Change Remote Catalog Load Path at Runtime

Hi, I am trying to add a cheat to a client app that lets you change the url of the catalog at runtime. For example:

I "build Player Content" and upload it to bucket 1, the client is set to look for the catalog in bucket 1.
then I make some changes to the content and do a "build for content update" and upload the new files and catalog to bucket 2.

Now with the cheat set to bucket 2 url I want the app to get the bundles from bucket 2.

I tried with LoadContentCatalogAsync using the url of the json catalog in bucket 2, nothing happens, if I remove my assets from bucket 1 the app complains that it cannot find them in bucket 1. Do I have to clean up my catalog data then call LoadContentCatalogAsync? or refresh it after?

I do this so we can test a client version (possibly live) against a possible content update without touching the original set of data or catalog.

Thank you.

 

There are a couple ways to do this. Most involve setting your RemoteLoadPath to include a variable you define yourself. Note that we control local builds by setting the load path to
{UnityEngine.AddressableAssets.Addressables.RuntimePath}/[BuildTarget]
The [] brackets are evaluated at build time. the {} at runtime. So if you declared some string MyApp.Something.URL, you could set your load path to:
{MyApp.Something.URL}/whatever (maybe [BuildTarget] or not).

Addressables does a lazy-init. It won't try to load a catalog until you've asked Addressables to do something (Addressables.Load*, or even Addressables.Initialize). So as long as you set your variable before you initialize, you're fine.


From here you have the choice of how you set MyApp.Something.URL. At the fancy end of the spectrum, you ping some server with info about your device, and the server tells you where the content is. At the less fancy end, you have the code default to "bucketProduction", but check for some on-device file that tells it an alternate "bucketQA" or "bucketStaging".

 

Thank you , I think I can use this to get what I need. This includes my other post which I cannot link because I get a warning that I may be spamming.

Update: Yes it works perfectly, thank you for the help.

 

@LarsGameloft : Could you please provide snippet of code how you are able to load content from the url? I am trying to do it by using Addressables.LoadContentCatalogAsync([my cdn url]/catalog.json), I am getting the following error:

Code (CSharp):

1. Exception encountered in operation Resource<ContentCatalogData>(catalog_2019.09.24.13.06.53.json): Unknown error in AsyncOperation
2. UnityEngine.AsyncOperation:InvokeCompletionEvent()

 

Hi, I was able to change the remote load path to a different folder, but Addressables was still trying to load the original bundle files. Each version of bundles has different hash code on its file name, because Addressable was still trying to load the old file name in a different folder, Addressables cannot find it. I noticed that when Addressables is initialized, it loads the catalog file that is inside the apk, and it was trying to use the hash codes of that catalog to find the bundles with those exact hash codes.
For example,
I have a dog image in my scene, I build the dog image as an Addressable bundle and its file name is "image_xxx.bundle", this bundle is in folder "0.1" on my http server, "xxx" represents the random hash code that Unity generated. Then I change the image to a cat image, I build the image as an Addressable bundle again, this time, because I changed the image, Unity generated a new hash code for it and its file name becomes "image_yyy.bundle", it is in folder "0.2".
After I build the apk, I run the game, Addressables will load the catalog in the apk, and try to find a bundle with the hash code "yyy". But now I want Addressables to load "image_xxx.bundle" which is in folder "0.1", I was able to change the remote load path using my variable but Addressables was still trying to load "image_yyy.bundle" in folder "0.1", so it throws an error saying that it cannot find the bundle.

How can I address this issue? Thanks in advance.

 

sounds like the same conversation as https://forum.unity.com/threads/make-the-same-build-load-different-version-of-bundles.754160/ so let's continue it there unless there is other information needed from this thread.

 

Is it possible to change the remote load path or catalog file even after the lazy init of addressables?

