What are the most common GameMaker crashes?

They are a variable not set error, an instance leak that slows the game, an Android export crash, an oversized texture page error, and a draw-event error. Most are quick to fix once you can read the stack trace; the difficulty is usually getting a clear view of the failure rather than the fix itself.

How do I fix GameMaker crashes that only happen for players?

Capture them automatically from the player's device with the stack trace, hardware, OS, build, and breadcrumbs. That turns a vague complaint into a specific, reproducible issue you can fix without owning the device.

How do I know which GameMaker crash to fix first?

Group identical failures into signatures and rank them by how many players each hits. The crash at the top is costing you the most, so fixing it removes the largest share of real-world failures for the least effort.

5 Common GameMaker Crashes and How to Fix Them

Quick answer: The 5 most common GameMaker crashes are a variable not set error, an instance leak that slows the game, an Android export crash, an oversized texture page error, and a draw-event error. Each is quick to fix once you can read the trace — the hard part is the ones that only happen on players' devices. Capture every crash automatically with its stack trace, device, and build, group identical ones into a ranked list, and the common GameMaker crashes become a worklist instead of a stream of vague complaints.

Whatever you are building, a GameMaker project tends to hit the same recognisable crashes. Knowing them makes diagnosis fast, because a crash you can name from its trace is usually a crash you can fix in minutes. This guide walks through 5 of the most common GameMaker crashes — a variable not set error, an instance leak that slows the game, an Android export crash, an oversized texture page error, and a draw-event error — what causes each, and how to fix it, plus the part that actually saves you: catching the ones that never happen on your own machine.

The 5 most common GameMaker crashes

1. A variable not set error

To fix a variable not set error, initialise the variable in the Create event and check for typos. Like most GameMaker crashes, the message is the symptom, not the bug — the stack trace points at the line, and the surrounding context tells you why. On your own machine that is easy to read; the expensive version is the same crash on a device you do not own, which is why capturing it from the field with full context matters so much.

2. An instance leak that slows the game

To fix an instance leak that slows the game, destroy instances and data structures you no longer need. Like most GameMaker crashes, the message is the symptom, not the bug — the stack trace points at the line, and the surrounding context tells you why. On your own machine that is easy to read; the expensive version is the same crash on a device you do not own, which is why capturing it from the field with full context matters so much.

3. An Android export crash

To fix an Android export crash, check permissions and extensions and reduce oversized texture pages. Like most GameMaker crashes, the message is the symptom, not the bug — the stack trace points at the line, and the surrounding context tells you why. On your own machine that is easy to read; the expensive version is the same crash on a device you do not own, which is why capturing it from the field with full context matters so much.

4. An oversized texture page error

To fix an oversized texture page error, shrink texture pages that exceed what low-end devices can allocate. Like most GameMaker crashes, the message is the symptom, not the bug — the stack trace points at the line, and the surrounding context tells you why. On your own machine that is easy to read; the expensive version is the same crash on a device you do not own, which is why capturing it from the field with full context matters so much.

5. A draw-event error

To fix a draw-event error, guard against null sprites and out-of-range values in the draw event. Like most GameMaker crashes, the message is the symptom, not the bug — the stack trace points at the line, and the surrounding context tells you why. On your own machine that is easy to read; the expensive version is the same crash on a device you do not own, which is why capturing it from the field with full context matters so much.

None of these GameMaker crashes are exotic; they are the ordinary failure modes that appear once a game runs on hardware and in situations you did not test. Recognising the source from the trace is most of the battle — the fix itself is usually small.

Catching the ones you can't reproduce

The GameMaker crashes that cost the most are the ones that never happen on your machine. You cannot fix those by playing the game yourself, because the conditions that produce them are not present. Automatic crash capture closes that gap: each failure arrives with its stack trace, the device and OS, the build, and the breadcrumbs, so even an unfamiliar crash becomes a specific, fixable issue.

Grouped and ranked by frequency, the common crashes sort themselves into the order you should fix them, and tying each to its build catches new ones within hours of shipping. That is what turns this list from trivia into a working triage process.

This is where a tool like Bugnet earns its place. Its SDK captures every failure automatically with the full stack trace plus device, OS, memory, build, and game-state context, folds identical failures into one grouped issue with an occurrence count, and ties each to the build it happened on. The result is that the abstract idea above stops being theory and becomes a ranked list you work down — the worst problem first, verified fixed when its signature disappears from the next release.

The players who hit the worst bugs rarely tell you. Capture every failure automatically and you stop flying blind.