Spine Loops in Preview but Plays Once in the Game? Check Playback State

The AI-generated cover shows several poses. It is not a continuous loop, timeline screenshot, or runtime playback test.

The workbench repeats an animation, but the game plays it once and holds a pose. Before regenerating the character or declaring a missing loop in the export, compare the playback settings and state flow. The preview and target application need not use the same conditions.

Record data, repetition, and game flow separately

Fix the data batch, actual animation name, and skin. Loading the animation is data-level evidence. Repeating it depends on the current playback configuration. Replacing it later belongs to the game's state flow. Keep these as separate observations.

Confirm names from the resource; examples such as idle or walk are not promises that every template contains those actions.

A runtime loop setting cannot be inferred from preview

The current official Spine runtime reference describes a loop argument for an animation entry. Use the actual project's runtime and integration for the calling details. The version of that reference does not identify the version of every Tooliva export.

This is not a universal instruction to set one flag to true. Subsequent animation changes, tracks, entry clearing, and time progression can still affect the result. A stopped image does not establish which condition caused it.

Make one controlled comparison

• Workbench: select an available action using the guide and record the observed repetition.
• Target project: confirm the same batch and action, and whether the loop setting has actually been checked.
• Game flow: record replacement by another state or repeated re-setting of the animation.
• Time progression: retain real evidence about pause, speed, and updates, or mark them unresolved.

These are suggested human records, not a newly claimed workbench runtime-log panel. The integrator should confirm them from the actual debugging environment rather than looking for an invented control.

Distinguish different symptoms

Stopping after a full cycle, being replaced immediately, and repeatedly returning to the beginning can all appear to be a looping problem. They do not justify the same repair. Record the stage and actual state change, then investigate one main condition at a time.

If the design calls for one attack followed by idle, playing once is not automatically a defect. Validate idle repetition and attack completion against the interaction design instead of forcing every action to loop merely to keep the image moving.

Observe repetition and a state transition

For an action that should loop, observe successive cycles and their seam. For an action that should play once, observe completion and the next state. Two cycles are a suggested minimum observation window, not an automatic platform acceptance rule or complete boundary coverage.

Use Spine Workbench to check the source, without treating its preview as proof that game logic is configured. For actual image sequences, see frame count, FPS, and duration; image-player settings are not automatically skeleton-runtime settings.