Null error happens even after a null check?

Question

# Character look at mouse position
if playerTarget == null:
    rayHit.y = player.translation.y
    player.look_at(rayHit, Vector3.UP)

# Character look at target
else:
    mouseTarget = playerTarget.transform.origin
    mouseTarget.y += 1.5
    player.look_at(mouseTarget, Vector3.UP)
    gun.look_at(mouseTarget, Vector3.UP)

This is supposed to check if the mouse is pointed at an enemy. If so, player looks at enemy, if not, it just looks at the mouse position. Problem is every now and then, when testing the game, i get a null instance error after killing an enemy saying that playerTarget cant be found because its a null. Any ways to fix this?

Answer 1

is_node_valid()

This is the only way to check for node, that might disappear during checking or iterating.

Comments

Mind giving a sample. i tried it but gdscript cant find the function.

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It should be is_instance_valid https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/classes/class_%40globalscope.html#class-globalscope-method-is-instance-valid

Answer 2

I ran into the same issue, and it went away if I used is_instance_valid instead of != null
https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/classes/class_%40globalscope.html#class-globalscope-method-is-instance-valid