Critical BUGS - Is MakeCode being maintained by Microsoft?

[emory55]

I was hoping that after the presentation earlier this year and the update to the codebase that MakeCode would become more stable, but it seems like it has become broken. It could be from extensions breaking saving projects. Projects are forgetting code blocks, and having students revert back and rewrite is not acceptable. Tutorials like the Game Maker Guide (with the platform in particular) are bugged on student accounts.

My students are constantly getting project conflicts (where it creates a copy of the code base, only for them to be unable to properly save to an PNG).
They have had to re-write their code multiple times, due to MakeCode Cloud system corrupting their code project. This system needs to be thoroughly debugged over the summer so that by September it is in a stable position.

Sadly most of these bugs (seem to be a product of make code codebase changes of 2025) Last October (2024), there was internal memory limit that prevented my students from saving their work and that was fixed by increasing an allowable buffer. I cannot help but wonder if there are additional internal memory issues now that there is an updated codebase.

I am starting to consider abandoning the MakeCode system due to its instability, as my students are losing their progress, functionality is randomly being disabled (for example: the advanced tab with ability to make/use functions disappears but sometimes by clearing the cache and reloading the project you can recover this) or the ability to save a your project as a PNG breaks.

[jacqueline.russell]

Hi @emory55. I am very sorry to hear about all these issues! I would like to take them one at a time to see how we can troubleshoot and solve them for your students. It would be great if you could file issues for each one of these problems in GitHub - https://github.com/microsoft/pxt-arcade/issues. In the issue, please provide as much information as you can to help us reproduce the error on our side (platform, browser, link to the project or tutorial, etc.) Here is what I think are the issues you are running into (please let me know if I have these right):

• Game Maker Guide Skillmap not functioning correctly
• Losing code in projects (using extensions?)
• Unable to save project as a file
• Toolbox categories disappearing

We would very much like to fix any issues you are running into.
Thank you,
Jacqueline

[emory55]

Thank you I would like to work with on this matter. This week it is the deadline for my students, so I am not sure if I will have time to resolve it. My students cannot even share the project via a shared link. The internet access is not an issue as they can work on it and connect to the cloud, etc. My stopgap solution is to remake the project with a vanilla blank project. When my students try to rename their project, it always reverts back to their original name on the cloud.

[jacqueline.russell]

Hi @emory55, can you download this program and send the .png file to me? Also, can you paste in the exact URL you are using for Arcade? I couldn’t see the address bar in your photo… Another thing that would be helpful is to send us the browser console logs which you can get to by pressing F12. Here is also a list of some good tips for sending us information on an issue - What to do when you encounter a bug - MakeCode Blog - Microsoft MakeCode

[emory55]

In this project the tiles were all reset back to null. Fixing this, does not solve the issue as it system gets stuck on saving to the cloud.

Here is the console debugging results as well
Block definition “text” overwrites previous definition. main.js:7:42711

Block definition “text_join” overwrites previous definition. main.js:7:42711

Browser: firefox 139.0 on windows pxtapp.js:1:54266

workspace: browser pxtapp.js:1:54266

Autoplay is only allowed when approved by the user, the site is activated by the user, or media is muted. 3 main.js:7:395021

