Python + Pygame; screen.fill() crashing window

Question

Whenever I try to include "screen.fill(insert value here)" to my pygame code, the window instantly crashes. I can comment it out and my code works just fine. I'm really not sure why.

I've tried moving the line around, using other people's code in part - no luck.

import pygame
pygame.init()

win = pygame.display.set_mode((1000, 800))
pygame.display.set_caption("Tetris")

img=pygame.image.load("C:\\Users\\Charlotte\\Desktop\\tetris_grid.png")
win.blit(img,(450, 150))

running = True
while running:
    screen.fill(0, 0, 0)
    pygame.display.update()
    pygame.time.delay(100)

    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            run = False

pygame.quit()

When I run the code with that line in it, the window opens and then it instantly closes.

No errors in the console? BTW, your loop will never end because you ask for `running` in the while loop and you change `run`. I wouldn't call that "works fine". — Matthias, Oct 12 '19 at 20:35
No, none. At this point, this code is simply to display an image in pygame, and it does just that. It's the very beginning of my program, not a working game. — Charlotte, Oct 12 '19 at 20:50
you should run it in console/terminal/cmd.exe - like `python script.py` - to see errors. — furas, Oct 12 '19 at 20:51

luis.parravicini · Answer 1 · 2019-10-12T20:49:46.910

1

If you are trying to fill the screen with black, the color must be passed as a tuple:

win.fill((0, 0, 0))

Also, you never assign screen, maybe you intended to use win?

The doc for Surface.fill.

edited Oct 12 '19 at 20:49

answered Oct 12 '19 at 20:36

luis.parravicini

1,214
11
19

I've tried it that way too, with the double brackets, no luck. I'm not trying to turn it black, that's just a placeholder value from trying numerous values - I'm trying to turn it white. – Charlotte Oct 12 '19 at 20:45
Well, you never assign `screen`, try with `win`. (updated answer) – luis.parravicini Oct 12 '19 at 20:49
That's a start. It runs, but I can't see any images I put in anymore. – Charlotte Oct 12 '19 at 20:56
Are you using macOS and pygame 1.9? You might be having this issue: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/56319838/pygame-does-not-fill-surface-or-blit-image-on-display-update . And here some workarounds: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52718921/problems-getting-pygame-to-show-anything-but-a-blank-screen-on-macos-mojave – luis.parravicini Oct 12 '19 at 21:01
@Charlotte You're not blitting the images in your example; you're only loading them into memory – Ted Klein Bergman Oct 12 '19 at 23:55

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 13 '19 at 07:05

The color parameter to fill() has to be either a single grayscale value or a tuple of 3 RGB or 4 RGBA components. So it has to be either:

win.fill(0)

or

win.fill((0, 0, 0))

Further you've to blit() the image in the main loop. To continuously draw the scene in the main application loop, you've to:

handle the events
clear the window
draw the scene (blit the image)
update the display

Furthermore I recommend to use tick() of pygame.time.Clock rather than pygame.time.delay() tpo control the frames per second.

import pygame

pygame.init()

win = pygame.display.set_mode((1000, 800))
pygame.display.set_caption("Tetris")
clock = pygame.time.Clock()

img=pygame.image.load("C:\\Users\\Charlotte\\Desktop\\tetris_grid.png")

running = True
while running:

    clock.tick(60)

    # handle the events
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            running = False

    # clear the display
    win.fill(0)

    # draw the scene
    win.blit(img,(450, 150))

    # update the display
    pygame.display.update()

pygame.quit()

Python + Pygame; screen.fill() crashing window

2 Answers2