I can't stop my coroutine.

[Johnscaban]

I have this coroutine:

private IEnumerator CountDownToStartGame()
{
    yield return new WaitForSeconds(countdownToStartGame); //Lasts 10 seconds

    StartCoroutine(StartGame());
}

I start it like this: countdownCoroutine = StartCoroutine(CountDownToStartGame());

If something happens, I call this method:

public void StopStartingGame()
{
    StopCoroutine(countdownCoroutine);

    Debug.Log("Coroutine stopped");
}

But its not working, how can I stop it?

[Kurt-Dekker]

Coroutines are NOT always an appropriate solution: know when to use them!

Things to check before starting a coroutine?

The main thing to check before calling / making a coroutine is to ask yourself, “Does this even need to be a coroutine?” Generally, if your design requires you to call StopCoroutine(), then don’t make it a coroutine. If you just need something to happen a bit later, this is a more-robust approach: https://gist.github.com/kurtdekker/0da9a9721c15bd3af1d2ced0a367e24e If you’re flipping from one value to another, such as fading in, fading out, changing speeds slowly, etc., coroutines are an AW…

Generally, if your design requires you to call StopCoroutine(), then don’t make it a coroutine.

It sounds like you really need something like a cooldown timer, and you want to interrupt it.

This means a timer that without further intervention will cause something to happen in X seconds.

But… things can happen that extend that time (or stop the count entirely), usually by resetting the timer.

Cooldown timers, gun bullet intervals, shot spacing, rate of fire:

Fire Rate Issues

This is commonly called a "cooldown timer." You can google for examples and tutorials, but the simplest way is this: have a private float gunHeat; variable In Update(), if that variable is greater than zero, subtract Time.deltaTime from it (this cools down the gunHeat) if (gunHeat > 0) { gunHeat -= Time.deltaTime; } When you go to fire: --- A. only fire if that gunHeat variable is zero or less. --- B. set that variable to the time (in seconds) you want to have between shots. if (Us…

[Johnscaban]

I’m making a multiplayer game and when I client joins while the game is starting, I stop the countdown coroutine. I want it like that to avoid errors and to let the new player vote for the map and game-modes. Should I not use a coroutine?

[Kurt-Dekker]

@Johnscaban

Should I not use a coroutine?

I wouldn’t. Once start is pressed, set a timer to 10 seconds and count it down.

When players join, either stop the count or reset the count to 10 seconds.

There’s just not a lot of ways this code can go bad:

// zero means don't start, nonzero means start in that amount of time.
float timeToStart;

void Update()
{
  if (timeToStart > 0)
  {
    timeToStart -= Time.deltaTime;
    if (timeToStart <= 0)
    {
       // call the start game here
    }
  }
}

void ResetCountdown()
{
  timeToStart = 10;
}

void StopCountdown()
{
  timeToStart = 0;
}