How to Fix Unreal Restart Level Not Cleaning Up Run State on the GameInstance

RestartLevel rebuilds the world and its GameMode, but the GameInstance survives. Run state kept there must be reset on restart or the retry inherits the previous attempt's data.

How to fix it

1. Reset run state on restart

Add a ResetForNewAttempt on the GameInstance that clears run-scoped fields, and call it before RestartLevel or the travel that begins a retry.

2. Separate persistent from run state

Keep unlocks and settings that should survive separate from per-attempt run state, so the reset clears only what a retry should clear.

3. Hook the right entry point

Trigger the reset from the flow that initiates the restart (such as a retry button), not from level BeginPlay, so it runs exactly once per attempt.

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 Unreal Engine 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.