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 Energy Refill Purchase Stacking Above the Intended Pool

Q: What causes an energy refill purchase stacking above the intended pool?

A paid refill added a full pool to the current energy without clamping, so buying while partly full left the player above the intended maximum.

Quick answer: Decide whether a refill sets energy to full or adds a fixed amount, clamp the result to the cap (unless overflow is intended), and never blindly add a full pool.

A paid energy refill that adds a full bar on top of a half-full one lets players bank energy above the cap. Defining refill semantics and clamping to the maximum fixes it. Here is how.

How to fix it

1. Define refill semantics

Decide whether buying a refill sets energy to the cap or adds a fixed amount, and implement exactly that rather than adding a full pool unconditionally.

2. Clamp to the cap

If refills should not exceed the maximum, clamp the result so buying while partly full does not push the bar over the cap.

3. Allow intentional overcap deliberately

If your design lets paid refills bank above the cap, make that an explicit, documented overflow path with its own ceiling, not an accident of missing clamps.

4. Reflect the result in the offer

Show the player how much energy a refill will actually grant given their current level, so a near-full bar does not waste a paid refill silently.

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.