Unity Issue Tracker - Reference to the root prefab child is lost when pressing "Unpack Prefab" on root prefab and entering Play mode

Fixed in 2021.1.X

Fixed in 2019.4.X, 2020.1.X, 2020.2.X

Votes

2

Found in

2018.4

2019.1.0f2

2021.1

Issue ID

1151512

Regression

No

Reference to the root prefab child is lost when pressing "Unpack Prefab" on root prefab and entering Play mode

Scene Management

-

May 03, 2019

How to reproduce:
1. Open attached project "New Unity Project.zip" and scene "SampleScene"
2. In Hierarchy window, expand "Root" object and select its child "Nested"
3. In Inspector window, GameObjectReference(Script) -> press on "Part of Root" (this highlights the "Part of Root" in the Hierarchy window)
4. In Hierarchy window, do "Unpack Prefab" for "Root" prefab
5. Enter Play mode
6. Repeat steps 2 and 3

Expected result: the "Part of Root" object in the Hierarchy is selected
Actual result: nothing is being highlighted, double-clicking on the "Part of Root" in the Inspector, opens up "Root" prefab

WorkAround: Apply the reference to prefab after the outer prefab was unpacked (this will not change the asset because the link now points to scene object and preserve the link to scene object).

Reproducible with: 2018.4.28f1, 2019.4.13f1, 2020.1.10f1, 2020.2.0b8, 2021.1.0a1