[win2019.15840] Phantom CHOP exports

If I export, for example, a channel in a Null CHOP to a parameter in a TOP, and then immediately undo, the export and the newly created export table to go away, but somewhere in the system there is still a record of that channel being exported because if I then rename the TOP, TouchDesigner asks me if I want to update the export in the Null CHOP that, according to what I can see in the network editor, shouldn’t have an export table to update at all.

phantom_export.png
Regardless of which option I choose in that dialog, the export table suddenly re-appears even though the export is not active. Also if I delete that table and then rename the TOP again, the question again comes and the table will again reappear.

This is less a direct problem and more a symptom of an underlying issue with exporting. There are many esoteric exporting bugs that we have all run into that gaslight us into thinking everything’s fine until something weird happens (like export flag randomly turning off, or entries in the export table not disappearing) that I feel are related to the fact that, apparently, the export table in the network editor is not actually the definitive source of export information for our operators.

Is there any way to see this hidden list of exports that may or may not be in sync with the table DATs that are attached to our CHOPs in the network editor? Or is there a guaranteed order of operations that we can follow that will absolutely prevent this? Delete the Null CHOP and start over whenever we need to change or undo an export? Use optimizable python expressions instead of exporting? Sacrifice a holy banana to the Canadian Mounties?

It will only be stored in 2 places, the export DAT and the parameter it was going to. Recently in 10k branch there was a nice cleanup to how this stuff works, so try to forget your history with exporting and we’ll focus on the bugs at hand. My hunch is that the “Undo” could be the problem here as it often does weird things and may be out of sync, undo is generally pretty messy and we are trying to improve that.

Good news is I can reproduce your case and that means we can clean this up, thanks for the report!