How to Fix a Unity Custom Inspector Not Updating

A custom inspector not updating skips the serialization flow. Using SerializedProperty fixes it. Here is how.

How to fix it

1. Use SerializedObject and properties

Edit through SerializedObject and SerializedProperty rather than setting fields directly. This integrates with undo, multi-object editing, and prefab overrides, and is what makes changes save correctly.

2. Call Update and ApplyModifiedProperties

Call serializedObject.Update at the start of OnInspectorGUI and ApplyModifiedProperties at the end. Without ApplyModifiedProperties, edits are not written back to the object.

3. Mark dirty and repaint

When changing the object directly, mark it dirty (EditorUtility.SetDirty) so the change is saved, and repaint the inspector if values change outside user input, so the display does not go stale.

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.