"Hold on! Checking for changes" on every start of Unity project

Each time when I open a Unity project, I see a window with progress bar "Hold on! Checking for changes"
This happens on every start, even if there is no changes on client or server side.

This process takes up to 10 minutes (we have big 30-40 Gb project) and Unity is completely frozen during this time.

This is a bug or correct behavior of "Collaborate"? If it is normal behavior, it is really bad, because if Unity editor will be crashed or process should be shut down due inf. loop in the code, or I just need to restart my PC - I should open it again and wait for another 10 minutes. It may happens several times during the day which kills up to 30-60 minutes per day.

Earlier we used Asset Server, and it was launched instantly, without any "Checking for changes". So it is possible and this is how Collaborate should work.

 

Hi @Artaani! I absolutely understand your frustration at having to wait so long to open your project each time. Unfortunately, this is a limitation of how Collab's current implementation handles very large projects, which we are actively working on improving. I can't give an ETA on when this work will be completed yet, but it is a top priority for us.

If you'd like to help us with fixing this issue, we could use more large projects to test our redesigns with. Would you be willing to share your project with us so that we can be certain that our fixes meet yours and our expectations? All we would need is your project's UPID (which you can send in a DM to me) and we can make a copy of your project to test with.

 

Thanks you for reply.
Great! Glad you are already working on it.

Unfortunately I can't provide our project for tests, but we will let you know about performance in future updates.
Thanks.

 

For my project I have a folder in my .collabignore with a large amount of data. Thousands of subfolders with thousands of models. The rest of the project is tiny, though.

Is there any way for Collaborate to skip "checking for changes" on folders it is ignoring?

 

Hi @acoleman! I'm afraid that in our current implementation of Collaborate we do look through all files under Assets to check for changes, including ignored files. This is primarily because it's possible to unignore elements of an ignored folder, like the example below:

Assets/Folder/; // Ignores all contents of Folder
!Asssets/Folder/*.png; // Unignores any PNG assets inside of Folder

We wanted to look through all of the Assets folder in case any of them were specified to be unignored. That said, we are looking into ways to speed up the startup process when large collections of Assets are being ignored, like in your case. We don't have a timeline yet on when these changes will be ready but we'll be sure to let you know when they are.

 

Hello. Any new ETA of improvements?
I want to know, because if it will be not soon, we will try to use Git instead of Collab. (Don't worry, we will use Collab again once it will be improved)

 

Hi @Artaani! I'm afraid I don't have an accurate ETA on when a fix for this will be ready. We've been extensively refactoring various areas of Collab to make it more efficient for projects of all sizes but because of how heavy these changes are we're working on them in smaller sections. It'll still be a little while before we make our way to the import and startup process for larger projects but rest assured that it is still on our roadmap. Please keep an ear open for each new release of Unity or on here for updates on Collab fixes in the future and best of luck on all your future projects!

 

Hello. How is going? A fix still in the plan? Or this is how you think Collab should work "by design"? Any approximate ETA of solution?

I have a two biggest complains about collab:
1. "Checking for changes" issue from this thread.
2. Lack of possibility to disable "merge" functionality for scenes and prefabs. It is always works wrong. Just add a checkbox and the problem will be solved.

 

This still happens to me 5/4/2018 2 gig project

 

Hello, what's up?
It really becomes unworkable to use collaboration on a very large project. Looking for alternative solutions ...

 

I find it easier to imagine an epic movie scene involving pirates shouting "HAULD AUN!" each time it pops up. Weirdly though it also pops up on non collab enabled projects. It's definitely moved into annoying territory along with the horrible unity pauses our team has been having all day.

We'll continue to use Collab for now, but these things, they need fixing because alternatives begin blip on everyone's radar

 

Hey everyone! There have been many improvements to the asset database for 2018.1 that should help to minimize the time large projects take to open. If you've tried opening your project in the latest 2018.1 and are still experiencing very long startup times then please get in touch with our Support team here.

 

@Ryan

Hi

2018.1 is still unbearably slow at startup. I have ran out of things to hold onto while checking for changes happens.

