What causes an achievement unlocking incorrectly right after loading?

The achievement compares a session counter that starts at zero against a threshold, but on load the counter is rehydrated from the save and the comparison treats it as freshly earned.

How do I catch this when it only happens for some players?

Capture it automatically from the player's device with the full stack trace, the device and OS, the build, and a breadcrumb trail of what they did. That turns a vague complaint into a specific, reproducible issue you can fix without owning the hardware it happens on.

How to Fix an Achievement Unlocking Wrongly From a Stale Counter on Load

Quick answer: Track lifetime totals separately from session progress and only fire the unlock on the transition across the threshold, not on every check.

An achievement that pops the moment you load a save is comparing a restored total as if it were new progress. Fire on the crossing, not the value. Here is how.

How to fix it

1. Store an already-unlocked flag

Persist whether each achievement has already been awarded. On load, skip the unlock entirely if the flag is set, so a restored total cannot re-trigger it.

2. Fire on the threshold crossing

Unlock only when the counter moves from below the threshold to at-or-above it during play, rather than whenever a check sees the value is high enough.

3. Separate session and lifetime counts

Keep session progress distinct from saved lifetime totals so loading a save restores the total without being mistaken for newly earned progress.

Catching the ones you can't reproduce

The hardest version of this to fix is the one you can't reproduce — it only happens on a player's hardware, OS, driver, or save state, under conditions that simply aren't present on your machine. A report that says “it crashed” or “it froze” gives you nothing to act on, so the bug survives release after release while quietly costing you players.

Automatic error capture closes that gap. Each failure arrives with its full stack trace, the device and OS, the build number, and a breadcrumb trail of what the player did right before it broke, so even a failure you have never seen becomes a specific, reproducible issue. Fold identical failures into one signature ranked by how many players each hits, and your worklist sorts itself worst-first instead of arriving as a stream of vague complaints.

This is where a tool like Bugnet earns its place. Its SDK captures every GameMaker error automatically with the full stack trace plus device, OS, memory, build, and game-state context, folds duplicates into one grouped issue with an occurrence count, and ties each to the build it first appeared on — so you fix the problem that hurts the most players first and confirm it is gone when its signature disappears from the next release.

The errors you never hear about are the ones quietly costing you players. Visibility turns them into a worklist.