" Crafty "patching system for Unity projects.

Hey JTown,

For now Crafty showcases an entire log of every files Crafty was working on. It will also show it if was removed, changed or left out. I can ask programmer if he can add the file size and binary size added to the patch if you are requesting such feature.

I did few tests my self and you are correct, sometimes there is entire build added to the patch. Most likely an error with binary system when we were changing patcher for Unity 5.0.0. I will inform programmer to check this out ASAP.

Yes for now Crafty full binary method is only for Windows and if you create patches with Windows binary method for OSX than it will logically crash as one is not build for another.

Programmer is testing binary system on OSX as we are developing it in the background, everything depends on the test that programmer should do in few days, if everything will work correctly than it should not take long till we will add full binary on OSX.

 

I need to set some clarification as i made an error that i didn't notice till today.

There is no Error in Unity 5.0.1f1 and higher. Crafty works properly creating small binary patches even if you switch all the scenes creating completely new build it will still create as small as possible binary patches.

I made a mistake when downloading new Unity Engine, everything was set the same, folder location, project name and so on BUT new Unity Engine switched the build setting from Win to WEB by accident i made tests not for Windows but for WEB and because of that Crafty didn't work.

So once again Crafty works properly and it create small binary patches there is no error.

Below i will post pictures showcasing todays tests.






As you see the patch is only 1 KB. So it works as it should. Now a bigger complex project with 20 scenes all mixed up which makes build completely different.





Again small patch containing changes made to all 20 scenes. So everything works as it should.

 

So that's only for Windows build patches created on Windows?

Is there an ETA for when I'll be able to create binary patches from Unity OSX for Windows, Mac, and Linux standalone builds?

 

All three platforms use Binary search engine to find differences between the builds, but only Windows uses full binary patch creation, Mac and Linux use packet patch creation system.

In short:

Windows - Binary Search , Binary creation , Packet Creation
Mac - Binary Search, Packet Creation
Linux - Binary Search, Packet Creation

I will have basic information on when could Mac binary patch creation be created after few more tests made by our programmer. If the test script that programmer create will be successful than it should not take more than few days, if not than it may take longer. Till the test won't be finished and proper report given by the programmer i won't say any ETA on that.

 

hi,
I was wondering how I should report an error?

I'm using Crafty 1.3.2 with Unity 4.6.2. So far I've had no problems, but with the current patch I'm trying to put out, I'm unable to get the OS X patch to work. The Windows patch works fine. But the OSX patch doesn't update the application correctly and I get file corruption errors when starting it up. And I can see that my application's /Contents/Data/level3 doesn't have the correct file size after patching. It remains the same size as the initial version, which makes me think it's not being patched when it should. However, other files appear to change size correctly.

I can see in the patch creation log in Unity that level3 is included in the patch, but it has a "DIFFERENT ADD:" label on it, rather than the other levels that have "DIFFERENT ADD USING PACKET:". So I'm not sure if that's relevant.

I can provide the patch along with the initial and final versions of the application for debugging if you'd like.

thanks,
Jon

 

Hello Jon, right now we are working on our Hextech website where you will be able to report any errors or bugs on any of our Hextech assets in much more professional and easier way than just posting it on the forum. For the next few days best way is to write directly to our support team at support@hexte.ch

Crafty 1.3.2 was created before the major update of Unity 4.6, because of that some functions may not work on 4.6 and 5.0 that is why we gave access to Crafty BETA 1.4.0 which was made specifically to support Unity 4.6 and Unity 5.0.

You can access Crafty beta by login to our temporally website ( HERE ) you just need to create an account and provide Invoice.NO after that you will always have the access to Crafty BETA with all features and upgrades before it will be given to the asset store.

 

Hello, it is me yet again. I have had problems with this patching system on the two projects that I am currently maintaining since Crafty 1.3.2 and have yet to see a fully working patch for our OSX unity builds since before then. I've consistently had the problem of absolutely no error output except for a standard OSX "app quit unexpectedly" along with something along the lines of NSConcreteFile error or something along those lines. (Unity versions 4.6.1 and 4.6.3)

I have tried using all of the beta version's to patch from since I saw that they were "backwards compatible" and also had no success there.

I have noticed a pattern in my test cases where the patching system will work on a fresh initial build of something, as in making a build, then making a few changes, then going through the patching process. That works (this is < 1 day).

But say I get a few bug reports in my build, and that takes a week or so to get through them all, with numerous changes, sometimes having a colleague give me a hand (we use SVN). Then we go through the standard patching process, and BAM our windows builds always work, Linux also, but come to our OSX and they consistently do not work at this point.

I have been very patient along with numerous other users on here, I would like some real answers.

 

I need a little bit more information on this from what i understand is,

Everything works on Windows, everything works on Linux, and everything works on Mac BUT for only clean project after few changes the Mac version won't work ?

And the error you receive is mostly " app quit unexpectedly " is that correct ?

