Any word regarding new webplayer?

News & General Discussion
1

Obviously the new release entails a new webplayer.

I’ve been having a horrid time with the current player on a mac. I’ve tried three different browsers - all with their distinct problems.

Chrome with native client - I haven’t been able to launch a single unity web app. All seem to get stuck at the end of loading.

Safari - works on some, crashes on others - generally works slower than firefox.

Firefox - generally works, but when it crashes - it crashes massively. (some crashes require a hard boot)

I truly hope this new webplayer saves the day, as at the current state of things - I’m holding back on sharing unity stuff with my friends as these crashes can cause loss of work, etc.

2

im on a mac and only get crashes on chrome when its preloading and im on another tab.

To get around this, i’ve been loading the unity3d file via xmlhttprequest, then when its done and tab has focus, write the dom object.

Obviously not a fix but at least it minimizes the chances of a crash.

3

Thanks for the reply.

I love unity, but have come to the point of not trying any new web deployed games, etc. because of frequent crashing.

My latest crash - was a major one (screen went into bezerk mode, and application couldn’t be closed) - trying to launch Stellar marines.

My major concern is not me and my usage but clients/friends etc.

I’m counting on the next release to be much more stable.

4

I have the same issue with chrome in windows, where it crashes when I don’t have the tab selected. Not too bad since it caches the information, I can just refresh the page and it just has to take the time to load from the cache. Still kind of annoying though.

Besides that, I haven’t had any issues with the web player in windows.

5

I made a simple 3D model rotation web-player on another forum and the number of errors people reported was staggering.

Sometimes it crashed the browser, sometimes it crashed the computer, some times it had the “bad file length” error, sometimes it did nothing.

I too hope the web-player is improved.

6

I lost two possible clients because of web player crashes :(, i will need to wait for a stable version to provide web builds.

I have the same problem with chrome here, it crashes when you don’t have the tab selected.

7

If a game crashes in Firefox or Safari maybe it’s the specific game’s programming that’s faulted.

With chrome I also get the error, you just have to hit F5 to fix it, and don’t leave the tab

8

Same thing. I usually leave the page and once it crashes, kill the page and reload it. Then it loads fast.

9

For me it wouldn’t be a problem also, just f5 after crash and it’s ok it is working (when it doesn’t crash the whole chrome) :), the problem are the users, they won’t invested in something that isn’t stable enough, they bother with the simple fact that you need to install a new plugin, imagine a plugin that crash your browser.

10

If it only crashed the browser - (possibly due to programming errors - though, I’d assume unity web stuff should be sandboxed well enough to prevent that) I might be able to live with it…

I’ve had it crash my whole system - Mac os/x 10.5.8. It’s pretty much the only piece of software that crashes the whole system.

These are not just little crashes…but major (everything is stuck and I can’t force a close).

Anyhow, as I’ve said - I’m loving unity and appreciate many aspects it offers.

I have a feeling this has to do with the major growth Unity is having. More systems to QA, etc.

I’m also assuming there are other “more lucrative” systems at the moment. Though, I wouldn’t underestimate the importance of a stable, well performing web plugin.

I’ll suggest something that might not be feasible - maybe, we as a community can help Unity with a major community QA push. Since the web is one of the "free version"s’ main platforms - there should be a pretty large developer base for this to be done.

Maybe, a short period of intensive QA - powered by the developer community?

– edit
All this is targeted at the new web plug-in which I assume will be introduced with the Unity 3.0 release.

11

when you say crash your system? are you saying it causes a kernel panic? or is it maxing out your cpu cycles (you may or may not be able to move the mouse but screen appears frozen)

if i were you i would be eliminating my code piece by piece until (hopefully) you find the culprit.

12

It’s not my own code.

Other demos, available on the web cause it.

There are actually variations of these crashes.

Last one…caused the whole screen to go into a mishmash of colors…mouse still moved but I couldn’t break out of it to close the application (cmd+option+esc on mac).

That’s just a sample.

But I’ve had a myriad of these crashes over the past few weeks…causing loss of work/time - making me weary of sharing unity stuff with clients and friends.

I’m sure these may have to do with coding errors, but isn’t that supposed to be sandboxed in the plugin?

13

Not being in the tab when it’s done loading is weird. I mean, why would the code require focus?

14

Generating the 3d engine. It may have issues generating the window inside of the browser if it’s trying to create a dx or opengl window when the page is locked due to not being focused… Just an idea.

15

I dont see any problems posted at shockwave comments.

16

i doubt the problems have to do anything about focus but about browser behavior on handling the plugin. my assumption is that they disable plugins on tabs that become inactive and try to continue them later on but do this in a way that kills unity.

for example chrome potentially just pauses the whole thread / process basically “drying out unity”
that it happens in chrome is pretty strange anyway cause chrome uses a distinct process per window and one would assume that chrome does not touch “non active tabs” in any way as they are self contained

17

What I am going to do - Is download the latest chrome - as I have a hunch I downloaded the very first release which included Native code.

Then, I shall do some experimenting…see if anything is better…

The second thing to mention is the fact I’m having all these problems on a Mac. I’ve worked with Windows computers before with the Unity plugin - and I didn’t have so many problems.

18

I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a single crash with the Unity plugin using either Safari or Firefox. I have got the “bad file length” thing once or twice, but that’s it.

–Eric

19

I should take you with me to the clients just to convince them, that the crashes they are witnessing do not exist in reality, it’s just in their minds. :O9

20

Clearly user error.