[0.51-p21] NRE during EntityComponentStore.CreateArchetype in release build

Unity Engine
, ,
1

For some reason entity archetype creation fails at:

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at Unity.Entities.EntityComponentStore.CreateArchetype (Unity.Entities.ComponentTypeInArchetype* types, System.Int32 count) [0x00035] in <11558b8573fe4d5b8fc8f89ae6ba62b0>:0
  at Unity.Entities.EntityComponentStore.GetOrCreateArchetype (Unity.Entities.ComponentTypeInArchetype* inTypesSorted, System.Int32 count) [0x00010] in <11558b8573fe4d5b8fc8f89ae6ba62b0>:0
  at Unity.Entities.EntityDataAccess.CreateArchetype (Unity.Entities.ComponentType* types, System.Int32 count) [0x0003f] in <11558b8573fe4d5b8fc8f89ae6ba62b0>:0
  at Unity.Entities.EntityManager.CreateArchetype (Unity.Entities.ComponentType* types, System.Int32 count) [0x0000c] in <11558b8573fe4d5b8fc8f89ae6ba62b0>:0
  at Unity.Entities.EntityManager.CreateArchetype (Unity.Collections.NativeArray`1[T] types) [0x0000e] in <11558b8573fe4d5b8fc8f89ae6ba62b0>:0

I’ve pinned it down to GetTypeInfo (upon ct access NRE is thrown) at EntityComponentStore:

internal Archetype* CreateArchetype(ComponentTypeInArchetype* types, int count)
        {
            AssertArchetypeComponents(types, count);

            var scalarEntityPatchCount = 0;
            var bufferEntityPatchCount = 0;
            var numManagedArrays = 0;
            var numSharedComponents = 0;
            var enableableComponentIndexInArchetype = stackalloc int[count];
            var numEnableableComponents = 0;

            for (var i = 0; i < count; ++i)
            {
                ref readonly var ct = ref GetTypeInfo(types[i].TypeIndex);

                // Here at ct.Category access attempt
                if (ct.Category == TypeManager.TypeCategory.ISharedComponentData)
                {
                    ++numSharedComponents;
                }
                else if (TypeManager.IsManagedComponent(types[i].TypeIndex))
                {
                    ++numManagedArrays;
                }
                else
                {
                    if (ct.BufferCapacity >= 0)
                        bufferEntityPatchCount += ct.EntityOffsetCount;
                    else if (ct.SizeInChunk > 0)
                        scalarEntityPatchCount += ct.EntityOffsetCount;
                }

                if (types[i].IsEnableable)
                    enableableComponentIndexInArchetype[numEnableableComponents++] = i;
            }
   ...

This happens only in release build, editor and dev build runs fine. (Windows Standalone)
TypeManager is initialized beforehand, and some EntityArchetypes are successfully created.

I know best option is to move to 1.0.11 testing it there, but it will take ages to do so.
Maybe anyone knows what can be causing this?

2

Okay, managed to figure out what going on.

So it seems size of the IComponentData is computed in editor only and ignore [potential] changes done during building.
Basically, if you have something like:

public struct SomeComponent : IComponentData {
#if DEBUG
     public bool SomeField;
#endif
}

This will cause some buffer misalignment, and an invalid pointer.
Simply removing the directive fixes the problem. But pinning down offending field across 50+ components wasn’t easy.

I just hope this case is covered in Entities 1.+.