UE 4.15.2 - Losing assets and creating bad files

Old existing issue: UE-16437

Video how to reproduce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8OPtFoDpY0

I’m reporting an issue with the UE where the user could end up losing assets or having junk files in the local file system folders. The issue seams to be ongoing since at least version 4.7 and as it’s impacting the Renaming of assets feature that it’s used frequently to tidy up a project structure i’m reporting it anew with steps and video on how-to reproduce it.

Steps to create bad assets:

  1. Create new project
  2. Create new actor blueprint and hit enter after giving it a name (don’t hit save)
  3. Hit F2 to rename it and hit enter (it will now save to local file system with the NEW name)
  4. Hit Save All in content browser of UE, and take note of the file it shows if we want to save. It’s the OLD file and having missing data type (no longer an Actor, it’s null / missing)
  5. Hit save and it will now create the asset with 1kb file size on local file system

Steps to lose assets from project and local file system:

  1. Do the steps above
  2. Go to local file system browser (windows explorer) and delete the assets (old name and new named assets)
  3. The newly named asset will disappear from UE content browser as well
  4. Right click in content browser and select new actor blueprint to create and at the enter name step the old asset will come back in the content browser
  5. We can’t create a new asset with the same name as the UE still has an in-memory reference to it
  6. This is very bad as we can continue to edit and work with that asset even thought it’s gone from local file system and if we restart the UE it will disappear for good and we lose the asset forever

Hello vlader08,

I ran a few tests using the information provided. This report can be broken down into 3 parts. I have responded to them as such below.

Invisible asset:

As stated above this is a known issue. I have restated the link to the public tracker below. There you can see the resolution and reasoning behind it. Link: Unreal Engine Issues and Bug Tracker (UE-16437)

Error seen (Name already exists):

This is working as intended. The name is cached temporarily until the editor is restarted.

Asset coming back/not saving:

I have written up a report and I have submitted it to the developers for further consideration. I have provided a link to the public tracker below. Please note that deleting assets from the content folder while the editor is running is not intended workflow.

Link: Unreal Engine Issues and Bug Tracker (UE-44775)

Make it a great day