Gogh Squid Crash Bug Fixed After Hitting 2,000 Users
The developer's transparent account of the 'nullpo squid' bug shows how a rare, easily triggered crash became a viral moment, and how the app's crash-reporting system helped pinpoint the cause.
Reporting from 1 source: Automaton.
A bug in the mobile version of the focus app gogh caused the app to crash whenever a specific squid character appeared on Monaka Beach. The developer, ambr, traced the issue to a missing animation reference, a NullReferenceException. The bug affected over 2,000 users in a week and has been fixed.
The squid in question is a character that watches over users while they work, and its name is listed on the official site. It appears with low probability in a special multi-space that only unlocks after 100 hours of cumulative focus time. The developer, ambr, said the crash was a NullReferenceException in Unity/C#, similar to the Java 'nullpo' error, caused by a missing animation setting.
After the fix, the developer noted that timer usage and focus time reached recent highs around the incident, though a major update also landed in the same period, making it hard to separate the effects. The team acknowledged that some users may have joined specifically to see the squid. Plushies of the squid and other characters are available for pre-order until August 19.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.