Deleting imported standard shader archive removed shaders from materials !

Questions & Answers
1

Hello,

I needed to view uncompiled source code of standard shaders used by Unity so I went to Unity rchive and downloaded apropriate package (Download Archive). I made separate folder for those shader files inside my project. I imported only shader files with shader source code to that folder. All was fine and dandy, I was able to view shader code, see what I wanted to see and stuff… Please note that I didn’t use any of those dolnloaded shaders on my scene or in any of materials, all I wanted them for is to view their source code (and so I did).
And then, something happened.
1 st. Unity layout turned black (I use Unity pro so it is black by default but this was much more black). There was a console notification that some GUI stuff used by scripts can’t be found.
2 nd. When I no longer needed those shader files I deleted them from project. Result was that every standard shader that was used in project by any material was removed as well (!) Remember: I did not use any of those downloaded shaders inside materials used in my scene (!)

My question is:

Why deleting shader files that are not used in scene and stored in separate folder removes shaders that are actually used in scene ?

2

Something else that perplexes me is that stock standard shaders used by Unity are compiled. Those downloaded archive shader files were uncompiled. Still deleting them removed compiled versions of those files … How is that possible?

3

If you want to permanently delete a SRP shader like deferredTile.shader, you can do so by searching C:\Users\YOUR USER\AppData and find that shader name. Delete all those and it will not reappear in your project.