 

How to change my custom “Variable” at runtime?
just like "DevAssetCDN"

 

Hey everyone,
I'm trying load a Catalog Paht Remote using this line:

Code (CSharp):

1.     AsyncOperationHandle<IResourceLocator> handle = Addressables.LoadContentCatalogAsync(catalogPath);

The url i'm using it's: gs://addressablesbucket

But i'm having the following error:

Curl error 1: Protocol "gs" not supported or disabled in libcurl


I'm not sure if LoadContentCatalogAsync loads the ServerData content (hash and json files) or it's other files that i need load.

Full code:

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections.Generic;
2. using UnityEngine;
3. using UnityEngine.AddressableAssets;
4. using UnityEngine.AddressableAssets.ResourceLocators;
5. using UnityEngine.ResourceManagement.AsyncOperations;
6. using UnityEngine.ResourceManagement.ResourceLocations;
7.  
8. public class AssetLoader : MonoBehaviour
9. {
10.     public string catalogPath;
11.     public List<IResourceLocation> locations;
12.  
13.     void Start()
14.     {
15.         initAddressables();
16.     }
17.  
18.  
19.     void initAddressables()
20.     {
21.         Debug.Log("initAddressables");
22.         AsyncOperationHandle<IResourceLocator> handle = Addressables.InitializeAsync();
23.         handle.Completed += initDone;
24.     }
25.     private void initDone(AsyncOperationHandle<IResourceLocator> obj)
26.     {
27.         Debug.Log("Initialization Complete ==> " + obj.Status);
28.         if (obj.Status == AsyncOperationStatus.Succeeded)
29.         {
30.             loadCatalog();
31.         }
32.     }
33.  
34.     void loadCatalog()
35.     {
36.         Debug.Log("loadCatalog");
37.         AsyncOperationHandle<IResourceLocator> handle = Addressables.LoadContentCatalogAsync(catalogPath);
38.         handle.Completed += loadCatalogsCompleted;
39.     }
40.     void loadCatalogsCompleted(AsyncOperationHandle<IResourceLocator> obj)
41.     {
42.         Debug.Log("loadCatalogsCompleted ==> " + obj.Status);
43.         if (obj.Status == AsyncOperationStatus.Succeeded)
44.         {
45.             loadResourceLocation();
46.         }
47.         else
48.         {
49.             Debug.LogError("LoadCatalogsCompleted is failed");
50.         }
51.     }
52.  
53.     void loadResourceLocation()
54.     {
55.         Debug.Log("loadResourceLocation");
56.         AsyncOperationHandle<IList<IResourceLocation>> handle = Addressables.LoadResourceLocationsAsync("remote");
57.         handle.Completed += locationsLoaded;
58.     }
59.     void locationsLoaded(AsyncOperationHandle<IList<IResourceLocation>> obj)
60.     {
61.         Debug.Log("locationsLoaded ==> " + obj.Status);
62.         if (obj.Status == AsyncOperationStatus.Succeeded)
63.         {
64.             locations = new List<IResourceLocation>(obj.Result);
65.             loadDependency();
66.         }
67.         else
68.         {
69.             Debug.LogError("locationsLoaded is failed");
70.         }
71.     }
72.  
73.     void loadDependency()
74.     {
75.         Debug.Log("loadDependency");
76.         AsyncOperationHandle handle = Addressables.DownloadDependenciesAsync("decor");
77.         handle.Completed += dependencyLoaded;
78.     }
79.     void dependencyLoaded(AsyncOperationHandle obj)
80.     {
81.         Debug.Log("dependencyLoaded ==> " + obj.Status);
82.         if (obj.Status == AsyncOperationStatus.Succeeded)
83.         {
84.             loadAssets();
85.         }
86.         else
87.         {
88.             Debug.LogError("dependencyLoaded is Failed");
89.         }
90.     }
91.  
92.     private void loadAssets()
93.     {
94.         AsyncOperationHandle<IList<GameObject>> handle = Addressables.LoadAssetsAsync<GameObject>(locations, onAssetsCategoryLoaded);
95.         handle.Completed += onAssetsLoaded;
96.     }
97.     private void onAssetsCategoryLoaded(GameObject obj)
98.     {
99.         SpawnItem(obj.name);
100.     }
101.     private void onAssetsLoaded(AsyncOperationHandle<IList<GameObject>> obj)
102.     {
103.     }
104.  
105.     void SpawnItem(string addressableKey)
106.     {
107.         Debug.Log("SpawnItem ==> " + addressableKey);
108.         AsyncOperationHandle<GameObject> asyncLoad = Addressables.InstantiateAsync(addressableKey, Vector3.zero, Quaternion.identity);
109.         StartCoroutine(progressAsync(asyncLoad));
110.         asyncLoad.Completed += assetSpawned;
111.     }
112.     void SpawnItem(GameObject addressableObj)
113.     {
114.         Debug.Log("SpawnItem ==> " + addressableObj);
115.         AsyncOperationHandle<GameObject> asyncLoad = Addressables.InstantiateAsync(addressableObj);
116.         StartCoroutine(progressAsync(asyncLoad));
117.         asyncLoad.Completed += assetSpawned;
118.     }
119.     private System.Collections.IEnumerator progressAsync(AsyncOperationHandle<GameObject> asyncOperation)
120.     {
121.         float percentLoaded = asyncOperation.PercentComplete;
122.         while (!asyncOperation.IsDone)
123.         {
124.             Debug.Log("Progress = " + percentLoaded + "%");
125.             yield return 0;
126.         }
127.         Debug.Log("Progress Done= " + percentLoaded + "%");
128.     }
129.     void assetSpawned(AsyncOperationHandle<GameObject> obj)
130.     {
131.         Debug.Log("Instantiate completed ==> " + obj.Status);
132.     }
133. }

