[2.03.14][Windows zh-CN] Live Update corrupts Chinese asset and project paths when creating compressed hotswap FSBs

FMOD Studio
1

[Generated by Codex, GPT 5.6 Sol]
Hello FMOD team,

I believe I have found a deterministic text-encoding regression in FMOD Studio 2.03’s compressed-asset Live Update path on Windows.

When either the FMOD project path or a newly imported audio asset name contains Chinese characters, Live Update successfully synchronizes event structure, volume, pitch, and hotswap banks, but the newly added audio asset cannot be played.

Environment

  • FMOD Studio: 2.03.14, build 164239
  • FMOD for Unity integration: 2.03.14
  • FMOD runtime: 2.03.14
  • Unity: 2022.3.42f1c1
  • Windows 11 Pro x64: 10.0.26200
  • Windows system locale: zh-CN
  • Windows ANSI/OEM code page: 936
  • Connected FMOD platform: Desktop
  • The FMOD project was originally created with 2.02 and later upgraded to 2.03.
  • We did not encounter this behavior with the previous 2.02 workflow.

The issue is reproducible locally.

Reproduction A: Chinese audio asset name

  1. Place the FMOD project under an ASCII-only path, for example:

    D:\FMODTest\Music\FMOD Project

  2. Start the Unity project and connect FMOD Studio through Live Update.

  3. Import an audio file from the Windows desktop named:

    中文名称测试素材2.wav

  4. Add it to an event while Live Update is connected.

  5. Trigger the event in the connected game.

Expected result

The new audio asset should be synchronized through Live Update and played by the connected game.

Actual result

The import itself succeeds:

  • The file under the FMOD project’s Assets directory retains the correct Chinese name.
  • The saved and unsaved AudioFile metadata XML contains the correct UTF-8 value:
<property name="assetPath">
    <value>中文名称测试素材2.wav</value>
</property>

However, when FMOD creates the compressed hotswap FSB, the filename becomes corrupted.

Intended cache filename:

Desktop中文名称测试素材2.fsb

Actual filename created on NTFS:

Desktop�������Ʋ����ز�2.fsb

No file with the intended Chinese name is created.

Approximately 32 seconds later, ProfileRemoteFile attempts to open the correctly named path and fails with error code 18:

[Runtime] fmod_profile_remotefile.cpp(371),
ProfileRemoteFile::fileOpenProcess():
File 'D:/<redacted>/Music/FMOD Project/.cache/fsbcache/Desktop中文名称测试素材2.fsb'
could not be opened for remote access (error code 18)

The same failure occurs again each time the event is triggered.

Filesystem timeline

A filesystem watcher captured the following sequence:

20:34:15  Created  Desktop\中文名称测试素材2.wav
20:34:19  Created  FMOD Project\Assets\中文名称测试素材2.wav
20:34:19  Created  Metadata\AudioFile\{GUID}.xml
20:34:20  Created  .cache\fsbcache\Desktop�������Ʋ����ز�2.fsb
20:34:52  Runtime attempted to open Desktop中文名称测试素材2.fsb
20:34:52  Remote open failed with error code 18

Encoding evidence

The corruption is deterministic.

The intended filename encoded using Windows CP936/GBK produces these bytes:

44 65 73 6B 74 6F 70
D6 D0 CE C4 C3 FB B3 C6 B2 E2 CA D4 CB D8 B2 C4 32
2E 66 73 62

If those CP936 bytes are incorrectly decoded as UTF-8, the result is:

Desktop�������Ʋ����ز�2.fsb

This exactly matches the filename created by FMOD Studio, character for character.

This suggests that a Live Update path may be converted from Unicode to the Windows local code page and then interpreted as UTF-8. This is an inference based on the captured filenames and byte-level comparison.

Reproduction B: Chinese FMOD project directory

The issue also occurs with an ASCII-only audio asset when the FMOD project itself is under a Chinese directory:

D:\FMODTest\音乐\FMOD Project

In this case, ProfileRemoteFile::fileOpenProcess() fails to open an ASCII-named FSB below the Chinese project directory with error code 18.

Renaming only the parent directory from:

音乐

to:

Music

makes Live Update work again for ASCII-named assets.

Chinese asset names still fail even under the ASCII project path.

Additional observations

  • Live Update remains connected.
  • Event metadata and hotswap .bank files are transferred successfully.
  • Volume, pitch, timeline, and event-structure changes are synchronized.
  • Only the compressed audio asset .fsb fails.
  • FMOD Studio 2.03 added support for sending compressed assets through Live Update; previous versions sent uncompressed WAV assets:
    https://www.fmod.com/docs/2.03/studio/welcome-to-fmod-studio-new-in-203.html

Thank you.