Resolved ServerRpc not calling, not even on the server host

I am writing a little chatsystem for my game, and it has worked before with this exact code. My issue started once I connected using relay instead of just using NetworkManager.Singleton.StartHost(). I still use this, but only after I have connected with Relay. This should still not be an issue, as far as I can gather.

I am dumbfounded. I have searched the whole web and found 5 others with my issue, but their issue was that they were not deriving from NetworkBehaviour or had RequireOwnership = true. I do derive from NB and as you can see below, RequireOwnership = false.

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2.     public void SendChatMessageLocal(string input)
3.     {
4.         if (input != string.Empty)
5.         {
6.             SendChatMessageServerRpc(username, input);
7.         }
8.     }
9.  
10.     // we need to turn off RequireOwnership because we are calling code that runs outside of the player object
11.     [ServerRpc(RequireOwnership = false)]
12.     public void SendChatMessageServerRpc(string username, string textMessage)
13.     {
14.         ReceiveChatMessageClientRpc(username, textMessage);
15.     }
16.  
17.     // make all clients receive it (including sender, thats why we dont do it locally.)
18.     // sender only sees their message if the server received it!
19.     [ClientRpc]
20.     public void ReceiveChatMessageClientRpc(string sender, string message)
21.     {
22.         SpawnMessage(sender + ": " + message);
23.     }
24.    
25.     // handle spawning locally
26.     private void SpawnMessage(string text)
27.     {
28.         var obj = Instantiate(messageObjectPrefab, chatParent);
29.         var msgObj = obj.GetComponent<MessageObject>();
30.  
31.         msgObj.SetValues(text);
32.     }

I hope to god someone knows what is wrong because I have been stuck for 3 days. Please help

 

Solved it but I will leave this up in case someone has the same issue.

The root of the NetworkBehaviour needs a NetworkObject, not the NB itself. This is why I had issues, because my NB was a chatsystem, which was a child within my UI Canvas.

I fixed this by splitting my ChatSystem up into two parts;
- The UI, which is no longer networked in any way
- A ChatManager object, managing the network logic, with a NetworkObject component

I hope this helps someone out there, because it took me F***ing ages to realize

 

Also this feels wrong, to me at least:

Code (CSharp):

1. if (input != string.Empty)

Use this instead:

Code (CSharp):

1. if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(input))

 

Hey, thanks for the tip. Is it faster in runtime or the same? I prefer speed over coding convention

 

It's not about faster, it's about bad practice using equality with strings. Like I'm not sure what happens if input is not a string. This might actually call a reference equals implementation rather than throwing an error.

Here's a lengthy discussion if you want to dig deeper
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7872633/most-performant-way-of-checking-empty-strings-in-c-sharp