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Is it safe to downgrade a project from Unity 5.4 to Unity 5.3?
I need to upgrade our Unity project to Unity 5.4 - however we also need one part of our project to be released on web player later this year, which Unity 5.4 does not support. So what I'm wondering is, can we upgrade to Unity 5.4 now and then later this year downgrade one aspect of our project so that we can export to webplayer? Or is that a terrible idea?
Answer by pako · Aug 04, 2016 at 02:11 PM
@eventropy you can downgrade the whole project from 5.4. to 5.3. For downgrading only part of the project, just make a copy of the project and delete the parts you don't want downgraded, or something along these lines.
Before you begin the process make a backup of your project.
After making the backup delete the file \YourProjectRoot\ProjectSettings\ProjectVersion.txt This file will be re-created after the first time you open your project in 5.3. If you don't delete this file, every time you open your project in 5.3, all your assets will be re-imported. You can try this and see, and then delete the file later on.
So, if you work with 5.4, just run the 5.3 installer, which will first remove the previous 5.4 installation, and then install 5.3.
Subsequently, the first time you run 5.3 all your assets will be imported.
That's it.
Answer by mrpmorris · Aug 04, 2016 at 11:49 AM
Is the upgrade from 5.3 to 5.4 really worth it? Why not develop in 5.3 and then do a 5.4 build just for the benefits when you release?
I would definitely do it this way except that when using 5.3 the entire Unity Editor crashes for unknown reasons when running one particular scene - and this crash doesn't occur in 5.4. Which is why it is really tempting to upgrade
That's a good question - I'm not sure. That would require downgrading and I'm not sure what kind of problems that could create. I might try that though, thanks
Answer by corriedotdev · Aug 04, 2016 at 02:19 PM
So SURE, you can try it. You will have a backup so nothing to lose. However, some of the built assets may not be compatible like the stuff in "temp". My recommendation is to create an empty project in the older version of unity, then just copy the assets folder from the newer project to the older one. This will definitely be compatible and will allow you to continue developing on the previous version of unity.
Note though if you want to transfer your project settings you will need to do this too :)
Good luck!
I don't think that what you are suggesting solves anything. since the temp folder gets re-created, if something is incompatible, it will not just become compatible, just because the temp folder was not included when the project was imported in 5.3. It's the same as deleting the temp (and library) folders before first opening the project in 5.3.
In other words, if some 5.4 only features have been included in the project, then opening this project in 5.3 will definitely be incompatible, no matter what.
It solves everything, youre creating a project in the unity version you want, and simply copying the assets folder across, allowing the other files to be recreated to the correct unity version. This is the process I do myself when unity commits an updated version of the project when some machines I use arnt there yet. I never said that features in 5.5 would be in 5.4, if you use splash screen animations for example of course they arnt going to be in 5.4. From my understanding OP just wanted to view the project on a previous edition of unity