What causes roguelike unlocks reverting to locked after a restart?

Unlocks are flipped on a runtime object but never written to persistent storage, so they survive until the process exits and then reset to their default locked state.

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 Character Unlocks Not Persisting Across Runs

Quick answer: Write each unlock to persistent storage (PlayerPrefs, a profile save, or a JSON file) the instant the unlock condition is met, and load that file at boot to rebuild the unlock set.

Unlocking a new character should be forever. If it forgets after a relaunch, you are only flipping an in-memory flag. Persisting on unlock and loading at boot makes it stick.

How to fix it

1. Persist immediately on unlock

When an unlock condition fires, set the flag and write to disk in the same frame. Do not batch unlock writes for the end of the run where a crash can lose them.

2. Load the unlock set at boot

On startup, read the saved unlock file into your unlock manager before any menu renders, so locked/unlocked UI reflects saved state.

3. Store unlocks by stable id

Key unlocks on stable string ids, not array indices, so reordering or inserting content later does not shift which unlock a saved flag refers to.

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 Unity 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.