"A new library Assets/ folder never mounts until you restart the editor"
▸ SYMPTOM
You add the first assets to a library that previously had only code:
- The
Code/side hotloads without a restart, as usual. - But the new
Assets/folder stays invisible to the editor. Asset search returns nothing for anything under it, andasset_infoon an absolute path inside it reports no asset.
Everything looks correct on disk — the files are there, the paths are right — the editor simply never sees them.
▸ CAUSE
The editor mounts a library's Assets/ folder when it discovers the library at startup. A folder that did not exist when the editor started is never mounted, and there is no rescan or remount command and no editor API to force one.
This is not a dead file watcher. A file written into an already-mounted asset folder still indexes within seconds — the watcher on existing mounts works fine. The gap is specifically the mount step: a brand-new top-level Assets/ folder in a library was never registered as a mount point, so nothing watches it and nothing indexes it.
This is distinct from a library that isn't registered as a project at all (the case where a Libraries/* folder has no .sbproj and never becomes a library project). Here the library is already discovered and compiling — only the asset-mount side is missing, purely because the folder appeared after boot.
▸ FIX
Restart the editor. That is the only fix — it re-runs library discovery, sees the now-existing Assets/ folder, and mounts it.
Practical rule: any change that adds the first assets to a previously asset-less library needs an editor restart before those assets are testable, even though the library's code side hotloads without one. Plan the restart into the workflow rather than debugging "missing" assets that are sitting right there on disk.
▸ WHY IT WORKS
Asset mounts are established during library discovery at editor startup, and there is no runtime remount path. A restart is the only event that re-runs discovery, so it is the only way to pick up a folder that was created after the last boot. Once the folder is mounted, its watcher behaves normally and later files under it index within seconds — the restart is a one-time cost per newly-created asset folder, not per file.
- Published