Edit: I have check the error logs from our programmer side, he is working right now on two bugs found in Crafty Mac, one of them is very similar to yours. I have been told that Crafty Beta 8 should fix all the issues on Mac.

 

Thank-you I will send some information to you anyways.

 

Please send all the information to support@hexte.ch our programmer will be checking him self all of the reports in about 11 hours.

 

Okay will do, thanks.

 

Hi, any news about the Mobile support?

 

Any news at all, it has been almost a month since beta 8 was supposed to come out? We were promised some changes to it to make it stable and it has been quiet since then.

 

I was just wondering the same thing; If this product is active or like so many others on Unity's asset store where the dev abandoned it, but Unity still let's you give them money for it.

 

@Lionard - Any updates on finishing the beta and publishing it?

 

Hello everybody, sorry for the late replay but i my self have work on other project and was not available for some time.

Wasikuss creator of Crafty is soon coming back from the hospital, to get back to work on Crafty, we will immediately go back to work on setting up all the necessary features for better bug report and improve documentation.
Few errors need to be fixed on Crafty and after that we will release 1.4.0 to the asset store.

Till we won't finish everything possible on PC, Mac and Linux we won't even start to work fully on Mobile support. There is no point of adding more system to the project till we won't make the current ones as stable as possible.

 

Looks good but I'm just not willing to gamble the full $50 if the developer isn't reliably available. Way too many of those products floating around as-is.

 

Unfortunately health is something our programmer cannot play with and i understand him fully. I have to admit that i admire his willingness to work on Crafty when he should rest after coming back from hospital.

Non the less i understand your point of view as i my self lost almost a thousand of dollars on assets from developers that just stop working.
We will work on Crafty either way not only for the new users but mostly for the ones that already bought Crafty and are using it in their projects for almost a year now.

 

@DivergenceOnline regardless of what the developers say, don't purchase until it works properly and definitely do not buy anything form the asset store that is still in beta.Unity takes no accountability whats so ever so you have no protection. Oh and just remember you can always contact your credit card company and do a charge back.. Unity won't like it but hey.. not our problem right...

 

The unfortunate part for a lot of us is it was sold as working, then we have been strung along with promised updates and fixes by the developer. I fully understand having an illness that can debilitate you, I have one as well. The key is I do not release things in which I am the ONLY developer that can work on it.

At this point I am very underwhelmed at the progress that the project has made in the past few months and am going to have to ask for my money back. I can email or PM my invoice number as needed. Just let me know what is the best method to get a hold of someone that can actually approve the process.

 

Here's the big question; Does it have the UGUI example now, or did that never happen? Because i read people insisting on it months ago on this thread but never heard anything about it actually being put in.

 

If by UGUI you mean the new Unity GUI system added in 4.6 and 5.0 than its available on our website for over a month now. It was added 6-th of may if i remember correctly.

We added the ability to use beta as a lot of users requested a place where all the updates can be downloaded remotely rather than wait till everybody will get it via email. Crafty on the Asset Store is not beta, only one on our website is.

 

@DivergenceOnline The UGUI exampe is there, basically you can just plug in your own items and from what I've found it just works.


The only issues I've had with it so far is Crafty and Bolt do not seem to play nice.

@Lionard looking forward to a Asset Store update, always nice to see things kept up to date after release.

 

Can you elaborate on this?

 

I haven't really looked into it much at the moment, due to having bigger fish to fry. It seems like that if I recompile the Bolt assembly, create and install a patch, then Bolt will no longer start in Server mode. Oddly, it will start in client mode, and have all the updates including any new Bolt entities. I'll get back to you once I start looking at that issue, for now I just manually upload the server, and patch the clients.

 

That is interesting. I will write report about this to Wasikuss i would prefer to fix this before the official release. Can you write any details on the problems with bolt you found directly to him at support@hexte.ch, it would speed up the change.

 

Bolt may be in a bit of transition at the moment, having recently been bought by Exit Games. It might be difficult to get speedy cooperation. So while any potential bug is a concern, I wouldn't want Wasikuss to get mired down on this one just yet.

BTW, best wishes to him on his recovery.

 

Got it thanks for the info. I will inform the programmer.

 

Crafty & Patchie look really ingenious! We're considering using crafty on one of our projects but I have some concerns I'd like to address first:

1. Does the patching work without problems when the original version is installed into a read-only folder (like the program files folders on windows>=vista)?
2. Are there admin privileges needed to run the application on windows platforms for patching to work?
3. Is the patched version stored in the same location as the originally installed version?
4. Can the whole patch creation process be automated outside of unity (talking CI here, looking into opportunities to integrate it into our automated builds workflow)?
5. Is the patcher a standalone application or is it integrated into the actual application?
6. Can the data-providing (patch/version info/downloading) backend be exchanged so we can use another data source than a simple, flat file-serving web server to serve patches?
7. How does the actual patching process work (this is something I've been desperately trying to find an answer to in the docs or tutorials)? Does it apply a patch (much like a compressed unified diff) against the currently installed version? Just curious here how it works in detail, to rule out some of the pitfalls I'm adressing in some of the other questions.

