Questions about Unity Web Player

News & General Discussion
1

I know it is discontinued officially, but it still seems to be functional. I have read here Unity - Manual: Troubleshooting Webplayer where it explains the 3 parts of the web player (plugin, player, and mono). The plugin runs in the browser (I have a copy of an older version of Firefox that actually works with this plugin), which upon first running downloads the latest version of the player and also the latest version of mono.

Now I’m trying to run a game (it’s quite old, so I’m surprised the website hasn’t taken it down yet, but it’s still there), and it does seem to at least start up. However, when you get to the title screen of the game, you are supposed to press “enter” to start the game, and the game doesn’t seem to see any of my key presses. I think this issue may have something to do with the version of the player and mono involved. I think that the version of the player and mono it has downloaded may be TOO NEW, and the game may use keyboard reading features that are not supported by this later version of the player and/or mono.

Is it possible to downgrade the version of the player and mono? I know that the plugin automatically downloads these from a certain URL. Is it possible to manually download these files (the player and mono files) via a web browser? And how do I find the correct URLs to download them from?

For reference, the game I’m trying to get working was released sometime in either 2012 or 2013. What was the current version of the plugin, the player, and mono during that time?

There also may be an issue with the plugin itself. It may not be using different functions to send keystrokes to the player and mono, than this game is attempting to use, so the game never sees the keystrokes.

Again, is there a way to download a version of the plugin that’s older than the current version of the plugin? I know that the web player installer EXE only installs the latest version of the plugin, and this may be an issue in itself. What URL is the web player using to download the plugin? And is it possible to manually download and install a different version of the plugin?

Note that I’ve used the browser’s HTML viewing capability to find the URL for the unity3d file and downloaded it. When I view the file in a hex-editor, I see these are the first several bytes of the file, as shown in ASCII text (any byte not able to be shown as a character is turned into a period).
UnityWeb…3.x.x.3.5.0f5

So it seems that the game is looking for version 3.x.x in general, and specifically 3.5.0f5 of the player and/or mono. Therefore, it would seem that installing this specific version of the player and/or mono would increase the likelihood that it will be compatible with the game in question. Not sure about the plugin version.

Can somebody here help me find where to download this specific version?

2

Just to make sure you’ve tried this first, for the webplayer to receive key presses, you first need to click on it with the mouse so it gets focus, have you done that?

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3

I think that’s highly unlikely. Back then Unity was very protective of backwards compatibility, and in particular the input stuff was left unchanged for ages. (They’re only just making a new version of that system now.)

Still, I agree you’re more likely to have luck with software of an appropriate vintage. :slight_smile:

The Unity Download Archive goes back to 3.x, and from memory the Editor comes with the player in the installer package. So I’d check that out.

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