Thanks.

 

In your addressables profile's remote load path, replace "gs://" with "https://storage.googleapis.com/".
Refer to this answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38806490/what-does-gs-protocol-mean

 

Thanks for reply!

I'm having many errors when i try load catalogPath

I've changed the url and rebuild the addressables. Any idea?

 

Overall relying on the RemoteLoadPath to do the right thing is pretty frustrating and seems brittle. It's hard to debug what's going wrong and the system seems to keep falling back to something it's loaded before. Can I choose and load the catalog myself and then initialize the Addressable with the loaded catalog?

@unity_bill

 

@KBaxtrom-LevelEx exactly my obversations currently

You could download the catalog with Addressables.LoadContentCatalogAsync(url); and use the new links provided in there. There are a couple of drawbacks though. But besides that, I would like to be able, like you, to have a clean addressables system and then feed my catalog(s) into it, so I know which assets would be available from the catalog. Currently the addressables system seems to me like a ball of mud which gets bigger and bigger with each update of the catalogs.

@unity_bill It would be nice if we could access the download of the async loading operation to figure some things out, like which url is used, get a real progress of the download,...

 

Is there any way to make the [BuildTarget] into lower case? It is because I am using Azure and path need to be lower case.

 

Following up on this thread. We ended up using this as our method. We just fully set the remotepath from code and don't rely on any parts of the auto population bits.

{MyNameSpace.AddressablesWrapper.BASE_URL}/[BuildTarget]


namespace MyNameSpace{
class AddressablesWrapper {
public static string BASE_URL = AddressablesConfig.DEFAULT_URL;
}
}

 

I also found that the platform name such as "StandaloneWindows" is incompatible with Azure. I pasted the path from azure as lower case for the catalog.json file and was able to see the text correcty ("standalonewindows"), but when I used the mixed case version "StandaloneWindows", I get the 400 error. I tried another CDN that allowed folders to have mixed case and had no problem. Am I missing something?

 

Ok... I found that the container name has a lower-case requirement in Azure, but there can be subfolders below that which have properly cased names for the platform such as "StandaloneWindows". It worked for me after I placed the platform directories as subfolders of a lower-case container name. It also makes more sense to me to do it this way as the same container can contain sub-folders for all platforms.

