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BUG: Unity Hub and Unity Download Assistant will overwrite each other

Discussion in 'Unity Hub' started by v-ercart, Jan 18, 2019.

  1. v-ercart

    v-ercart

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2018
    Posts:
    8
    I installed Unity 2018.3.2f1 via the Unity Hub. The install directory was D:\UnityHub\Unity2018.3.2f1\

    Later I needed to go back to Unity 2018.3.0f2 for a different project. This is a downgrade, so I wanted to keep my 2f1 version installed. Because 0f2 isn't in the Unity Hub (why is it not?), I had to download the Unity Download Assistant from the Unity website.

    The Unity Download Assistant had a default path: D:\UnityHub\Unity2018.3.2f1\ that looked like what I wanted, but upon further inspection I realized the default install installs to the 2f1 directory!!!! There's no warning or anything, it just plows over your other install. Unity Hub is none-the-wiser about this newly installed version, and just keeps showing 2f1.

    Why does Unity Download Assistant suggest a folder that is for the wrong version? I like that it found my default directory that UnityHub uses, but it needs a subdirectory that matches the version of Unity it's actually installing!
     
  2. Baste

    Baste

    Joined:
    Jan 24, 2013
    Posts:
    6,294
    The Unity Download Assistant has always suggested the last place Unity was installed to as the location to install Unity. That's always been a bad idea.

    You can install older versions through the hub by going to the download archive and clicking the Unity Hub button next to the version.

    You can't download older versions through the Hub because the Hub team doesn't understand how people use Unity, and keeps insisting that it would be a terrible idea to add older versions to the Hub. Not joking.
     
  3. afshinity

    afshinity

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Jul 31, 2017
    Posts:
    334
    Hi Baste,

    You can download the older versions of the unity using the hub, but not from the hub.
    In the archive page of the unity (https://unity3d.com/get-unity/download/archive), there is an option to download with the hub. It will trigger the hub if it is installed on your machine.

    The reason that we are not promoting the full list of the archive in the hub is to encourage users to use the latest minor releases to get the latest bug fixes.

    And, finally, we would love to get feedback like that to improve our product. Thank you for being active in our forum :)

    Best,
    Afshin
     
  4. Baste

    Baste

    Joined:
    Jan 24, 2013
    Posts:
    6,294
    Thank you. If you take a closer look, that's exactly what I wrote in my post.


    Also kinda covered this in my post!

    The user base has been pretty vocal about wanting older releases in the hub for a while, at least from what I see from the forums. To reiterate something I've said before - it's hard to find older versions of Unity unless you happen to know that you need to google for the word "archive", as your webpages are built to sell Unity licenses, not guide people to downloading Unity.

    It would cost you pretty much nothing to at least add a link to the archive from the hub, and it would solve a large problem your user base has.

    Also, your recommendation to "stay on the latest release" is really harmful, because users that followed that advice would be losing a lot of time and money by constantly updating. Please stop recommending it, you're doing your users a disservice.

    I mean, thanks, I guess?

    The Hub's a really necessary step forwards for Unity. Proper project and install management is great. And managing those things is in a better state with the Hub than it was before. So you have achieved that.

    Then again, overall it's been a rather large disappointment. It was launched in beta over a year ago, and it's still very far away from anything I'd consider ready for launch. The window doesn't resize! We can't remove projects from the list! We can't uninstall versions that's not installed from the Hub! Putting installs in the logical directory - the same as the hub - causes them to be deleted when the hub version updates! Issues that you were receptive to as "good ideas" in June, July still haven't been implemented! Installing to custom locations took you what, half a year? And it's still a bad solution!

    Maybe I'm missing something fundamentally hard behind the scenes, but that you haven't managed to make the Hub better than it is in over a year is disappointing. Is Electron that bad of a platform? Did you make some horrible engineering mistakes early on? Is there internal problems?

    I hope that the v2 version you're talking about not only fixes a lot of issues, but allow you to deliver features faster than the current pace. While you're making it mandatory from 2019.1, I think it should still have been in beta. It's easily the worst piece of work Unity has done as a company over the last couple of years. Please improve.

