Troubleshooting

From time to time - especially as you're starting out - you will hit errors when compiling your project. These will appear in CoilSnake's output box. If the error doesn't give a lot of information, going Settings --> Enable Debug Mode might get you a little more information. Your hack will only have compiled successfully if the output ends with "Compiled to [...]".

Resolving errors by yourself

Read the error message carefully

Usually the error message will report in which file the error has occurred. For syntax errors, it'll often even tell you on which line things went wrong. If you go to this location, you can find the mistake and fix it.

Check for silly mistakes

Make sure you've saved all your files and you're compiling the correct project and all that. This one catches out even the best of hackers from time to time.

Check the wiki

Some common hurdles such as sprite group palette errors are reported frequently enough that they're documented on the wiki. Check the relevant page based on what step of the compilation CoilSnake was up to when things went wrong.

How to ask for help

It's no good waltzing into #hacking-help over on Discord and announcing, "It does not work". If you need help, then you'll need to tell people a few things:

1. What you did
2. What you expected to happen
3. What happened instead

It's important to test compiling your hack frequently so it's easy to answer step 1.

First, copy the error message from the output box, or take a screenshot. When posting it on Discord (if you copied the text), make sure to wrap it between two ```s to format the message nicely, otherwise it's hard to read.

Example:

``` Error! Error! Error! ```

Then, if you've got a line number or file, post the lines around/in that area too. If it's a palette error, take a screenshot of the palette in your graphics software and post that too.

Without this information, nobody can be expected to be able to help you out!