How to Use Reliable and Unreliable Channels Correctly

Sending everything reliably causes head-of-line stalls. Matching channel to data fixes it. Here is how.

How to fix it

1. Unreliable for state

Send frequently-updated state (positions) unreliably, since the next update supersedes a lost one anyway.

2. Reliable for events

Send discrete critical events (a kill, a purchase) on a reliable channel so they are never lost.

3. Avoid head-of-line stalls

Keep fast state off the reliable-ordered channel so one lost packet does not block everything behind it.

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 backend 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.