Online Places Do Not Update Whenever There are Unpublished Changes to a Package

[DataBrain (Amber)]

Issue Type: Other
Impact: High
Frequency: Often
Date First Experienced: 2021-02-01 00:02:00 (-07:00)
Date Last Experienced: 2021-03-28 00:03:00 (-06:00)

Reproduction Steps:
Using packages is absolutely essential for managing multiple places in my universe game. However, I also use Team Create, and sometimes I want to work on changes to these packages without actually updating the contents of these packages, because I am working on a branch of currently-broken code.

Whenever I try to manually publish my team create game, I get this warning:

However, leaving the team create seems to publish my game just fine even with unsaved changes to these packages. So I have been relying on that interaction between team create and unpublished packages.

This bug report is that even though these changes seem to save/publish on Team Create, they don’t actually publish to the game on the website until I publish these package changes.

Right now I’m working on a feature that involves text filtering, so I need to play the live game in order to test these changes. However, I don’t want to publish my changes to these packages just yet because I’m not ready to propogate these changes to every single game in my universe.

Expected Behavior:
I would expect the game on the website to update to the saved version on Team Create when I exit Team Create, regardless of whether there are unsaved changes to a single package.

Frankly, this restriction that you’re not allowed to publish your place with unsaved packages is an arbitrary and useless restriction that is probably bound to cause lots of lost work in the future if a Team Create server ever crashes while I’m making changes on it.

Actual Behavior:
I’m only able to playtest a super old version of the game through the website.
I know this is an old version because some UI elements have been renamed:

Current names:

Workaround:
Not using packages, or not using Team Create but instead working from a local file. Both are not an option for me, and regardless, I need to be able to publish my game with unsaved changes to my packages in order to playtest text filtering, which does not work properly in offline tests.

[APandaPoet (APanda)]

Hi DataBrain, thanks for reaching out! This is more like a feature request rather than a bug. I summarized it below to make it more clear to other teams as well.

However, leaving the team create seems to publish my game just fine even with unsaved changes to these packages. So I have been relying on that interaction between team create and unpublished packages.

Leaving a team place edit session should not automatically publish your game, w/o unpublished package changes. Instead, the place is saved when you leave a teamcreate edit session. Actually, the place can be saved, w/o unpublished package changes. Please let me know if this is not the case for you. We will fix it ASAP.

This bug report is that even though these changes seem to save/publish on Team Create, they don’t actually publish to the game on the website until I publish these package changes.

Yes. The current package publish blocker check can be passed by making the place as a published version on the website.

Right now I’m working on a feature that involves text filtering, so I need to play the live game in order to test these changes. However, I don’t want to publish my changes to these packages just yet because I’m not ready to propogate these changes to every single game in my universe.

We are planning a long term solution to completely solve the issue.
A temporary solution could be, make a copy of the game, i.e. publish it to a new game slot (Publish As), and make the game private. And then edit the package in this new game.

I would expect the game on the website to update to the saved version on Team Create when I exit Team Create, regardless of whether there are unsaved changes to a single package.

This is a feature request for teamcreate. i.e. automatically publishing the place when user quit the editing session.

Thanks again for all the suggestions and I’ll forward it to different teams!

[DataBrain (Amber)]

@billlipeng

A temporary solution could be, make a copy of the game, i.e. publish it to a new game slot, and make the game private. And then edit the package in this new game.

I’m confused how this temporary solution would work, since I don’t seem to be able to publish any game to any place while there are unsaved changes to a package. Do you mean saving a local copy maybe, deleting PackageLinks, and then publishing? I already have a game that I’m using to work on in-progress features within these packages, but I can’t ever publish it.

Also, I already have a feature request for the feature I really want in this situation, so this might be the better thread to forward:

Allow publishing to places while packages have unpublished changes

As a roblox developer, Packages and Team Create mix about as well as oil and water. Currently, if you hit ctrl+P to publish to a place manually while you have changes to a package, it will show this dialogue: [image] I am suggesting that we should be allowed to manually publish to places while there are unpublished edits to a Package. As someone who uses both Team Create and Packages in my game, the current publishing restriction seems like a recipe for disaster at first glance, since it lo…

Thanks for the tip on saving though; I didn’t realize that leaving team create would end up saving the place but not necessarily publishing. That also explains a lot of headaches I’ve had when trying to revert Team Create versions.

[APandaPoet (APanda)]

@DataBrain

I’m confused how this temporary solution would work, since I don’t seem to be able to publish any game to any place while there are unsaved changes to a package. Do you mean saving a local copy maybe, deleting PackageLinks, and then publishing? I already have a game that I’m using to work on in-progress features within these packages, but I can’t ever publish it.

I mean you can use the private new game for package development only. Once the development is done, publish the changes to the package. And then update all packages in the old game all at once with package auto-update or mass update feature.

Also, I already have a feature request for the feature I really want in this situation, so this might be the better thread to forward:

Thanks for the post! I’ll remind our product manager to check it.