Newtonsoft Json package

So now that Unity has brought in Newtonsoft.Json.dll in their own package, the docs say:

"To avoid assembly clashes, please use this package if you intend to use Newtonsoft Json."​

But the docs for the package say:

"This is a package intended for internal Unity Development Projects and as such this package is not supported. Use at your own risk."​

So is this package going to be supported now that we're forced to use it?

(Also it's spelt wrong on https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json@2.0/manual/index.html)

I should note that I'm using Unity 2019.3.4f1 but it seems the package is for 2020?

 

Where does it say you're forced to use it? I use newtonsoft json quite a bit, but I've either used the one on the asset store or lately I've switched to this one https://github.com/jilleJr/Newtonsoft.Json-for-Unity which is being updated.

 

It's a new package (com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json) which is a dependency of Platforms (com.unity.platforms@0.2) which is a dependency of Entities (com.unity.entities@0.7)

 

It's a bit uncouth of Unity to force their own version of Newtonsoft Json as a dependency.

It's pretty easy to keep using your own version though:

1. Move the "com.unity.platforms" package from Library/PackageCache to your Packages folder
2. Remove "com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json": "1.1.2" from its dependencies in package.json

 

What do you mean doesn't support IL2CPP? I haven't noticed any problems with it.

 

I did encounter this unhelpful error in build after trying Unity's version : currently not available on il2cpp Line: -1


I've seen this before when trying to use Newtonsoft's Json with AOT compilation.
I didn't bother investigating too deeply what exactly was missing, and reverted back to https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/input-management/json-net-for-unity-11347
If you didn't encounter any issues, it might actually be fine for most use cases, I've edited my post above.

 

@multivac you were right, versions previous to 2.0-preview don't work with IL2CPP, which is pretty crazy.

But now the package we have to use is a preview and internal package?

 

@Unity package developers, please resolve this.

 

@christophera_unity I have no problem with Unity providing the library (I certainly wouldn't want different copies in my project), but I do have a problem with it being labelled as unsupported and internal. You know people are going to have to put in considerable effort to remove/replace it - not to mention that Unity packages would then be relying on an external json package, surely you aren't going to say that's a supported scenario.

What I would like to see:
* Remove the "unsupported" and "internal use" and "use at own risk" texts and replace it with a more friendly reminder that it's a third party library.
* Since you have made source changes for the AOT version, make the source available online so people can see it and contribute issues/fixes - again you can have some indication here it's a third party dll, but now we are relying on Unity for updates from the original package.

 

manually putting

Code (CSharp):

1.     "com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json": "2.0.0"

into the manifest.json seems to work, I'm using 2019.2, not sure about the implications tho

 

good to know, thank you very much.

 

It looks like the burst preview pacakge 1.3.0-preview.12 has newtonsoft JSON in its .Runtime forlder, which is causing issues when using something that depends on the com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json package.

How would I resolve this correctly?

 

The Burst .Runtime folder is outside of Unity, it's a separate environment for the Burst command line tool. What problems are you having?

 

If you need it, I can set up another project again and give you a screen shot about the error, but basically, Unity reports a compiler error that there are two conflicting versions of NewtonSoft.Json.dll. One is in the com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json package, and one is in the burst preview pacakge 1.3.0-preview.12, in the .Runtime folder.

I didn't need the latest burst preview, so I went through my packages and chose earlier versions that depend on the verified burst 1.2.3 and the problem went away. Also, in burst 1.2.3 the .Runtime folder does NOT contain the Newtonsoft dll. I didn't check every version between 1.2.3 and the latest preview, but this appears to be a new addition. Regardless, as far as package management goes (especially with the strong named assemblies) burst should probably depend on the com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json package instead of providing its own.

If it isn't clear, this is not about Burst actually running, as I'm sure there is no issue in the CLI tool, this is about Unity compilation errors when you have these conflicts in you're packages.

Let me know if you need that example project, happy to help.

 

**EDIT** I managed to rebuild the dll's to use the latest newtonsoft Json & it accepts the dll from test-framework.performance

Is there a way to fix this error? I had to remove the newtonsoft.Json that some addons are using in my project, because in 2020.x it gets stuck in a loop trying to open the editor (editor log has repeated spam about dll being the same name).

