NamedPipeServerStream in Unity

Unity Engine
1

Has anybody been successful in using Named Pipes in Unity.
We have two Unity programs, one is a launcher and the other(s) will be launched from it. Think of something like steam. I already have a launcher launching the other experience and now I need to transfer data.

I get a not implemented error when I try to do a new NamedPipeServerStream, so I’m guessing Unity doesn’t have an implementation for it, but just wondering if anybody found a solution for this.

Thanks!

2

A quick google of this found the below thread which seems to blame Mono for an incomplete implementation in this area.

3

Interesting find.

I’m basically running into what this guy is facing
https://forum.unity.com/threads/namedpipes-not-implemented-in-unity-2019-1-4f1.692029/

Unfortunately, he doesn’t appear to have a solution and no responses.

Basically this call

await pipeServer.WaitForConnectionAsync(token);

throws an error with “The method or operation is not implemented.”.

The post you linked does mention the synchronous version working.

4

Hi there!

I’ve been working with Named Pipes recently and I ran across tons of issues myself and found this post by googling.
After tons and tons of experimentation I finally got it working.
I’m posting my solution here just in case people in the future run across this thread just like I did.

First I was working with 2019.4.12 and in the Editor everything worked fine, I could create Server Pipes and Client Pipes and communicate between them.
Then the issue came when I made a Windows Build, all of a sudden the log was saying “NamedPipeServerStream is not implemented!”
However the client has no issues, it seems that NamedPipeClientStream is implemented.
And again no issues in the Editor, I don’t understand how the Editor apparently has NamedPipeServerStream implemented while the build does not.

I tried everything, updating to 2019.4.20, tried Mono, tried IL2CPP, tried .NET 2 and .NET 4, everything still said “not implemented”
The solution was swapping out to 32 bit (x86 instead of x86_64)
And with that now everything works.

So here’s my exact working Server setup:

  • Unity 2019.4.20f1
  • Windows
  • 32bit (x86)
  • Mono
  • .NET 4.x

And again the client had no issues so I’m running it on my standard parameters and everything works.
Client Setup:

  • Unity 2019.4.12f1
  • Windows
  • 64bit (x86_64)
  • Mono
  • .NET Standard 2.0

I create 2 pipes on the Server (one for reading and one for write) and 2 more on the Client.
Each pipe on a separate thread, 2 threads on the server and 2 threads on the client

new NamedPipeServerStream("LiveChat_SR_CW", PipeDirection.In); // ServerRead_ClientWrite
...
new NamedPipeServerStream("LiveChat_SW_CR", PipeDirection.Out); // ServerWrite_ClientRead
...
new NamedPipeClientStream(".", "LiveChat_SW_CR", PipeDirection.In); // ServerWrite_ClientRead
...
new NamedPipeClientStream(".", "LiveChat_SR_CW", PipeDirection.Out); // ServerRead_ClientWrite

Also I am not using async, not sure if that has anything to do with it.

pipeReadServer.WaitForConnection();
...
string message = streamReadString.ReadString();

I was going insane trying to solve this and finally got it working, hopefully this post can help someone in the future!
Cheers!

EDIT: I made this video documenting my process so I remember it in the future and hopefully it might help someone else who stumbles upon this post:

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5

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