GearVR dev, unity version hell, the burden!

I'm developing for GearVR for about 3 years now and still the road to building for this platform isn't as simple as you would expect. Lately I'm having serious problems with every single Unity version up to now where my GearVR builds have all kind of issues. From an version where 1 eye is black, to a version where it fails to build because of manifest files, build tools or just even don't start at all.

- all 5.6.1 versions, fail to build because of a manifest issue. When targeting API level > 21, this is fixed but then the application will only show a black screen.

Source: https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/is...ls-25-dot-3-1-version-is-used?page=2#comments

Not to mention I found this answer, Seriously wth? Why don't I see this at the issues part of the unity release?:
"We patched it up a bit in 5.6.0p4, but building Android Oculus is still a no go : (
We are working on it : )"
When reading back on these comments, you even find information it was all about fine, but seems that everything got messed up again.

- all 5.6.0 versions, because there was a Vulkan API issue. So every build I did, 1 eye rendered fine and the other was black. Is was confirmed this was a bug and was later on fixed. However, every single patch still doesn't build GearVR apps without issues.

- 5.5, builds fine but doesn't run in stereo, instead it runs my build in mono without even have to dock into the headset.

To even make things worse, Oculus has a page to tell you which version would be the best fit for GearVR development. However, they are totally wrong except about version 5.4. It's unbelievable how misleading all the information is, they tell you to use 5.5 and 5.6 which ..... do not produce GearVR apps without issues.
https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/unity/latest/concepts/unity-req/#unity-req

The only successful unity version I had so far is 5.4.3f1 which seems to be bug free somehow in my case.
It annoys me that there isn't a clear view of what's going on in every Unity version. Instead I have to trial and error and find them myself every single release. It took me this year already 4 days of company hours to actually find all those issues and realize there was no point upgrading to another unity version. An no one is compensating me for those errors.

With all these problems, I'm wondering what version you use and if you encounter the same time wasting nonsense as I do? I find it incredible how unreliable Unity versions are lately, at least for GearVR development. But maybe it is only my having these issues and is everyone else just fine.

 

"An no one is compensating me for those errors."

Did I miss something or is there a program where business owners get free money? I could sure use some compensation for my unpaid years.

Have you opened a bug report?

I have a Samsung S6 and I have built a GearVR app with every version of Unity since 5.2. I've never seen only 1 eye render, and the only time it was full screen without VR mode if I did not enable VR Supported. Manifest problems must be related to GoogleVR or the Oculus SDK because an empty Unity project has no additional manifest files.

Unity 5.6, empty project, VR Supported, signature file added, builds and runs fine. Samsung S6

 

Same here most versions have been stable. Some minor issues in the 5.x lifecycle but haven't encountered anything major.

 

Was trying to be sarcastic there.

I did, several.

What 5.6 version are you on? Because the first 5.6 release had an issue and I reported that. After that all other 5.6 versions still have issues. Based on what you're using I'll give it a try. But been trying all 5.6 versions yesterday (yes all patches as well) and none worked. I'm using a dual camera VR setup for Oculus and Cardboard support, but it failed in every way. Based on other posts I found comments of Unity itself and it seems 5.6 is a no go for GearVR dev and they're still fixing it.

 

Any version of 5.6 has worked fine for me, I have to test every version because I have assets that are made for GearVR. I have tested both 5.6.0 and 5.6.1.

If you can link to the Fogbugz report(s), I'd like to take the same steps to reproduce the issue to see what's different between your build and mine. Maybe an android Player Setting? Or using dual camera when you only need 1.

 

Besides the issues I've reported to Unity earlier and were told to have been fixed (double checked them, and seems to) I found the real problem.
It seemed that there was a .dll file related to an old Google Cardboard SDK within my project. I wasn't aware of this issue nor that I got any other error in any of the Unity released. But it seemed that when I went to Unity 5.6, this was causing really strange behaviours when running the app.

However, to make things worse, I was testing my dual camera setup with a broken Unity version where it seemed that the dual camera 1 eye black issue was not solved. I was confused because I though the dll I removed was now not causing any issues. So When I decided to try again on 5.6.1 without that 1 dll file, I found out it all worked again.
The reason why I have a dual camera setup, is because of 360 stereo visualizations I need to view within the app. A single camera setup won't work, as there is no other camera to support the stereo images.

Anyways, after this whole issue I've decided to set up a small minimal project with some key features I need to have working. Now I'm using only this project to test every new release and find out if everything is still working or something is broken. In the last 6 months I've found 3 bugs that really broke my setup, but finally it seems that all have been fixed and that the lost DLL file was the bad dude in this story.

Lesson learned? Never port a whole project, but instead have a really small functional version to test your latest Unity version with. I know this will not always work as some huge project have such a huge amount of plugins, features or something else that it will always break something which is not being reported.

But thanks for the reading, because people told me that everything was fine, I started to look a bit broader into the cause of it.

 

Cool! FYI, we've developed a few shaders that lets you render stereoscopic images/video via shader versus having 2 cameras, since using shaders performs faster:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/88499

 

Please can you Share with me the small minimal project you use to test your project. Am new to Unity and a struggling with the black Gear Vr Rendering.I have followed every coments on this thread and other forums but it seem am not getting anywhere. Maybe this can help me.

 

I had to stop updating unity to get any latest project further to a next step. At this point I started including Oculus VR and a whole new set of pitfalls opend up. I am on 2018.2.2f1. So I am far behind the eight ball. I dread having to update. But I know its necessary at some recent point.