    I'm usually not this critical about things, but the Hub's really central to our workflow - and to my workday. When it's bad, it takes me longer to do things, and since it's the entry point to working with Unity, you're putting an annoyance up right as I'm about to start my day.

    Please don't take any of this personally. I'm sure the Hub team has good intentions and are working hard, but something's very clearly not working.
     
  5. afshinity

    afshinity

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Jul 31, 2017
    Posts:
    334
    Hi Baste,

    Thanks again for spending time and explaining the issues that you're facing.

    Regarding the velocity of delivering features, the main reason for our slowness is we are working on V2 of the Hub that changing the frontend of the application and also addressing many of the issues that you mentioned and more. We are expecting to have the first Beta of the V2 in March.

    I went over your list, and here is what will happen for each:
    Archive links: Your suggestion to add a link to the archive page is great, we will add that.
    Window Resize: V2 of will have a responsive design and you can resize it (with a minimum, but no maximum)
    Remove Projects: V2 will have this feature. Maybe not in the first beta, but soon after that
    Uninstalling other editors: This is not in the immediate plan. There are some technical and product concerns to make sure we are doing it correctly.
    Hub Update: Putting all the editors next in the hub folder is not necessarily the only logical option. We discussed about potential solutions for this, but since there is a workaround available, and a small group of users was affected, a lower priority is assigned to that.

    The good and hard thing about the hub is, it has many potentials. This is good because we are building that helping our users to be more productive and create great stuff. This is hard because there are tons of feature requests that we need to prioritize them. That's why from each user perspective, we may not moving forward fast enough, while we are addressing other user's needs or getting ready for future release (e.g. supporting linux, replacing the launcher, etc,)

    And finally, we believe that "the v2 version we're talking about not only fixes a lot of issues but allow us to deliver features faster than the current pace."

    Thanks again for raising your concerns, and I hope not only we can address them, but also keep receiving the new ones to be able to improve our product.
     
    Baste likes this.
  6. blairhoughton

    blairhoughton

    Joined:
    Jan 5, 2019
    Posts:
    9
    Today I opened the hub and it is too small for its content. There are controls on the upper right that aren't visible. There's no way to resize it.

    One other thing that's always bothered me is how Unity will pretty much disappear on startup. The splash screen appears, then it goes away and takes the taskbar icon with it, and then twenty seconds later dialogs or windows start to appear again. Without the splash screen or an icon it looks like Unity is dead. And in some cases, when dismissing an ambiguous dialog (the one I just got about upgrading API elements of scripts, for instance), the fact that it really is dead looks like it's just starting. But it's not, it's dead. You just don't know it without waiting half a minute and checking Task Manager, and...oh, wait. it's not dead. There's a zombie Unity task in there...

    Kill those...start Unity....and the Hub is normal sized again...

    So, I'm not sure what's broken. Was the zombie there before I started all this, and it caused the problem, or was the zombie caused by this? Maybe Unity needs to do some more stringent checking and cleanup of running instances. Also, the hub window should be resizable, because sometimes control is necessary.
     
  7. blairhoughton

    blairhoughton

    Joined:
    Jan 5, 2019
    Posts:
    9
    Update: After trying it a couple more times I've confirmed Unity 2019.1.0f2 is leaving zombies when the API Update Required dialog is closed without proceeding (via the "No Thanks" button vs the "I Made a Backup, Go Ahead!" button).

    I don't even get why it's asking to update API elements, since I am opening a project I had open in exactly the same version of Unity yesterday.

    The ominous warning about making a backup before proceeding isn't helping. The new version overwrote my old version of Unity and I'd have to get 2018.whatever installed again to recover.
     
  8. blairhoughton

    blairhoughton

    Joined:
    Jan 5, 2019
    Posts:
    9
    Okay, now I dismissed it with the No Thanks button, and Unity opened anyway...

    Is there a random-number generator inside the startup code?