Troubleshooting
Sorted by what you are seeing.
The browser
| Symptom | Likely cause and fix |
|---|---|
| No animations listed | A filter or leftover search text is still active - clear both. If the project genuinely has .anim files, trigger a manual refresh |
| A clip I just imported is missing | The change watcher normally catches imports; refresh manually, and if it happens repeatedly it is worth a bug report |
| Clips from an external folder missing | Check Settings → External Assets. Lite scans one external folder |
| Scrolling stutters on a huge library | Lower the thumbnail quality preset. The first pass over an unrendered library is the expensive one; it gets fast once the disk cache is warm |
Previews and thumbnails
| Symptom | Likely cause and fix |
|---|---|
| "No preview" on every clip | No default character. Open Characters (Ctrl+Shift+C) and mark one |
| "No preview" on some clips | Those clips do not fit the character's rig. Check the bone match score, or set a per-clip preview character |
| Preview looks wrong / limbs bent | Rig mismatch. Run Character Diagnostics - it names avatar problems instead of leaving you guessing |
| Thumbnails stale after changing a clip | Clear the cache in Settings → Thumbnails. It rebuilds on demand |
| Thumbnails too coarse to tell clips apart | Raise the quality preset. Lite caps at Balanced (128 px) |
Keyframe Editor
| Symptom | Likely cause and fix |
|---|---|
| A clip will not accept edits | Imported clips (inside an FBX) are read-only. Extract the clip first |
| Edits vanished after a recompile | They should not - a domain reload auto-commits a version first. If it happened, that is a bug worth reporting with the console log |
| Cannot go back to an earlier state | Versions are saved with Ctrl+S, not automatically on every change. Lite keeps the last 2 per clip |
| My layers are gone | The .anim file only holds the flattened result. The stack lives in the version snapshot - see Animation Layers |
| A layer shortcut does nothing | On Windows AltGr equals Ctrl+Alt. If the key produces a character on your layout, the shortcut never fires - rebind it under Settings → Hotkeys |
Pose Edit
| Symptom | Likely cause and fix |
|---|---|
Ctrl+Shift+L does nothing | Scene Edit needs a character the clip can drive. With none selected it places the clip's own - so nothing happening means the clip has no fitting character either. The editor states the reason - read the notification |
| Bones cannot be clicked | Pose Edit must be active; the overlay owns picking only while it runs |
| Posing does not record | The active layer is locked, muted or at a very low weight. The scene HUD names which |
| Changes are not in the clip | They are still pending. Apply with Ctrl+Space, discard with Backspace |
Audio
The audio pipeline has its own checklist, including the console messages and what each one means: Audio Integration → No sound.
The short version: is there an AWSFXManager in the scene, is a SFX Source Prefab assigned, and does the cue key exist in the baked database?
Events in a build
| Symptom | Likely cause and fix |
|---|---|
| No audio events fire | No AWSFXManager in the scene |
| Some cues silent | The database was baked before those cues existed. It rebakes before every build automatically - force one with Save & Bake Runtime Audio on the Audio Library asset |
| Events fire on one character only | The others are missing an AWAudioEventReceiver |
Performance
- Lower the thumbnail quality preset - the single biggest lever
- Clear the thumbnail cache if it has grown unwieldy
- Use the built-in Profiler (Tools menu) to see where the time actually goes; its numbers are cumulative, so read the deltas
- Turn on debug logging in Settings → System and read the console
After switching between builds
Animation Workbench ships in two forms - a source build and a precompiled one - and switching from one to the other leaves every Animation Workbench asset unreadable at once: library, databases, settings, palette, audio channels, rig weights, and the SFX components sitting in your own scenes and prefabs.
Nothing is damaged. The files hold their data the whole time; only the one line that names their script points at an installation that is no longer there.
Repair Script References rewrites that line. It reaches you where the problem does - as a button on the screen that reports it - and it shows you the count before it touches anything. It rewrites a reference only where the file itself names an Animation Workbench assembly next to it, so your own scripts in the same prefab are never candidates. What it cannot identify it says out loud rather than passing over: a scene last saved long enough ago carries no class name beside the reference, and those stay as they are.
Still stuck
Tools → Animation Workbench → Report a Bug opens the in-editor Feedback Hub, which collects the context we need with the report.
Or ask in #bug-reports on Discord. A console log and the Unity version get you an answer much faster.