Earlier it was posted:

"Hi @acoleman! I'm afraid that in our current implementation of Collaborate we do look through all files under Assets to check for changes, including ignored files. This is primarily because it's possible to unignore elements of an ignored folder, like the example below:

Assets/Folder/; // Ignores all contents of Folder
!Asssets/Folder/*.png; // Unignores any PNG assets inside of Folder

We wanted to look through all of the Assets folder in case any of them were specified to be unignored. That said, we are looking into ways to speed up the startup process when large collections of Assets are being ignored, like in your case. We don't have a timeline yet on when these changes will be ready but we'll be sure to let you know when they are. "

My comments:

From reading various forums, it appears that many teams have large projects with huge asset packs (especially environmental ones). Then only a few custom scripts to get started using these huge asset packs. The logical solution here is to set collabignore for the huge asset packs, and only have Collab working off the custom scripts. The asset packs don't need to be in source control at all (if you are not using cloud build) as they are
1)static
2)can be recovered from the store in case of loss.

Collab "Checking for Changes" at startup will benefit a HUGE amount if collabignore can ignore those folders that are set to ignore but don't have any unignore settings. This could be relatively easy to check. unignore will be quite uncommon anyway. Happy even if you can apply the following logic:

No unignore: fast start
Any unignore: current handling with slow start

Net Result: x100 improvement in startup speed for many people.

Thanks
John

 

Yeah or just do it in the background properly. If people need to commit changes, do the hold on then if it hasn't caught up by that point. Basically Unity needs to be typing more

 

Hi everyone!

I'm sorry for the delay in providing an update on this issue. The team has been busy refactoring Collaborate so that it can work with Unity's new Packages system. This way we can update our service independent of the Editor and get out fixes to you guys faster than ever! In the process of this refactor we're also including several fixes to many of our more annoying issues, including the "Checking for changes" prompt at startup. This fix will completely remove the need for the check, giving all that time that was previously being taken up back to the users!

We are aiming to have this fix available for 2018.3, but because of how big of a refactor this change is we won't be able to back port this fix to an earlier version. We're very sorry for the inconvenience but we are working hard to get this fix out as quickly as possible. Thank you all for your feedback! We are hearing your concerns and are working to make Collaborate better for everyone!

 

Excellent. Someone needs to triple and then quadruple all your salaries - because I said so.

 

That's great news, thanks @ryanc-unity
Hope the refactor to Unity Packages goes smoothly.

 

Hooray! Great news! Thanks you for information!

 

this is still ocurring for me. 3 hours on a 4 gig project

 

I just noticed that collab has indeed moved to a package with Unity 2018.3 beta. Can anyone confirm that collab has been updated there, and that the hold on problem is resolved there?

 

Hi @mradfo21! That Hold On prompt is related to the Asset Importer and should not be affected by Collab. Does it take just as long to import when Collab is disabled?

 

It is affected by collab. I have the "hold on..." window after trying to commit.

Also, there is this issue (Case 1082552) Collaborate takes forever. where updating through collaborate compile things.

 

Just cancel your subscription to teams and instead move onto github for unity. I thought this was the worst issue, until today collaborate literally locked us out of our project entirely and then corrupted a number of commits meaning we cannot revert, pull, push, get fresh project, nothing.

Its just not worth the risk to your project, and with these issues its basically daylight robbery making people pay to be beta testers.

 

It happens to me every time I open Unity 2018.2.16f1, making me waste 15 minutes. It also happens every now and there, typically 1-2 times each day during which all I can do is wait. Certainly I hope this problem goes away with 2018.3, but I don't want to switch to a Beta.

 

Too bad. Our team was just about to try Collaborate but since some of the projects are for a client, I am not sure I want to risk problems and losing my project. Also, a few of our projects are in Unity 2017.2 so it looks like the fixes will not apply. Upgrading is not always an option.

Can anyone recommend a solution to working with a team on Unity? We have tried SVN and while that works it is not perfect. Perforce has been a pain, honestly. Does Github handle large projects?

 

We are actively working on removing the "Hold on, checking for changes" prompt when we officially release v1.3.0 of our Collab package in the near future.

 

Can you give an ETA this year, or is it still too soon?

 

Hey @Marc-Saubion! I hate to give ETAs in case something unexpected happens that causes us to push things back. I've tested a fix using your sample project and I verified that it does remove the check, but it needs more QA work before it can be called ready for users to test with. We really appreciate your patience in all this.

 

In that case you won't mind giving me a full refund until your service is working don't you?

 

Imagine when you hit a bug that crashes the editor... that little service has costed me a lot of time.

Can't even sumbit a large project as a new "collab" project without it crashing 3 to 4 times before it can complete a full push. And the problem sure isnt my 300mbit(both ways) fiber connection. So... whats up with that?

Lets also mention the constant disconencts and intermitent invalid auth errors... none of my other services do that.

It can get annoying to spend a day "working around" collaborate's quirks.

When you do get around to fixing those quirks I hope I wont have to migrate our project to a new unity version YET AGAIN to benifit from the fixes.