But now those addons don't work with the dll that comes in from com.unity.collections which I need to use. ( com.unity.collections pulls in
"com.unity.test-framework.performance": "2.3.1-preview", )

references strong named Newtonsoft.Json in a different folder, versions has to match. Assembly references: 11.0.0.0 Found in project: 12.0.1.0.

 

I am having a similar issue and trying to get a handle on this. More information about how Unity may be fixing this is at


https://forum.unity.com/threads/edi...ken-assembly-could-not-load-signature.754508/

 

is it possible to use this "official" unity packaged version of json - with unity 2019 - and IOS/IL2CPP?

Thanks

 

Related to this: We have common dlls that rely on Newtonsoft for Unity. I am happy to move our common code over to new the new com.unity.newtonsoft package but when I try to add https://packages.unity.com/ to Visual Studio as a package source, it didn't work. I know I can manually copy the dll into my projects, but it would be great if unity packages could be imported through Visual Studio so we can stay up to date easily.

 

I am receiving this error when importing a dll which references the unity newtonsoft library. This seems to be because Unity is looking at the "fileVersion" not the "assemblyVersion" of the dll. fileVersion is 12.0.301.0 and assemblyVersion is 12.0.0.0. Please look into either changing the package to match the fileVersion and assemblyVersion or fix it so that Unity can resolve the same library by checking assemblyVersion instead of fileVersion. Thanks!


Unable to update following assemblies:Assets/Plugins/lib/Common.dll (Name = Common, Error = 131) (Output: C:\Users\hunni\AppData\Local\Temp\tmp48bb8865.tmp)

System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. ---> Mono.Cecil.AssemblyResolutionException: Failed to resolve assembly: 'Newtonsoft.Json, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=30ad4fe6b2a6aeed'

 

I am currently using Unity Perception Package which depends on "com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json". How can I use this version of json.net in my scripts? I can't give assembly reference to this package.

Also if import my Json.Net package it causes reference conflict

 

I had the same issue. Upgrading to 2.0.1-preview1 fixed it for me

 

How can I add "com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json" as dependency to package.json of my NPM-package?
As it's Git-package, common format

obviosly doesn't work.
But when I compose it as for git-package:

where

d2fd6ed876261bbd82f59199ad711e7667bf633a

is the revision id got from com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json package.json,
it doesn't work under Unity too. And if I try to `npm install ...` this my npm-package manually, GitHub sing in window appears.

Can it be dependency of any custom NPM-package at all?

 

Would be very helpful if there were some actual documentation on how to reference this "built-in" library. The page referenced is great information with no value whatsoever. Those of us who don't live and breath Unity are exasperated by the lack of dependable documentation.

 

So what's the deal now?

I upgraded from 2020.3.9f1 to 2020.3.11f1, only to find that the upgrade process breaks because of a "Newtonsoft.Json.dll" I had in my Assets/Plugins folder. There are a lot of new directories in Library/PackageCache - are those dependencies intended?

There's still a deprecation note at https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json@2.0/manual/index.html - can the package be used now or not? Can I rely on the package existing?

Also I'm not sure about the short description about local package override above - where can I read more?

Haven't find anything related in release notes of 2020.3.10f1 and 2020.3.11f1. Seems a bit surprising inside the LTS branch.

 

It totally depends on what your other packages are. If some package got updated to the latest verified version they may depend on the newtonsoft package. It might conflict with your own version that you have in the plugins folder.
You can either delete the one in the plugins folder or you can override the newtonsoft package. To override it, just drag it from the PackageCache into the Packages folder. Then overwrite it with your version.
I haven't found any reason to do this though. Unless you need some kind of fix in a later version of newtonsoft.

The package itself is not deprecated. It doesn't even say so in the manual.
The package is not supported by Unity as in if there are problems with the actual functionality of newtonsoft json, Unity won't help you with that. Because it is a third party library. So any problems with newtonsoft json should be reported at newtonsofts repository.

I am using this package for quite some time. Haven't had a single problem with it.

 

Thank you! I'll try whether the "new" package will work for me.

