Changing the object.text of a newEmbossedText display object

When I attempt to change the text of a newEmbossedText object, the last string that was assigned does not clear and the new value is superimposed over it, causing the display of the text to be unreadable.

I fixed it in one case by setting the object.text = “ “, first, And then assigning a new value.

Object.text = “not confused” and it worked.

For some reason, it is not working for me in a different case.

Here is how I have it set up.

local topMessage

local topMessageDisplay

topMessage is declared at the top of the Lua file and is later given a string value

topMessageDisplay is also declared at the top and will later be given the following.

topMessageDisplay = newEmbossedText(sceneGroup, topMessage, centerX, centerY, native.systemFont, 24)

Then, when I attempt to change topMessage,

topMessage = “confused”

And set

topMessageDisplay.text = topMessage

The last string value remains in addition to any subsequent values given to topMessage even when I assign topMessageDisplay.text = “ “

And then set,

topMessageDisplay.text = topMessage

Or even explicitly to,

TopMessageDisplay.text = “Help me!”

All previous strings assigned overlap one another and are unreadable.

I am utterly confused as I have a working case in one place, and then this mess!

I went through my code and compared the one case that works to the other case that does not, and unfortunately, I can’t see where one differs from the other.

Does anyone know what I may have done wrong?

I tried so many variations of fixes and I went in circles to no avail.

I can’t seem to clear the object.text

This has to be an easy fix.

I did it once before!

What am I missing?

Thanks in advance

Chris