How to Fix Unity's MissingReferenceException

MissingReferenceException is the cousin of NullReferenceException: the variable is not null in the normal C# sense, but the object it wrapped has been destroyed. It usually means a coroutine, event handler, or cached reference outlived the object it pointed to. Here is how to find and fix that.

How to fix it

1. Understand why it is not just null

When you Destroy a GameObject, the managed C# object lingers but its native half is freed. Unity overloads the equality operator so a destroyed object compares equal to null — but only if you actually check. Accessing a field or method on it throws MissingReferenceException.

2. Null-check before every access to a destroyable object

Before touching a reference that could have been destroyed, write if (target != null). This uses Unity's overloaded comparison and correctly reports destroyed objects, unlike a raw reference-equality check or the null-conditional operator, which can miss it.

3. Unsubscribe and cancel in OnDestroy

Most cases come from a callback that fires after the object died: an event you subscribed to, an Invoke, or a coroutine on another object. Unsubscribe from events and call CancelInvoke in OnDestroy so nothing calls back into a dead object.

4. Stop coroutines that reference the object

A coroutine running on a still-alive object can hold a reference to a destroyed one. Track the destruction with a flag or check the reference for null after each yield before using it again.

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.