 

Did anybody ever figure out if you can change this after the lazy init? It would be really nice to have an admin setting for this in our app that users can change but it's very likely that we'd already be initialized by the time they change the setting. It would also be very useful for the users/testers to be able to toggle the setting back and forth and see the different behavior without needing to restart the app.

 

this post might help you
How-to Host Addressable Assets with an Azure Blob | by Badger Dox | Medium

 

Hey did you find any solution for changing the runtime path variable after lazy init?

 

@unity_bill Is there a way to load asset of local group to load from remote after app release using Curly brackets in load path or loading remote catalog.

 

^ I'm looking for the same thing.

 

Does this mean that If there is any addressables init (for example when loading local addressable assets for a loading screen or something like that) and then I load a remote catalog via
Addressables.LoadContentCatalogAsync, then that catalogs remote load path cannot use {} ? Or is the initialization separate for each catalog file, and you can't THEN change the runtime path, after the catalog was used?

 

@unity_bill and @PaulBurslem

I did set RemoteLoadPath in Default profile as
{PhoenixHttpClient.Instance.BaseUrl}/api/v2/gemini_assets/[BuildTarget]

In playmode (with "use existing build" option) I get this error:

Exception encountered in operation Resource<IAssetBundleResource>(packedassets_scenes_all_00984e604235a51eafb54ed27a29bb56.bundle): Invalid path in AssetBundleProvider: 'PhoenixHttpClient.Instance.BaseUrl/api/v2/gemini_assets/WebGL/packedassets_scenes_all_00984e604235a51eafb54ed27a29bb56.bundle'.

It looks like {} part of RemoteLoadPath variable isn't populated correctly using the value of existing PhoenixHttpClient.Instance.BaseUrl class property.

Can you help with this please?

 

Any help please?

 

Someone suggested a possible solution on Unity Slack. I'll try that.

romaha
Just a guess - you are referencing to Instance of PhoenixHttpClient class, maybe that’s the problem. Try to make BaseUrl static variable

xtro
Yea. Maybe they didn't implement it to handle object instances. I'll try that.

 

Yes. That fixed my problem.

Adressable profile variables only support static fields; not instance fields.

 

I am getting same error, can you send your code snippet please?

 

There isn't much code for this.

As I mentioned before, Adressables profile variables only support static fields.

This is how my profile variable looks like:


And this is how I defined BaseUrl static field in the relevant class:


I set the value of _baseUrl to the address of our server before loading the scene via the addressables system.

I hope this is helpful to you.

 

Thank you for your quick response, I've managed to work it out it helped a lot

 

and how did you place them as "sub folders "???

 

I am trying to load my items via addressables and hosted by azure blob container but when I play by the use existing build I get 22 errors saying that unable to load assetbundles , why is it so can someone please help me out!

 

did you know how to ?

 

have you found the way to change them after lazy init of aa?

 

simple

Code (CSharp):

1.  Addressables.ResourceManager.InternalIdTransformFunc = v =>
2.             {
3.                 if (v.InternalId.StartsWith("ftp://"))
4.                 {
5.                     var id = v.InternalId.Replace("\\", "/");
6.                     Debug.Log($"{nameof(Tools)}:inside catalog resolver  {id}");
7.                     return id;
8.                 }
9.                 return v.InternalId;
10.             };

 

OK ， I have tested，use this api can make difference
AddressablesRuntimeProperties.ClearCachedPropertyValues();

 

AddressablesRuntimeProperties.ClearCachedPropertyValues();

 

does this still work? I'm on 2021.3.15f1 and looks like it is not evaluating statement between { } but rather taking it literally.

eg) Remote.LoadPath = {MyNamespace.MyClass.Host}/v1/[BuildTarget]
...
namespace MyNamespace; { public class MyClass { public static string HOST="http://localhost"; } }

 

We are still on 2021.2.18.

If it's not working in newer versions, it may be a bug. I don't know. Sorry.

 

Not gonna lie this whole workflow seems pretty convoluted to me...