StackOverflow during initialization

✅ Pattern reproduced in Political World 💥 Troubleshooting

A StackOverflow during startup, world initialization, kingdom creation, or another first-time setup step often means that a small group of methods is calling itself indirectly.

Typical shape

A()
 ↓
B()
 ↓
C()
 ↓
A()
 ↓
B()
 ↓
C()
 ...

The source does not need to contain an obvious direct call such as A() { A(); }.

Indirect recursion is more common in real mod code.

Common sources

Getter initializes missing state

Thing GetThing()
{
    if (thing == null)
        SetThing(CreateThing());

    return thing;
}

If SetThing() eventually calls GetThing(), the loop is complete.

Setter emits a callback

SetState()
  → event/callback
  → listener reads State
  → getter tries to initialize
  → SetState()

Harmony re-entry

A Prefix or Postfix may call a method that eventually reaches the patched method again.

The fix is not always “remove Harmony”. First prove where the cycle occurs.

How to debug

1. Find the smallest repeating sequence of methods in the stack/log.
2. Draw arrows between them on paper or in a note.
3. Mark which functions read state and which mutate state.
4. Look for a read function that secretly mutates or initializes.
5. Create a one-shot initialization function with a guard.
6. Make getters return data instead of trying to repair the entire object graph.
7. Re-test the exact first-time scenario that originally failed.

Guard example

A guard can prevent accidental re-entry:

private bool _initializing;

void EnsureInitialized()
{
    if (_initialized || _initializing)
        return;

    _initializing = true;
    try
    {
        // initialize without calling getters that can enter this method again
        _initialized = true;
    }
    finally
    {
        _initializing = false;
    }
}

A guard is not a substitute for understanding the cycle. It is a safety layer after the initialization dependencies are made sane.

Real case

Political World reproduced this pattern when government data was missing for a newly created kingdom.

See: Political World — government initialization recursion.