Scoped registry link problem

append delete 02 Feb ’23 · 00:48 JF

Windows version: 11
Builder version: 3.54
iOS SDK version: Xcode 14.2
Unity version: 2022.2.1f1

So, this is very likely not IOS Project Builder's problem, but I am using an asset from the Unity store named Voxelbusters Cross Platform Native Plugins (it does Cloud Save etc.)

I used to use this a couple years back with older Unity versions and it worked fine with IOS Project Builder.

Now when I build in Unity 2022.2 with IOS Project builder I get a link error (even on a fresh project with just the above asset) where the linker can't seem to find the asset's native libraries.

To narrow things down, I made a clean install of Unity 2019.4 and made a fresh project, and that one links just fine.

Failure log (Unity 2022.2): https://pastebin.com/xHc2Vw5V
Success log (Unity 2019.4): https://pastebin.com/2HXviMcj

For some reason, the linker is not linking the asset's library. I looked at the .asmdef files but they do have IOS checked, and otherwise look the same in both unity versions.

The main difference I've noticed is that in Unity 2022 the manifest.json has these listed as a scoped registry, like this:

“scopedRegistries": [
{
"name": "npmjs",
"url": "https://registry.npmjs.org/",
"scopes": [
"com.voxelbusters.corelibrary",
"com.voxelbusters.corelibrary.nativeplugins",
"com.voxelbusters.parser”

]
}
]

where as in Unity 2019 it doesn't put references to this library in the manifest. Unfortunately, Unity 2022 doesn't like it if I just delete those lines out of the manifest to make it look like 2019's manifest.

Is there some issue I should be aware of with scoped registries, or some way I can tell the Unity compiler/IOS Project Builder "You really need to link this".

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append delete 02 Feb ’23 · 12:25 #1. Pierre-Marie Baty

Hello

I'm not sure where to look for the cause of this problem. There's obviously a missing library, but is the builder supposed to build it from source or is it supposedly supplied in binary form by your asset ?

If it exists in binary form and you're able to locate it, you can work that around by adding these explicit linker flags: -Lpath/to/library/directory -lname (for a library called libname.a) or -Fpath/to/framework/basedir -framework name (for a framework called name.framework).

If on the other hand it's supposed to be built from source, it would be interesting to know how it's meant to be done. I don't see any shell script in your build logs so logically it should be defined as a dependency target in your Xcode project file.

Can Xcode build this project without problem ?

append delete 03 Feb ’23 · 04:48 #2. JF

Thank you, your advice helped me debug and solve the problem, learning more about .xcode project files in the process.

I compared the .xcode project files generated by the 2019 and 2022 versions, and noticed that one included the missing files and the other didn't. The files are called "PBXFiles" in xcode.

I noticed that the asset has a class that had "PBXFile" in the name, that it uses to generate a list of PBXFiles for xcode, so I just put a bunch of debug print statements to compare its behavior under 2019 and 2022 Unity.

In 2022 Unity the addon is getting an exception, which it hides, and just doesn't add the file (or any further files) to the PBXFile list.

It turns out that when imported to Unity 2022, their addon has an empty filename list in the properties of some their .asset files for what to link. When used with Unity 2019, the full filenames are there, so I just manually cut and paste them over into the .asset files and everything worked.

From the asset's discord it seems the asset authors are aware of some kind of problem here with Unity 2022, where the filenames can get zeroed out, but it sounds like it's sporadic.

Anyway, thank you for the suggestion to look at the .xcode project files. It's always easier to figure things out when you have the scenario working in one case and not another, and then you can just add debug print statements to see where things are behaving differently.

append delete 04 Feb ’23 · 12:49 #3. Pierre-Marie Baty

Indeed it is. Glad to hear you've figured it out, and thank you for posting how you did it. It'll certainly be helpful to others, until the Voxelbusters authors fix their asset so that it generates proper Xcode projects with Unity 2022.

iOS Build Environment Help Center

Scoped registry link problem

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