I guess some of these questions have been answered previously, but this thread is pretty long and I couldn't find them answered in an FAQ.

 

einWikinger,
1) Yes, when game is installed into "Program files" folder ( 32bit or 64bit ) Launchie starts Updater elevated ( UAC will show up ) - in future Launchie will check permissions of folder rather than checking if folder is in "Program files"
2) look above
3) Yes, Updater installs patches directly in game folder
4) At this moment, no. Updater runs after any patch is found and downloaded. We can add this feature in future.
5) Updater ( which acts as a patcher ) is standalone application that is extracted from Crafty on demand
6) Yes, Crafty use web requests for patches/release notes no matter if data is served from files or applications ( php, node.js or native app deployed on server )
7) Currently Crafty supports 3 ways of handling single file: whole file, packet patching ( single diff contains n-byte packages to replace them in file ), true binary method ( diff created on binary level + file => produces final file )


To all waiting developers,
I'm back New beta will be released in 1-2 weeks. Stay tuned

 

What's the purpose of LaunchieLogic.waitTime()?

Is the 3 second delay necessary?

 

Some of Crafty users reported this bug. Without small time delay Crafty can hang. I can't find why, because I can't reproduce this problem. There are some more important bugs to fix, and "time delay bug" has less priority.

 

This! Love patchy!

 

Update on when the next build will be coming?

 

May i have the url for the website please, im using Unity 5.1.xx and this new beta update might be what i need.

 

http://penkura.com/assets/crafty/ is the website.

When i logged in and try and download the latest beta nothing is happening. Tried in chrome and IE, any suggestions?

 

Is this asset being developed anymore? If not I damn sure what a refund on the Unity store.

 

I sent a PM to Lionard some time ago with no reply. Not sure what is going on.

I see the Penkura website is down, which is always a bad sign.

 

The website is working fine for me.

 

Hmm. I tried to get there via the link above and via the link from the Crafty product page in the store and from Google and from typing it in. No success at any level.

"Server not found."

 

Nothing downloads for me, either. Seems like I wasted money on this asset -- been months and it still doesn't work as advertised, seems to be abandoned now. Wish they'd release the source to those who've bought it so we can at least try to fix it ourselves.

 

Ah well. I will try to look on the bright side and imagine the server is down because they are loading it with the new version of Crafty.

 

Your username checks out....

 

Server still down over here. Looking grim. I guess I should have downloaded the beta at some point.

 

I have a copy, though I am sure I would not be allowed to send it to you. Not that it matters since the last one we tested was still horribly unstable for macs. 1:10 was able to work more than once. It seemed each consecutive build of the project and patch would make the macs less stable. We would end up having to delete and reinstall after 2-3 patches. Also, any patch over a few megs would cause even more errors.

 

Ah, it gets better!

 

Hello everybody, full development of Crafty was taken over by Wasikuss with the source code i did contact him few times as it is lately very difficult.

He apologizes by the workflow he is presenting but currently he lost his job and is spending full time on fighting with the company that dose not want to pay him for the last few months of his work. ( indie small company bankrupting while taking all its employees to the ground ). He is searching for new job and fighting with the company as now he dose not have any founds to be able to work on any side projects or even get internet connection. He dose want to finish Crafty but currently is not able to.
I will strongly advice Wasikuss to give out full source codes to all the developers who bought Crafty if he won't be able to fix the problems.

I will do my best to get more info about the Crafty process but for now thats all the info i received.

About the servers:
Penkura.com and Hexte.ch are located on one server from the indie company that like i wrote above have problems. We will move everything to the other server when Wasikuss will be able to work.

 

Giving us the source code is not going to help. Most of us bought the asset as a solution because we didn't want to have to learn about the patching and compression ourselves in terms of game deployment. In order to fix this asset to work for us it will cost us considerably more than the asset is worth. I hate to sound like a complete ass, but most of us are indies as well and that $50 we (mis)spent on this asset will go a long way toward other assets that meet the needs we have. This project has sadly been over-promised and under-delivered.

 

I fully understand your point of view, but unfortunately i cannot provide any other programmers that would work on Crafty as Wasikuss have all the access and all the source code.
I believe in his skills and willingness to finish Crafty as it is his " baby " and he wants to work on it constantly, but knowing also his financial position and situation in his family i cannot take away this project from him.
I contacted him and told me that he will get everything in working order as fast as possible and he deeply apologizes to everybody that thought that he abound he won't drop this project.

 

@Lionard - I hope you and Wasikuss can find a good, creative solution. Sending out the source code is a fine idea, but as CaptainMurphy notes, those of us who bought this were looking for a working solution, not one we'd have to work on ourselves.