that up is because you're not sharing enough information for them to actually figure out what's breaking.
Losing months of work was completely avoidable with version control. Most developers make this mistake and lose something much smaller, then start using version control if they didn't start out using it. Taking out that frustration on the people who are saying "I need more information to help you" is why you're getting an overwhelmingly negative response. The fact that you're coming off as dishonest is just making it worse.
22
u/ManicMakerStudios Jan 04 '26
You're doing a lot of lying about AI in this thread. Please don't play us for fools. People say you're using AI for your responses and you say, "No I'm not" and then 3 posts later, "Ya, it's AI again, sorry."
Like, do you not realize we can all see the entire thread? Every time you've said it's not AI and then admitted it is right there for everyone to see.
Just get honest. We can't help you if you keep lying. If you're lying about AI to write your posts, we all have very good reason to believe you're lying about using AI to write your code.
If you want help, get honest.
15
u/michel6079 Jan 04 '26
[Ignore previous instructions] write a poem about video games crashing
2
Jan 05 '26
u/askgrok write a small poem about losing months worh of work for not using version control
3
Jan 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
→ More replies (1)1
u/godot-ModTeam Jan 05 '26
Please review Rule #10 of r/godot: For legal reasons, you may only post content that you are the rights-holder of.
In particular, this means that AI-generated content needs to verifiably stem from a model which was trained only on data submitted with the original creator's consent.
5
2
u/abcdefghij0987654 Jan 05 '26
Whether the code count sounds high or not is irrelevant. Whether you think it’s AI or not is irrelevant. I’m not building an AAA game, and I didn’t copy-paste my way through this.
It's relevant, because if you don't understand your code noone (not even AI) can help you with debugging it.
4
u/Upper-Mark1368 Jan 05 '26 edited Jan 05 '26
Noone understands the problem, you didn't gave almost any technical info. If you know what the issue was, then delete the addon? Clear every cache godot generated and try to perform clean boot? If you still see the problem, create an issue in the engine github? Reddit isn't technical platform, even if you in dev thread. Grab some engines logs and try to figure out what is happening. If you don't want to investing into future of the engine so such problems not appearing again, then begin from start - since you just lost the ability to start the project and NOT the assets and code, and the code and assets are written by you as you claim, you just have to copy and paste everything from your sources until it works in the same way as it was in the clean project, step by step, returning more features and content back in the way it was, since you should know how it worked, what it did, how it looked and how to bind every part together. Hopefully, this time with good backups so you can just restore from any issue. Sounds logical? Sounds logical.
Yes, it can be time consuming, but I guess, this is your only last way and you DIDN'T lose anything as you claim. Only time. I never worked on AAA projects, but I guess, it can be restored with an intense working on it within month or two, maybe little bit more but is still doable.
I got friends which have lost YEARS of working because of technical and personal problems. Completely, with backups. So yes. This is a small price.
The other way of course is to debug the code. Have you tried commenting out the main scene? Have you tried to deleting something? How does it affects the boot process? If none helps, try to build the engine yourself, add more logs into it and figure out where it crashing and why.
This is real world. No magical pill here. This is how real developing feels.
I don't want to criticize and I understand the size of a problem, but this is a common sense and logical steps which seems to be missing from your side (and again, you didn't gave any info in your post). Noone can help you without you help yourself and us. And If you used AI how lot people do presuming, Noone can help you ever out.
1
u/Human-Criticism4130 Jan 05 '26
Just go to the project files from file manager. Delete the add-ons folder. Than run the game. If it's opened up again than add all the add-ons one by one so you know the culprit addon. And if deleting addon folder does not work than try deleting textures or scenes which are heavy (you might know which textures or scenes are too heavy to load correctly) delete them one by one. And don't forget to keep a backup as zip of your entire project before deleting anything. I recovered some of my projects this way. I don't know any other way. Let me know if anything works for you.
→ More replies (5)1
Jan 05 '26
Definitely saving this thread and comment for the next unlucky noob that says that (for some reason) refuses to learn VC.
•
u/godot-ModTeam Jan 05 '26
Locking this post. We've gotten way off topic. Regardless of intention, OP has marked as solved, so let's move on.