What causes sprites sorting by center instead of pivot in Unity?

The SpriteRenderer's Sort Point defaults to Center, so distance-based 2D sorting uses the sprite bounds center rather than the pivot at the character's feet.

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 Sprites Sorting by Center Instead of Pivot in Unity 2D

Quick answer: Set the SpriteRenderer Sort Point to Pivot and place the pivot at the feet, and switch the Transparency Sort Mode to Custom Axis (0,1,0) so y-depth ordering is correct.

Tall sprites flicker in front of and behind each other even though their feet are clearly ordered on screen. The renderer is sorting by box center, not the foot pivot.

How to fix it

1. Set Sort Point to Pivot

On the SpriteRenderer, change Sort Point from Center to Pivot. Sorting distance is now measured at the sprite's pivot, which you can place at the feet.

2. Move the pivot to the feet

In the Sprite Editor set the pivot to Bottom (or a custom point at the contact shadow). Two characters now sort by whose feet are lower on screen.

3. Use a custom transparency sort axis

In Project Settings > Graphics set Transparency Sort Mode to Custom Axis with axis (0, 1, 0) so lower-y sprites draw in front in top-down scenes.

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.

A crash you can name from its stack trace is a crash you can usually fix in minutes.