 

Sorry, just want to add notice - that by this day, even on 2018.3.5f1 is still holding on too long.

I am getting still a lot of:
"[Collab] ExternalAPI::Failure: A request to Unity accounts has failed with HTTP status 401 Unauthorized. Please try again. If you continue to see this error, please restart Unity."

Which is very clever from Unity. Since restarting Unity always took almost 30 minutes for our project.

We moved to Collab from our self-serviced Github, just because we need scene merges ... which actually under Collab works well. But somehow, after that move to Collab, all we spent to do is more resolve problems with Collab, than actually making a game...

I know you are working on it Unity, but ... how exactly I should be convinced to pay for this service now? We will move back to Git tomorrow probably. Just wanted to give here some feedback, before we will move from it.

 

To provide an update: We have a fix to remove "Checking for changes" that will be in 2019.1. We’re doing work now to back port the fix to 2018.3 - if all continues to go well, we’re expecting it to be available by early March. You will need to upgrade to a new package version of Collaborate to take the fix.

 

What about Unity 2017?

 

Unfortunately, due to technical limitations we are unable to back port the fix that far.

 

We don't want to minimize the time it takes collab to work. We want the option to not check for changes on startup. Every source control I've ever used allows the user to check for changes whenever they want to. This really does seem like a simple fix.

I understand the potential pitfalls this could bring in terms of users creating conflicts, but I don't really care. I don't need to check for changes every time unity crashes (which is several times a day). If this isn't resolved soon I think we're just going to move to Github. Time lost just outweighs the Integration benefits.

 

This. Please just add a simple "check on startup" option.

 

This must be one of the most hated progress bars by now. But the countdown has started! Soon there will be no more 'Checking for changes...' Who knows, maybe we are going to miss it? That opportunity to make a cup of <insert your beverage of choice here> while that green bar is slowly filling up.

 

My solution has been to never close Unity or turn off my PC.. problem solved..

 

The 2.0 package is now out, which will directly addres the "Checking for changes..." message! Check out the release notes / known issues post for more information. Thank you guys for your patience while we worked on this fix.

 

A little feedback, seems to work well so far (2.x) - which I understand to be based on Github. I'm glad it's built into the editor so that artists/designers have absolutely no problem.

The UI can use a bit of polish but keep it up.

 

The collab 2.x package is still in preview...

 

Yeah.

 

I have finally experienced this "hold on" pain! 30 minutes so far, no end in sight.



Project had been opening in less than 2 minutes for the entire past year. Nothing changed, except that I tried out a trial of Teams Advanced to try the cloud build. That is the ONLY thing different. I had been uploading to Collab regularly, no issues.

I have myself locked into 2018.3.12, but if this keeps happening I suppose I will need to update to see if this issue is fixed. Just hope no weirdness pops up from updating versions.

 

@ryanc-unity so what changed? i am in a 2019.2.3f1 build and when i close unity it takes 1 to 2 minutes to boot back up again, and since unity editor is single threaded everything other than the checking for changes bar hangs at this point.

Our project is only 2.5 gigs big but when i read this forum that's pretty small and my problem will only get worse over time. Why can we not turn off this function yet? its been 3 years.. (at least on this forum)

 

Hi @jemrie and @Arano, I'm sorry that you're both dealing with this annoying check. Are you both using the v2.0.0-preview.17 of Unity Collaborate? You can check which version of Collaborate you're using by opening the Package Manager from the Window menu. Make sure to restart Unity after updating to a different version of Collaborate to ensure that those changes take full effect.

 

Updating to the preview version completely broke Collaborate for my project. Good grief, why are you guys struggling so much with this?

 

Hi @Desoro, can you explain a bit more how your project was broken? Which version of Unity are you using?

 

Just a heads up that moving to an NVME SSD has cut the CFC time to about 2 minutes for a 40gb gross size project.

 

I'm using 2019.2.6f1 and the Collaborate dropdown was showing a plain text directory listing of the folder the project was in. So, there wasn't much to explain other than "completely broke". And, yes, I "turned it off, then back on again".

 

@Desoro I agree, that would look completely broke to me too. Could you try the following and restart Unity and open the project to see if the Collab Toolbar is still broken?

1. Delete your Packages folder:
   (Mac) <username>\Library\Unity\Packages
   (Windows) <username>\AppData\Roaming\Unity\Packages
2. Delete the files in:
   (Windows) AppData\LocalLow\Unity/Browser\Cache\Local Storage
   (Mac) <username>\Library\Unity\Browser\Cache\Local Storage