Detail Albedo x2 Crashes unity iOS and android 5.3.1p3

This worked in 5.2.4 but it crashes unity every time I add it while a texture is in main maps albedo in unity 5.3p3 iOS and android. I can add it if there is no normal map but once I add the normal map unity crashes. Is this a bug?

 

I didn't understand your problem, perhaps you could reword it and add some technical detail (e.g.: some shader snippet).

That being said, it's well known that the current versions newer than 5.2(p3) aren't the most stable. They have some serious bugs and I personally recommend sticking with a previous version for the time being. If the shader was working properly and the code seems OK, chances are it's indeed yet another bug introduced in version 5.3 and not fixed yet.

 

Im using the standard shader. I have confirmed that it works on the windows version of unity 5.3.1p3. What Im saying is if I add a detail texture to the detail albedo slot for the standard shader while on android or ios it crashes unity. Sometimes it freezes my computer and I have to hold the power button to turn it off.

 

Well, that's a complex matter, shaders aren't the most compatible thing. It's pretty normal for 'desktop' shaders to have problem on mobiles. A computer freezing could be caused by a number of factors, if you're on Windows, when a hardware fault occurs you'll generally see the infamous BSOD. I've never seen shaders cause that though, all the VGAs I had they never caused a BSOD, so I don't even know if that's possible, generally they are caused by things like memory corruption and bad drivers.

A computer freezing is not normal, even if there's a bug in Unity that's triggering some problem in your computer for it to freeze, it's just doing that, triggering and exposing an existent problem in your rig.

I've tried the default shader on my rig and Android before downgrading and didn't have any problem, but if it was working flawlessly for you before, them I guess you could assume it's a problem with the newer versions of Unity, which I repeat, is known to be buggy, and just stick with 5.2, unless you really need some new feature.

If you want help with the freezing problem, you need to provide more information, like what OS you're using (I can't even tell if it's Windows, let alone the version), some basic information about the hardware and drivers (especially VGA), build version and architecture of all the software you're using, and the steps to reproduce the freeze (e.g.: does it happen in the editor and the build?).

 

I'm using a late 2013 MacBook Pro, retina, 2.3 ghz i7, 16gb ddr3, GT 750m 2048mb with OS X El Capitan v. 10.11.2. As I stated I tried the exact same project on windows using boot camp on the same MacBook and it works. Actually, everything works faster on the Windows version of unity. Also, as I stated earlier, it still works on this same MacBook using unity 5.2.4. I'm just trying to verify that this is a bug so I can report or get my artist to change his work flow before I have to pay him to do it all over again if this is by design. I can make a video if needed.

@JoshPeterson

 

Sorry, I'm not a Mac user, so I won't be able to help you with the freezing issue. I think the fact that it runs better on Windows is also another clue that something is wrong in your system.

If the problem is exactly what was described: it doesn't work when you add a map on the default shader, and if you can reproduce that in a sscce, then it's pretty safe to assume it's indeed a bug on Unity's side. As far as I know the default shaders are pretty much failsafe and have proper fallbacks, so they should work no matter what.

If it was working on a previous version of Unity, I don't see a reason not to stick with it (unless you really need the newer version as stated above). A lot of people are having problems with 5.3 and sticking with 5.2.

I don't feel however that I understood your problem 100%, because if a map is causing Unity to crash, what could your artist do? Write another shader? I'm assuming it's not the texture being used that's causing the problem.

 

He is not writing shaders, he making the environment. Right now we are using detail albedo x2 to add extra detail to the models. If we can't do that then we would have to add a second texture to keep the detail up. Im not understanding how it could be something in the system when its the exact same computer I'm running OS X and windows on. I just choose what system I want to boot when I turn the system on. Unity 5.2.4 is much faster on mac then 5.3.1p3 is. I think its a bug too because I can't find anything in the docs that say this can't be done on mobile.

 

Well, I'd make an sscce just to be on the safe side, but it does sound like a bug. I wouldn't use a workaround in this case like cranking up the main texture resolution instead of using the detail texture which is the 'right way' to achieve that, so sticking with 5.2 is the way to go.

I though all Unity versions were slower on your OSX compared to Windows, if it's just 5.3 that's slower, then of course it could be some problem in the Unity build specific to that OS. Personally I would investigate a full system freeze though, especially with those specs, but that's up to you.

TL;DR: Unless there's some technical reason, you should just stick with 5.2 for the time being imho.

Personally, I'm even sticking with v4 in some of my projects because of the performance on Android systems.

 

Thanks for the help. What is an sscce? The first 5.3 was fast. All the rest are slower.

 

You're welcome .

It's a short, self-contained, correct example, in other words, a 'minimum' project that reproduces the problem. In this case it would basically be just a matter of starting an empty project, adding some primitive object, assigning the standard material to it, and trying to use the maps that are causing the problem. If that doesn't work then you can be pretty sure the problem is not in your project.

There's a chance that somehow some files ended up messed when updating the project to 5.3, especially the meta files you don't have control over, so that is what could be causing the error, but I think the chance is very small anyway because it isn't a major version update. I have experienced problems like that. In fact I'm having a problem with config files being messed up after an update at this very moment. I've updated an Unity 4.6.9p1 game to 4.7-final and that happened -- files got messed and some plugins stopped working. It's a very minor update so I just decided to stick with the previous version.

If you decide to make the sscce and it produces the same issue, then it's much easier for the Unity team to debug it, and also faster to upload, and of course you won't have problems with NDAs.

 

Thanks, thats actually the first thing I did before I started searching the docs and the internet. The only thing I added was the house and it didnt work. Tried several from 2 different people. Will make bug report.

 

Bug submitted Case 763807.

 

I just discovered that a (completely different) bug could be fixed disabling Muthtreaded Rendering. Being a graphic glitch, and yours a graphic problem, who knows... they might have put hands inside the multithread rendering system and create problems over graphics also elsewhere, so just try...

 

Thanks but where do I find the setting for that in ios?