The thing is, it comes as a new dependency of "com.unity.collab-proxy", which I somehow got included in my project, probably when I had created it. I don't know about those dependencies and haven't found where to read about it (package manager has not reference).

I probably had used the Unity Newtonsoft package if I had known about it. OTOH I would've been in doubt how to do it. Does it need to be added manually by editing manifest.json or packages-lock.json? Again, I'm missing a bit of documentation.

Funny thing: https://www.npmjs.com/package/com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json - had it been published there by accident or did someone really try to publish malicious code?

 

If you don't use Collab, you can remove the package.

Well you still can. I mean you can simply remove any dll from your plugin folder and then install the package from Unity.

If you want to override the package's version, simply drag the newtonsoft package folder from the PackageCache to the Packages folder. Return to Unity and it'll change the packages-lock automatically. It'll be served as "development" package.
After that you can replace the dll

Yeah that was a malicious attempt. It is even stated as such.
If you want the newtonsoft package that Unity is using you can simply go into the package manager click the + then from git url and fill in "com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json" (without quotes).
If any of Unity's packages are installed that have the newtonsoft package as dependency it'll already be installed. The package manager installs any required dependency of a package.

 

Thanks a lot!

Finally found the documentation - here's a link for reference: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/upm-manifestPrj.html

 

Having a full JSON package supported by Unity would be useful instead of relying on a third party one with Unity support.
Personally I am using SimpleJSON (not sure how it rates!) currently to read/parse JSON data in any way required, not just to a pre-set class - Unity's JSONUtility is very limited...

 

Why reinvent the wheel when NewtonsoftJson does the job quite well?
NewtonsoftJson is commonly used as package, having it available as a package in the package manager made my life a lot easier.

 

Yes it's ideal - but it is not exactly supported currently: "This is a package intended for internal Unity Development Projects and as such this package is not supported. Use at your own risk." as this thread is about.
Also not re-inventing - using another very small library

 

Is there any way to remove the built-in newtonsoft package for Unity completely?
I am trying to get the Xsolla login SDK working and it seems to have it's own
Newtonsoft.JSON.DLL that it is dependent on, and 'over-writing' it as you mention still causes problems.

 

My favorite library.

 

I tried this, I've tried a million different things and still can't figure this out. So what is the actual full solution? I just removed version control and upgraded my version of unity to the newest one, is there anything else I'm supposed to do? I tried removing one or the other of the newtonSoft files and that doesn't solve anything...

https://forum.unity.com/threads/build-fails-unity-il2cpp-fails-to-build.1131205/#post-7270744

Made a post here but haven't really gotten any help.

 

This change causes a different issue for me. I have a dependency on BsonReader which is not present in the updated package. Does Unity intend to add a Newtonsoft.Json.Bson package as well?

 

You could try adding it as a dll. But it may or may not be AOT compliant, which is important if you want to build IL2CPP.

Yeah they seem to ship it with their "browser"
"Xsolla/Core/Browser/XsollaBrowser/Plugins/NewtonsoftJson.dll"
It's an old version 9.0.1.19813. Unity's json package is 12.0.301.0
Which is weird because PuppeteerSharp.dll seems to require v10.....? I guess that is a developer mistake?

Anyway you could try the following steps:
! Make sure you have a backup of your project or use git.
- Delete the NewtonsoftJson.dll from the XsollaBrowser plugins folder
- Add com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json via the package manager (add with git url).

You'll get the following error:

Code (CSharp):

1. Assembly 'Assets/Xsolla/Core/Browser/XsollaBrowser/Plugins/PuppeteerSharp.dll' will not be loaded due to errors:
2. PuppeteerSharp references strong named Newtonsoft.Json Assembly references: 10.0.0.0 Found in project: 12.0.0.0.
3. Assembly Version Validation can be disabled in Player Settings "Assembly Version Validation"

- Go to Xsolla/Core/Browser/XsollaBroser/Plugins/PuppeteerSharp.dll and disable Validate References.

Now I don't know if this will affect the functionality in a build. I have not tried, but it does build successfully so you'd have to test whether it works or not.
If it doesn't then you'll have to override the dll in Unity's package with the one provided by Xsolla (the one you deleted, so get it back from the backup or git).

