GameSalad Publishing Binaries (RC & Current) - Updated 2020-07-06
adent42
Key Master, Head Chef, Executive Chef, Member, PRO Posts: 3,172
GameSalad is made of two parts. GameSalad Creator and the GameSalad Engine.
When you "publish" your game, you're submitting it to GameSalad servers to turn into apps. Because the process lives on our servers, we can push updates to you without updating the GameSalad Creator Tool.
If you publish with any 1.25.x version of GameSalad, you'll get the most current GameSalad engine.
At times we'll have to do some "emergency" work that needs to be put in some users hands quickly. Sometime we just want to put something out for users to test and see if we missed something.
These releases are called RC (Release Candidate) builds. RC builds haven't gone through our full battery of testing and are sometimes broken. But if you are daring (or desperate) and an RC build is available, you can try it out with the "Build RC" button in your publishing console.
We used this thread to post and respond to release notes, but will be moving the release notes for each RC into their own thread.
Current Releases
**
Release Candidate (2020-07-06)
Please see notes and report issues in this thread:
https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/98026/app-binary-rc-1-25-20200706-ios-update/p1
Production (2019-03-17)
Android: No change since 2019-08-02.
- Minimum API / SDK version is 21. Target is 28.
- 64-bit only.
- Supports IronSrc
iOS:
- Target SDK iOS 12.1
- Improved fixes for IAP async logic crashes from 2020-03-04
- Admob Fixes from 2019-12-20
- arm64 only binary as per 12.1
Previous RCs **
**Release Candidate (2020-06-11)
https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/97991/app-binary-rc-1-25-20200611-android-update/p1
Release Candidate (2020-06-02)
https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/97982/app-binary-rc-1-25-20200602-android-update/p1
Release Candidate (2020-05-21)
https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/97947/app-binary-rc-1-25-20200521-released/p1
Release Candidate (2020-05-12)
Android:
- Target SDK/API 29
- Min SDK/API 21
- IronSrc 6.16.1 with all supported networks.
- Admob 19.1.0
- Chartboost 8.0.2
- Removal of Tapdaq support
- Upgrade to AndroidX libraries
- Updated Freestick to 0.3.2, allowing for more controller support.
- Trimmed Freeimage, so no potential loading of TIFF, EXR, or RAW image files (but this helps trim the executable size)
- Update tables loader to use libxml2 instead of expat, so we don't have two xml parsing libraries in our executable
iOS:
- Publishing with IronSrc disabled now excludes IronSrc related libraries. This will help with the ITMS-90809 issue as some IronSrc libraries used UIWebView.
- Fixes Admob initialization issue.
- If you include IronSrc you will still get rejected for ITMS-90809. We are awaiting word from IronSrc for another update.
RC (2020-04-29)
Android: No Changes since 2019-10-14
iOS:
- Upgrade to freestick 0.3.2, fixing analog stick Y axis values.
- Langauge device attribute now includes the scriptCode if the information is available. So instead of 'zh' you'd get 'zh-Hant' to specify the language variant.
- Upgraded ad networks.
-- Admob 7.58.0
-- IronSrc 6.16.0.0
-- Chartboost 8.1.0 - Remove tapdaq
- Changed XML parser in the tables lib. This reduces the size of the app since we had two XML parsing libraries (expat & libxml). Now we're on libxml for both.
- Fixed TweetDeck behavior crashing in iPad.
- IronSrc has a new flag called "do_not_sell" related to the CCPA this has been set to "YES"
RC (2020-04-12)
Android: No Changes since 2019-10-14
iOS:
- Upgrade to Freestick 0.3.1, allowing for Joystick support on iOS
- Removal of libraries for loading RAW, EXR, and TIFF images, because we don't support them in the tool anyway. Should reduce binary size.
- Compiled against SDK 13.2 targeting 13.0 (to support app store requirement).
- Using Storyboard for loading screen. Storyboard references loading images and scales to fill preserving aspect ratio, so make sure the important parts of the image fit in the middle.
The new system will only use one of each image either the 19:10 or the 4:3. We'll pick the 19:10 one first, if that doesn't exists, we'll choose the 4:3 image. We suggest only providing the 19:10 images with the important content showing in the middle/center 4:3 area.
RC (2020-03-22)
Android: No Changes since 2019-10-14
iOS:
- Basic support for IAP Subscription
- New "expired" state for auto-renewing subscription IAPs
- Auto renewing subscriptions will print the UTC expiration date if not expired instead of "purchased". Since we don't have functions to easily parse it, we may switch it to the epoch time (like game.time) in the future.
