Remove_child on a dialog make it crash

[ParisRomane]

Hello everyone !
I just tried dialogic for the first time a week ago, I love it.

My problem is : i want to be able to pause dialog and get back to it, without having to end dialog and play it back from the start.
For example, i want to be able to open a menu or an inventory when we are in a middle of a dialog.

I have tried everything i can to pause dialog. Nothing works. I even tried to do it brutally, with remove_child(dialog) and add_child(dialog).
That is when i find a bug i believe :
remove_child(dialog) -> "Attempt to call 'get_visible_rect' in base 'null instance' on a null instance"

Describe the bug
remove_child(dialog) make the game cash, with "Attempt to call 'get_visible_rect' in base 'null instance' on a null instance" in DialogNode.gd
(also btw, is there a way to pause dialog ?)

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. create a dialog, and instance it normally -> add_child(dialog)
2. While the dialog isn't finished, do remove_child(dialog)
3. See error ("Attempt to call 'get_visible_rect' in base 'null instance' on a null instance")

Expected behavior
I expected to just remove the dialog. but it's seems like it is still working. But it can't so it crash.

Screenshots
the result of the crash :

System (please complete the following information):

• OS: linux
• Godot Version: 3.4.4
• Dialogic Version: 1.4.3

Solutions

Workaround
Nothing that i tried works to get the dialog to pause.
We can end dialog and play it back from the start tho.

Possible fixes
No idea yet.

[Jowan-Spooner]

Hmm... it seems like the DialogNode doesn't like to be outside of the tree after connecting to the viewport. Removing nodes from the tree without deleting them is a unusual move, so this has never happened in testing.

If you just want to delete the node do dialog.queue_free().

For pausing: have you considered using godot's pause system? I understand that might not work for your project tho.

It's unlikely we will make a fix, as we are putting most efforts into dialogic 2.0.
Here are possible "hacky"-quick-fixes:

• To make remove_child() not result in an error you could try adding if !is_inside_tree(): return at the start of the resize_main() method. This might not work if other parts of the script assume they are inside the tree too.

• if pausing only means not getting input (and thus not continuing) then you could modify the _input() method of the DialogNode.gd. E.g. if you have an autoload add a var dialog_paused = false flag and check for that flag before collecting input. Now you can set that flag to disable input on the dialog node.

[ParisRomane]

Thanks a lot for the answer !
Godot pause system doesn't really work as i want.
Thanks a lot for the suggestions, they are really good ! I will try to create my pause fonction tomorow

[ParisRomane]

I have followed your advice. I might not have done it in the cleanest way.
If someone need the same feature this is what i have done :
in dialog_node.gd i add ->

var paused = false

func set_paused(pause):
	paused = pause

func get_paused():
	return paused

func _input(event: InputEvent) -> void:
	if paused :
		return
	[...]

in canvas_dialog_node.gd i add :

func set_paused(pause):
	dialog_node.set_paused(pause)
	if pause : # those line hide visually the dialog
		dialog_node.hide()
	else :
		dialog_node.show()

func get_paused():
	return dialog_node.get_paused()

Now i can have open a menu (or inventory) in the middle of a dialog. thanks again ! 👍

[zaknafean]

This was completed.