Bug Scene assetbundles from Unity 2019 take 20x times longer to load in 2022 and materials are missing?

I recently upgraded my project from 2019 to Unity 2022 and now when I try loading scene assetbundles they take over twenty times longer to load.

Also not just scenes, some items also take longer, and some show all materials for one frame then go black,

I don't understand, are assetbundles specific to the Unity editor version they were created in?

Is Unity 2022 not compatible with Unity 2019 assetsbundles??

My game includes a Steam Workshop that users have uploaded hundreds of assets to. Do I have to ask all users to update all the asset bundles on the workshop for Unity 2022? This is a disaster!!

Untiy 2019 was fantastic, why is 2022 have so many bugs?

 

Because when people find a bug they use a different version or a workaround and don't make a bug report from within the editor.
So if it's consistent and measurable, make a report!

Not sure about a solution

 

I've already uninstalled the 2022 editor and am now trying 2023, I made a simple project and assetbundles seemed to work better but in the 2023.1 editors the VR is not working and SteamVR says waiting... I am installing 2023.2 now and hoping maybe they fixed the VR bug and assetbundle compatibility issue will be gone, but after trying almost every previous editor and each has different bug I am not very optimistic

[UPDATE]

I just tried importing assetbundles from Unity 2019.4 to Unity 2023.2 and they worked! I saw no issues with any of the scenes and items! Also the SteamVR "Waiting.." issue appears to be resolve so am really glad!!

 

Actually I take some of this back since after building the game a lot of the assetbundls are broken again, they only work in the editor. I don't know what to do. I have tried every Unity engine version from 2020 onward and all are broken when importing assetbundles from 2019? "

What should I do?? I have hundreds of assetbundles made in 2019.4. Are they completely useless now?

Please someone help me figure out how to upgrade my 2019 project to newer unity without having to rebuild hundreds of assetbunds and also ask all my users to rebuild all asetbundles!! This is awful, a entire week working on upgrading and it looks amazing in editor, but build game is so broken!!!

 

Asset Bundles have some what been 'deprecated' in favour of Addressables, which, mind you, is a wrapper around asset bundles and does most of the leg work for you.

Which isn't to say they shouldn't work, but it's likely something major has change after 2019.4 that may cause this. Were you on Asset Database V1 or V2 in your 2019 project?

 

Thanks, the assetbundles were built using 2019.4 and I believe are V2. But in 2023.2 editor they mostly work, it's just when building the game then loading the assetbundles many of them are not loading correctly, I have hundreds of assetbundles, only in the build game do I see issues with materials, playing the game in the editor looks fantastic but I can't ship the editor.

Are assetbundles from 2019.4 not compatible with any other engine?

 

By 'other engine' do you mean other Unity versions, or other engines like Unreal?

Nonetheless, I think the question here is, what are you wanting to get out of doing such a dramatic update to your published game?

More often games will sit on their current major Unity version for their entire lifetime.

Hotdogs, Horseshoes and Hand grenades is still on Unity 5 and likely will forever remain on Unity 5.

I know Subnautica updated from Unity 2017.2 to 2019.4 in their 'Living Large' update, but at the cost of breaking every single mod the modding community had produced since then.

 

I have to update because when I choose Unity 2019.4 it was labeled as LTS, I assumed it would be supported for long term but then Unity deprecated it after two years. I don't want to update and I think Unity 2019 is the most stable engine, but I need some of the newer features, and since they are no longer supporting their 2019 LTS means I have to upgrade to a newer engine.

It's not really reassuring that other games are not able to update, and that by doing so has ruined the community contribution, I am doing my best to avoid any of this! Trying to upgrade my project is becoming so much work i can't believe how many bugs I have had to solve just because of updating to a new engine, so far i count nearly 40 to 50 major issues I have had to resolve that have taken hours each, I am too invested into this update now to simply give up, even if most Unity games never update their current major Unity version I don't see locking my game into one Unity version as a option. For years I have been trying to update my game and every time there have been breaking issues. Only in Unity 2023.2 it appears to be mostly working, except for assetbundles are not importing correctly. So I really need to find a solution otherwise I have to abandon or completely rebuild hundreds of assetbundles that took thousands of hours of work,

what I don't understand is when loading the assetbundles in 2023.2 editor they mostly work but only show issues in the build game (eg. missing texture transparency, terrain billboards are not animating with wind forces or wind force is not working) . Am I missing a build setting?

 

Well you know what they say when you 'assume' something... "it makes an ass out of you and me" (ass-u-me).

Unity explicitly states the lifetime of their LTS versions of their websites: https://unity.com/releases/editor/qa/lts-releases?major_version=&minor_version=&version=&page=1

2021 LTS will be updated until April 2024, and these updates will generally only be bug fix and stability patches. 2019 was no different.

It's also not deprecated it's just a legacy version and no longer being updated. You can still use it, and many new projects are still being started in 2019.4.

It's just the reality. Once games are past prototyping, they (should) stick to a major version for the rest of their forseeable future. Trying to upgrade just invites disaster, as you're experiencing. This is true in both Unity and Unreal games.

I think you're getting caught up in a Sunk Cost Fallacy. You're likely better off cutting your losses, and looking for other ways to implement the features you want.