FIXED! unexpected character at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data

Questions & Answers
1

When I build for HTML 5 and try and run it via my website I get the following error:

An error occured running the Unity content on this page. See your browser JavaScript console for more info. The error was:
SyntaxError: JSON.parse: unexpected character at line 1 column 1 of the JSON data

The build runs perfectly fine locally via Firefox.

I had a similar situation previously which was fixed by adding a 3rd-party web.config file to the project folder. Is that what is needed now?

FIXED! Solution below.

6

FIXED!!

So, it appears that the problem is that Windows servers will not read a JSON file. I did some googling regarding Windows servers and JSON files and apparently Windows servers will not recognise a JSON file unless it’s identified in a web.config.

I added the following line to my existing web.config (from Unity 5.5.0):

<mimeMap fileExtension=".json" mimeType="application/json" />

Success! It got past the JSON problem but then threw up another error - the details of which I forget. It occured to me that as 5.6 now uses .unityweb that that might need identifying as well. I added the following line to the web.config guessing that unityweb files were binary.

IT WORKS!

The final working web.config for Unity 5.6 looks like this:

<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <staticContent>
			<!-- Unity 5.6 -->
			<mimeMap fileExtension=".json" mimeType="application/json" />
			<mimeMap fileExtension=".unityweb" mimeType="application/binary" />
		
            <!-- Unity 5.x -->
            <mimeMap fileExtension=".data" mimeType="application/binary" />
            <mimeMap fileExtension=".mem" mimeType="application/binary" />
 
            <!-- Unity 5.3 -->
            <mimeMap fileExtension=".datagz" mimeType="application/binary" />
            <mimeMap fileExtension=".jsgz" mimeType="application/binary" />
            <mimeMap fileExtension=".memgz" mimeType="application/binary" />
        </staticContent>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

I dropped the web.config in the Build folder and ran it through Firefox from the server and it works fine.
I can probably get rid of the Unity 5.x and 5.3 lines now but I’ll leave them there for the time being to be on the safe side.
I appreciate that to web programmers this is probably child’s play but I’m way out of my depth here so I struggle to figure this stuff out.

I hope that helps a lot of folks. There are certainly a lot following this thread.

Also, thanks for all your help Unity. You were awesome :confused:

8

Hi! Does anybody have solution for Nodejs server?

9

We ran into this problem and none of the previous fixes applied to our environment. We fixed the issue by changing our custom WebGLTemplate’s index.html from:

 var gameInstance = UnityLoader.instantiate("gameContainer", "Build/MyGame.json", {

to

var gameInstance = UnityLoader.instantiate("gameContainer", "%UNITY_WEBGL_BUILD_URL%", {
2

Same problem here and I have yet to found a fix, anyone?

3

Yup. Didn’t work at all. Same problem with unity 5.6 and webgl + IIS

4

I still don’t have a solution for this project stopping bug yet. I really can’t see the issue. It’s really not happy with the { at the start of the file. That’s definitely the first character in the file. Line 1, column 1 (I even checked for hidden characters in a hex editor) and that’s apparently what’s supposed to be there in a JSON file and yet, the reader just won’t accept it.

5

Hi, I’m getting the exact same problem when exporting the Space Shooter project to html5. Works fine on my local machine but when I upload it to my web hosting I get the above error.

This is unity version 5.6.

7

@Wayne_Peters I had this issue in version 2017.1.1f1 and I was creating a site to host this HTML5 output and all I need to do was add <mimeMap fileExtension=".unityweb" mimeType="application/octet-stream"/> to my web.config and it worked!

Thanks!

10

I had the same error when I build for WebGL, and your solution works.
Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge, it has been a great help to me since I am an amateur programmer.
Regards

11

When in doubt, I always delete the LIbrary folder and rebuild. Fixes a world of problems…