- Non-renewing subscriptions should be treated like a consumable (i.e. expiration managed in-app and with server).
Previous Releases
RC (2018-10-10)
Android: Update Chartboost SDK to 7.3.0. Update OpenAL to 1.19.0. Removal of more GameCircle Code and Revmob. Target SDK is now 28.
iOS: Unchanged
RC (2018-08-28)
Android: Upgrade to OpenAL 1.17.x. Attempt to address the PARTIAL_WAKE_LOCK issue without crashing.
iOS: Unchanged from 2018-06-16 release. May still have some problems. Built with updated NDK tools.
Production (2018-09-14)
Android: changed compile settings so sound now works again.
iOS: Building with RC works now. Admob SDK updated to 7.33.1. Support for adjusting banner ads and loading wheel on the iPhone Xr (untested).
RC (2018-06-16)
Android: Fixes PARTIAL_WAKE_LOCK issue that causes the Google Play store to down-rank apps. Also cause apps to use more battery than intended even when backgrounded.
iOS: Shifts loading wheel on iPhone X. Reports that the build does not work, we're looking into it.
RC (2018-06-08)
Android: Upgrade to SDK Target 26. Upgrade of Google / Android libraries to match Target 26. Update of Ad Networks to latest versions to support GDPR. privateDataConsentForAds attribute will now notify the engine when it changes, initiating an instant update to ad network settings. Doing things this way also prevents occasional crashes due to how we were polling the value.
iOS: Upgrades of Ad Networks to support GDPR. privateDataConsentForAds attribute will now notify the engine when it changes, initiating an instant update to ad network settings. Doing things this way also prevents occasional crashes due to how we were polling the value.
Comments
Are Chartboost reward ads working? I cannot get any ads to show, even in testing mode. The game attribute is definitely set to 1.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
We haven't made any changes and they were the last time we checked. I'm starting to think that Chartboost either has low fill rate or they are becoming stricter about not repeating ads and throttling users that are loading ads too often. One trick to try is to reset your phone's Advertiser ID, which should make you look like a new user to the ad networks.
@adent42 Looks like they started filling eventually.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
@loganjan22 we're in hard push for some edu stuff this month. The idea is to get it ready by next week so we can get it all tested before the start of school in August. What I'm hoping is the stuff is bug free enough that during the end of next week I can sneak off and do some engine work.
Hi @adent42 , thanks for everything you are doing! I read the whole thread but still have trouble understanding.
In basic terms, as of today, what do I use to upload my android game? thank you.
1.25.94 & RC?
or
1.25.94 & normal generator?
or
1.25.92 & normal generator?
So for binaries it doesn't matter which version of GS you publish with. Any 1.25.x build with use the same 1.25 or 1.25.RC binaries.
As for what to use.
Android: Build RC
iOS: Generate
Thanks @adent42 !!!
Hi @adent42 is there current version of gs viewer?
i cant find the donwload anywhere.
Thanks!
Since I updated my app on Google Play 29% of my users are experiencing crashes.
Exactly the same app as before just re-published for GDPR compliance.
Any idea what these crash reports point to? Is it something on your side? @adent42
@strag could you PM me a link to your final app?
I assume it's something on our side, but since I haven't seen a lot of crashes, it's likely something to do with updated app wrapper + your app.
The only crash I'm sure about is if you have AdMob on the screen at the same time as you call up Chartboost or another full screen ad network that uses HTML based ads. It doesn't happen all the time, but if there are two attempts at opening a web view than sometimes the app crashes.
Otherwise, I'll need to investigate. Also, if you have any info on what devices crash, that will help.
On another note, the team is trying to wrap up work for the beginning of the school year so it will take a bit longer to look into the issue.
But, combined with another issue related specifically to Samsung S7 crashes, we try to make time to see what's up.
Thanks @adent42
I've sent a PM with crash reports.
@adent42 Do you know that at least on s8, my game crashes when leaving the game with the back button?
On s6 it doesnt crash but when I return to the game, all my sound effects are gone and muted. Music is still playing.
Have any solutions?
Just tried this with my app and the same thing happens with the sound although it doesn't seem to crash.
@strag did you try it on a s8?
@Zwire the sound problem might be a side effect of us closing down the sound thread when we background (for the lock error that people were seeing). I did test with sound, but it looks like there are cases we missed. Can you PM me your game and I can take a look.
@Zwire Yes I've tested on an S8. I personally am not seeing any crashes but my crash reports on Google Play have increased from about 0.1% to 28.25%!
