Unity and Dropbox

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone here works out of their dropbox. I have my projects on dropbox so I can access from multiple computers (Desktop/Laptop). I tend to use a Windows based desktop for working in Unity but a Mac for all my asset creation (3d models, sound files, etc).

Is this a good idea? Anyone run into problems with this workflow?

Thanks,
rich

 

I don't see the point in using Dropbox when there's so many proper cloud based version control systems out there you could use instead.

 

No. If you want the functionality you're describing you should be using a version control system.

Yes. We've had numerous threads in the past where people reported Dropbox eating their project.

 

The library directory is different between the mac and windows so whenever you switch, Unity will talke longer to open your project as it rewrites the library directory. As everyone has stated, use versioning control. Visual Studio online is free for small groups and there are other free options.

 

I've just started to look into GitHub but my projects seem to big for it. At least projects that I've already started. If I start completely from scratch with a new unity project. then Github seems to work.

 

GitHub is merely one service among many. Here are some other examples. Some have a free tier too.

https://bitbucket.org/product/pricing?tab=host-in-the-cloud
https://www.visualstudio.com/team-services/pricing/
https://signup.projectlocker.com/signup

Some shared hosting services offer it as well. DreamHost provides me with unlimited SVN repos of unlimited size.

https://www.dreamhost.com/hosting/shared/ (listed under Advanced Features)
https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/216108897-How-do-I-create-a-Subversion-repository-

If you don't mind setting up the repo server yourself there are some very affordable cloud servers out there.

https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/

 

Which of your recommendations would work best for a Windows/Mac studio and would also work with Cloud Build services?

rich

 

you can try gitlab they have more space

 

All of them. Choice of service provider is not the important thing. What's important is what the repository is based on. All of the ones I linked are either Git or Subversion (SVN). Both fully support Windows, macOS, and Linux.

All of them. Literally the only requirement for Cloud Build is that you use a repository that is based on either Git, Mercurial, Perforce, Subversion (SVN), or Unity Collaborate.

 

I took a look at some of these -- confusing to say the least. I have a bitbucket account that I created a while back to test this out. It looks like it limits to 1GB per repository. My projects are easily 5x to 10x that size. How would I go about get projects of that size on a repo?

Thanks -- this stuff is way over my pay grade
-rich

 

you can use dropbox, but use it just as a way to get your project back in case your computer brakes down, not for version control

 

I used dropbox for a project before and it turned into a disaster. When someone makes changes to a file you've made changes to, you end up with extra files with new names instead of any merging, and you can't lock files.

 

I forgot to say single user, not dropbox sharing with multiple

 

I was doing single user just with two computers. Turned into a huge headache.

 

That's how I've been doing it and I've had strange things happen....

I kept blaming Unity for continuos crashes, locked files and other weird behaviors but now I’m thinking its Dropbox...

 

dropbox single user, one computer, I have been running this on osx without any problems

if you need two computers in sync use unity collab and pay a bit per month.

Or learn how to work with source tree or git from command line .

two computers, two users for dropbox its the same, it can create problems.

 

Learning how to use version control from command line is unnecessary unless you just enjoy using a terminal. Instead I recommend installing one or more of the following programs. Both of these programs integrate into their platform file browsers offering context-sensitive menus and special icons for file and folder status.

For Windows Explorer.

https://tortoisegit.org/
https://tortoisesvn.net/

For Apple Finder.

https://zigz.ag/GitFinder/
https://langui.net/snailsvn/

 

Even between two Windows computers syncing the library causes problems. You should never share the library folder. Better to wait for Unity to do a reimport then deal with the problems a shared library folder causes.

 

Does a reimport fix many issues?

rich

 

I find deleting the library and letting Unity sort it out is better.

 

It would be easier just to use proper version control. Visual Studio Online is still free for 5-10GB (and even larger) repositories as long as you don't have more than 5 developers.

 

Additionally, just in case people are avoiding this one due to the naming, Visual Studio Online doesn't actually require you to use Visual Studio. When you are asked to create a repository one of the options is the version control system you wish to use. You want to select Git if it hasn't already defaulted to it.



After that you'll be sent to a dashboard where you can retrieve the URL.



And generate your repository login credentials.



From there you just use it like you would any other Git repository.

 

Sometimes I think you read peoples minds through the forum.
Exact question I was going to ask. Thanks!

 

We just grow out of the 10 gb on gitlab so moved to visualstudio. Since git is git it was just a matter of pushing to the new remote. I love git.

 

Not that it will make any difference for you but, for the sake of fairness, 1Gb on Bitbucket is a soft limit. That means that you'll only see a warning on their site that says that your repo is suspiciously big. The actual hard limit, when you will not be able to push anymore, is 2Gb.

 

Do you mean deleting the library folder? Is that safe to do?

 

WHAT! Why haven't I heard of this, I've been here three-ish years! Its a good thing this has never happened to me, better to be safe than sorry. Also stopped using it because it was not saving my changes all the time. I'd hit save, run the project and my new code or whatever wouldn't be featured in the build. I only used it to save the project, instead of the code. Defo using Git for my code.

 

Yup. Library can be deleted without adverse side effects. Unity will go ahead and regenerate it, which normally doesn't take long. Its standard advice to try if a project somehow becomes corrupted and won't load.

 

When you setup version control, you tell it to ignore your Library folder. Then each computer that you have the project on has its own version of Library and Unity updates it as needed. If you have the project on dropbox, each computer trying to access it will have a different idea of what the Library should look like. That is when you start having problems.

 

Dropbox requires logs to get access to a specific file, when you're running on Unity the temps files are constantly written. It has conflict with the synchronisation between your tow devices.
I suggest you to turn off the sync on the computer you're not working on. Once you've done with your modifications you can Sync.
I had the same issue, I fixed it doing this. I'm continuing working in this way for now, would thinking later to invest with Unity Collab.
Good luck

 

VS Online + LFS is free (For a small team)

 

If you're using Dropbox with multiple computers, at some point you are going to accidentally open your project or make a change to a file before your computer had downloaded changes Dropbox has from your other computer. This will result in renamed files and a nightmare sorting it all out. Just don't do it.

 

Okay, but how long did it take you to discover this solution? Because setting up a proper VCS only requires a couple minutes and you can begin using it immediately. Two minutes versus having to deal with problems that wouldn't have existed if you had used a VCS seems like a no brainer to me yet so many people stubbornly stick to the worse solution.