You could open a issue on their github to request an update of newtonsoft json 12.0.301.0 or make it dependent on com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json.

 

I contacted Xsolla they're going to be fixing it in the next couple of weeks.

 

I am confused. Please help.
I would like to use Newtonsoft json.
From this post I am reading that this dll is included in Unity? I am using Unity 2020.3.4f1, when trying to use the namespace Newtonsoft.json I get a:
error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'Newtonsoft' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)
So it is not included?

Then I went to the Package Manager to try to find the package and no luck.

Then I tried to ad the package using the git URL https://github.com/JamesNK/Newtonsoft.Json.git but I get a :
[Package Manager Window] Cannot perform upm operation: Unable to add package [https://github.com/JamesNK/Newtonsoft.Json.git]:
[https://github.com/JamesNK/Newtonsoft.Json.git] does not point to a valid package repository. No package manifest was found. Verify the repository URL and make sure the package is located in the root folder of the repository. [NotFound].
I see no package in the Github Repo so I imagine that is the problem

What am I missing? How do I "install" the package?

 

It is not necessarily included. It may be a dependency of some of the packages that Unity provides. Unity installs all dependency packages automatically if they're not installed yet...

If you need Newtonsoft simply go to the package manager click on the + Add via Git Url.
All you need to do there is fill in com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json and press enter.

 

A big issue we've been having moving over from this JSON.Net for Unity asset to the build-in package, is the built-in package doesn't have any of the useful unity-specific converters that you might need. For example, if you want to serialize a Vector3 using stock JSON.Net, its going to get hung up on the normalize property, which is in turn a vector3 so you get recursive serialization, fun!

If Unity wants to add a halfway decent JSON serialization library (unlike whatever they had before), that's great! But they should make it so that it supports Unity in a way that users are likely to use it, if everyone has to go around re-writing converters just to save the most basic Unity types, that's bad! One advantage of having it as an external, 3rd party library which needed to be manually added is there wasn't the façade of support.

 

You're forced in the sense that you can't use those options (I was also using the jillejr package) alongside theirs. If you have a Unity package that installs their version of Json.Net (in my case, I eventually realized the Version Control package was the culprit) then also having a different Json.Net package installed in the same project will generate errors. Nothing in their doc says this will happen, it just does happen.

The fact that Unity's Json.Net isn't displayed in the Package Manager window is an additional annoyance. I tried turning on Preview packages and it still wasn't showing up; I would think a reasonable change to make is having it show up after turning on Preview packages.

 

Ok, while this thread is live, I must point out this. I'm not getting an error but it's annoying to be serving a warning such as:

that keeps me wandering when exactly I'm supposed to expect a problem in future times.

 

actually guys, you don't need to rely on unity package, you just need to use ".net standard 2.0 or .net 4.x" version of json.Net according to your project settings.. its quite easy to implement, here's the official microsoft docs for implementation details:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/vi...de#add-packages-from-nuget-to-a-unity-project

 

The problem is when you use IL2CPP, the standard Newtonsoft.Json package breaks. The article even mentions it: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/vi...unity-scripting-upgrade#il2cpp-considerations though I think it also uses some codegen which is not available in IL2CPP either.

 

That's a guide for adding NewtonsoftJson manually to the project through NuGet.
If you're using this + any Unity package relying on their newtonsoft json package, it wont build due to multiple instances of Newtonsoft in your project.

The newtonsoft json package that Unity provides is IL2CPP compatible. And if you want to update it yourself, you can use JilleJR's version. The only thing you have to do is make unity's package a development package and then overwriting the dlls.

 

well, I think you're mistaken because I use it with il2cpp for both ios and android builds and it works without any problem, the key is you need to use .net standard 2.0 version and add link.xml file in your project.. I use unity 2019.4.28f right now and no problem at all.. You should read the docs that I have shared carefully it shows how to implement for il2cpp.. here's another link explains the same implementation:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16359628/json-net-under-unity3d-for-ios/59486989#59486989

and I don't see any contradiction for json.Net library maybe it's included for later versions such as 2020 and above.. I'm talking for 2019.4 LTS..

 

Read my answer and read the docs carefully the link.xml file ensures that bytecode isn't stripped and I use it in my project with il2cpp right now without any problem..