Feature Policy: Skipping unsupported feature name “autoplay”. pxtapp.js:1:572927

Feature Policy: Skipping unsupported feature name “autoplay”. pxtapp.js:1:572973

Feature Policy: Skipping unsupported feature name “autoplay”. pxtapp.js:1:573134

Feature Policy: Skipping unsupported feature name “autoplay”. pxtapp.js:1:573940

Performance Report: Milestones: first JS running @ 1s689ms DOM loaded @ 2s750ms workspace init finished @ 3s488ms loading started @ 2m12s id: changeheader simulator ready @ 2m12s Measurements: setAppTarget took ~ 141ms (2s750ms - 2s891ms) network.request took ~ 299ms (2s904ms - 3s203ms) url: /api/user/preferences method: GET sizeInBytes: 19430 statusCode: 200 network.request took ~ 2s27ms (3s492ms - 5s519ms) url: /api/user/project method: GET sizeInBytes: 14373626 statusCode: 200 network.request took ~ 1m6s (8s - 1m14s) url: /api/user/project method: POST network.request took ~ 10ms (1m15s - 1m15s) url: https://cdn.makecode.com/api/config/arcade/targetconfig/v2.0.56… method: GET sizeInBytes: 14113 statusCode: 200 network.request took ~ 14ms (1m15s - 1m15s) url: https://cdn.makecode.com/api/md/arcade/hero-banner… method: GET sizeInBytes: 1163 statusCode: 200 prepareBlockly took ~ 85ms (1m15s - 1m15s) loadBlockly took ~ 320ms (1m15s - 1m15s) network.request took ~ 454ms (2m12s - 2m12s) url: /api/user/project… method: GET sizeInBytes: 558 statusCode: 200 pxtweb.js:1:4179

not upgrading github:microsoft/pxt-tilemaps/ - cannot parse version pxtapp.js:1:54266

setEnabled was deprecated in v11 and will be deleted in v12. Use the setDisabledReason method of BlockSvg instead. main.js:7:36939

setEnabled was deprecated in v11 and will be deleted in v12. Use the setDisabledReason method of Block instead. main.js:7:36939

Ignoring call to start simulator, either already running or we shouldn’t start. pxtapp.js:1:54266

disabled was deprecated in v11 and will be deleted in v12. Use the isEnabled or hasDisabledReason methods of Block instead. main.js:7:36939

XHRPOSThttps://arcade.makecode.com/api/user/project[HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error 0ms]

XHRPOSThttps://arcade.makecode.com/api/user/project[HTTP/1.1 409 Conflict 0ms]

Feature Policy: Skipping unsupported feature name “autoplay”. pxtapp.js:1:572927

Feature Policy: Skipping unsupported feature name “autoplay”. pxtapp.js:1:572973

Feature Policy: Skipping unsupported feature name “autoplay”. pxtapp.js:1:573134

Feature Policy: Skipping unsupported feature name “autoplay”. pxtapp.js:1:573940

not upgrading github:microsoft/pxt-tilemaps/ - cannot parse version pxtapp.js:1:54266

Simulator ServiceWorker registration successful with scope: https://trg-arcade.userpxt.io/ pxtsim.js:1:64060

Partitioned cookie or storage access was provided to “https://trg-arcade.userpxt.io/---simulator#sim-frame-14032146374439629320.7147917569685653” because it is loaded in the third-party context and dynamic state partitioning is enabled.

[jacqueline.russell]

Hi @emory55 - thanks for sending along this additional information. We were able to pinpoint the issue - the project text is too large due to the _history.

We are pushing a fix for this now - fix history file size issues by riknoll · Pull Request #10676 · microsoft/pxt.
Thank you so much for reporting this issue and helping us troubleshoot.

[Tasty_turnip2]

I was also frustrated by many of these bugs, Good to see them fixed! I guess I should have been more assertive when posting about them to get noticed.

[RSharpe-WA]

I’m still having this same issue. Is there something I need to do to apply the fix?

[jacqueline.russell]

Hello @RSharpe-WA - can you please let me know exactly what issue you are facing? If there is a specific project that is having issues, can you share the link or file? Thanks.

[RSharpe-WA]

Hi Jacqueline,

Here is one of the games that gets the message below when they try to create the link:

This has happened to about 15 to 20 percent of my class. It was an assignment that was expanded from the Game Design skillmap on the Platformer skill deck. We can download it to a file which takes up to five minutes to download. They are getting out of memory issues on the desktops as well and the MakeCode site won’t load. We need to clear the browsing history to get it to reload. They get errors that there’s a conflict and the file makes copy after copy. Some of the time the original file disappears and/or some of the code is missing.

[RSharpe-WA]

This is the same message from the previous post. It’s also a memory issue for sure.

[jacqueline.russell]

Hi @RSharpe-WA - thanks for the additional information. I just checked, and looks like we never bumped this fix to production. Apologies! Working to get that through now. Will let you know as soon as it’s live. Thanks for your patience.