I have shared my reports with @adent42
@strag are you using the RC? The RC should have stopped the bad behavior.
@adent42 Yes it was built with RC.
Just did another round of testing and I'm actually getting lots of crashing.
As @Zwire said before, exiting the app with the back button and then opening the app again seems to cause issues.
Sometimes the music plays but all sound effects are gone. Sometimes I get a coloured bar top and bottom on the first menu screen. And sometimes it just crashes on startup.
Something else I noticed. On the first screen there is a brief flicker where I can just read some text in a band at the bottom of the screen which says 'tap here to fill entire screen'.
Does this help/make any sense?
Hmmm... debug code?
@Japster Hopefully I'll get round to doing a bit more digging this weekend...
My builds using the latest RC button were okay. No big issues thus far. Still, of course we are still doing internal builds. So anything we notice we will post and share here.
Just curious...are your apps on Android?
If so have you tried exiting using the back button and then going back into your app a few times? This is what seems to be causing 3 of my apps to be unstable.
Yes we are developing on Android. And yes exiting is an issue, I found that GS does stay with the instance if you choose to just leave the app and say go to other apps (like when you go chat and do other things). And when you get back, sometimes it will be back to where you were, and sometimes it unloaded from memory causing you to lose all of what you did in that game instance.. I have yet to get to that part..
But for your question of using back button to exit, you can actually choose to not "exit application" from back button. That can be done under your web interface of your app, Android settings -> Hardware -> "App quits on controller back button.". I think that is one thing we should all do to avoid the app from acting from unwanted behaviours.
Then you may on GameSalad, intentionally set the input "Esc" key as an input and exit the app with a Yes/No menu, and if Yes, unload everything and reset all the temporary parameters properly, thus sorting the issue for the user in my opinion.
So two things left to solve in my mind, on this quitting issue are:
1. Once you quit the app and go back, what parameters are left in memory (if any)
2. When I temporary exit (say using a chat app, phone call etc) and back to my game, what happens? And how should I control it?
Anyways, not sure if these are off topic, but just a note on this exiting app issue
Hey thanks for the suggestion...great call!
I had no idea that the esc keyboard command was mapped to the back button on Android...doh!
I did exactly as you said, disabled "App quits on controller back button" from web app settings and added 'when key esc is pressed quit game' to the app.
From initial testing it seems stable when generating app with legacy 'generate apk' button but not with RC build. Still crashes on startup.
Yes, those are better practices from my experiences.
I think in that case, it is likely due to some internal logic your app has, I would suggest you look at how to recreate that error, what errors are also happening at the same time.
Then see what issues may have caused that problem and go from there.
Just some more ideas for you
@Twayne2 it's on the publishing console. The reason it only affects android is that it's the only place where it's allowed / makes sense. At least at the time we made it, iOS doesn't allow an app to "quit", just background through the home button. Android consoles (FireTV), did need quit functionality available, so we added it there.
As an FYI to all, engine / tool work will be delayed another week because we're still ironing out some kinks in education. The good news for all is that one of the things I need to iron out is performance of our authentication servers to prepare for an influx of students. This give everyone benefits as it improves site reliability for all. If I get done early or take breaks I might be reaching out to people to get a refresher on issues people have been having with the engines.
Thanks for your patiences everyone!
So I'm trying to debug crash issues related to the current RC build and the back button. Could people experiencing high app crashed using the current android RC send me some info:
I've tried a couple of apps but I don't see a crash yet. I'm not running on a Samsung S8, so if that's the requirement for the crash, it may be a while before we can figure it all out. Based on info @strag has sent, it's not limited to Samsung S8s though, so hopefully we can get a repo case and kill this bug.
Once I get a few responses, I'll make a new post/thread for this issue and post a link here.
Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this. In the mean time, we're gonna start making some RC updates soon with other fixes features (as we figure out what we want to look at).
Thanks for your help!
In my latest game i see a LOT of crashes in the GooglePlay console, but the game have not crash for me.....
Homepage: freneticgamez.eu/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=FreneticGamez
RC update at the top of the thread. We still can't repo the crash on the devices we have, but we did some sensible things like getting a much newer version of OpenAL and changing how we trigger the suspend/resume of OpenAL. The new version of OpenAL also uses Android's OpenSL which is their preferred sound system. These things combined will hopefully fix the crash issues, so give them a try! (We'll continue testing here as well).
RC updated up top. Haven't seen a crash yet, but doesn't mean it won't happen. But sound works on Android now and iOS builds should be fine again. Test and let us know if you run into anything!