Working with assets placed in the StreamingAssets folder

I've encountered an issue when using the /StreamingAssets/ folder.

If a GameObject or Prefab in a scene or in the project view has an asset referenced to it in the inspector and this asset is moved to the /StreamingAssets/ folder the reference is still valid.

However if a reimport of the moved asset or project is triggered, ALL references to this asset becomes a "Missing asset".

If the asset is then moved to a folder other than /StreamingAssets/ and you trigger a reimport, the references will become valid once again.

If AudioClips are placed in the /StreamingAssets/ folder, you are unable to change any import settings for the clips and these will become invalidated once you hit "Apply".

Does anyone know how to use the /StreamingAssets/ folder when working with referenced assets?

 

Thanks for the response. This should probably be explicitly stated in the documentation at https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/StreamingAssets.html.

The reason we are doing this is because we want to work with referenced assets while also have the possibility of streaming them on the consoles. We make use of the StreamingAssets folder to make sure streamed assets are included into the packaged builds.

We are also unable to split our AudioClip assets into AssetBundles due to the bug of not being able to play streaming clips from assetbundles: https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/f...error-with-asset-bundles.431456/#post-2826584

We've also been recommended not to use the Resources folder due to the increase in startup times and patch sizes that is the side effect of increasing the Resources folder size.

How would one go about circumventing this issue?

 

Thank you!

 

So unfortunately this fix appears to only be for the iOS platform and I'm experiencing this issue on the PC, XboxOne and PS4. Here is my response to the other thread:





Yes I'm seeing this issue on the XboxOne, PS4 and PC platforms currently.

Here is a link to a forum post I wrote on the issue: https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/l...assetbundles-in-unity-5-does-not-work.434881/

We are also experiencing this: https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/streaming-audio-error-cannot-create-fmod-sound-instance.431824/ when streaming audio from the WWW class and /StreamingAssets/ folder.

If I build an AssetBundle with a referenced AudioClip being placed in the /StreamingAssets/ folder will this cause the error this thread talks about? The relevant AssetBundle is not unloaded or unreferenced while we are waiting for streaming to complete.

 

Sorry, the problem still persists even after moving audiofiles outside the /StreamingAssets/ folder, reimporting and re-exporting the assetbundles.

http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/1096450/loading-audio-from-asset-bundles-not-working-in-un.html

https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/l...assetbundles-in-unity-5-does-not-work.434881/

http://answers.unity3d.com/question...o-from-asset-bundles-not-working-in-un-1.html

 

Bumping into this as I was struggling with an updated .mp4 file no longer available when placed in StreamingAssets folder.
My case is a WebGL build mainly dealing with videos, and only one clip in a series of 6 had this issue, right after renaming the file (but why did I do this... )

Thanks to this thread, I learned about the specific importer for StreamingAssets folder, and above mentioned limitations... scratched my head as my other clips were correctly referenced.

It turns out that I simply made some kind of newbie misuse : my transcoded mp4 files were originally in a "videos" folder, that I renamed "StreamingAssets" later on, and the magic happens : the references in scripts are correctly updated, the mp4 files built aside in the StreamingAssets folder on the server, and everything runs as expected. I just wonder if transcoding is there finally, as the mp4 files show the same size as the imported files.

I could reproduce it as to bring back the renamed video in the StreamingAssets - i.e. without any manual file dropping in the editor, only renaming the folder - and the file shows up correctly in the inspector now.

Did I override Unity Editor behavior by chance ?

 

@SteenLund Not sure but its still quite confusing for understanding which one is better to use streamingAssets or Resources?
and does it effects the build size if we move our assets into streamingAssets folder instead of Resources Folder ?

 

Either way the data is going to end up in your build, so using one over the other for size reasons doesn't really make sense.

Resources and StreamingAssets aren't really directly comparable. One is for loading assets that have been imported, whereas the other is for managing non-imported files.