Chrome Viewer Issues

Hey guys!

Starting late last week, the Google Chrome browser began disabling NPAPI by default. What's is it, why did they do it, and how does it affect you?  Well...

Honestly, I had never heard of NPAPI before last week.  Apparently, it stems all the way back to Network Navigator days, and has been used to allow browser functionality that would have otherwise been impossible. 

With HTML5 and WebGL becoming browser standards, Google deemed NPAPI unnecessary, and began disabling it by default (with the intent to siable it permanently in September, 2015).  Large scale programs such as Silverlight, Java, and (you guess it) Unity are now "broken" for any user that has the newest copy OF Chrome (often updated by default).

So what can you do to get the viewer working again?  Well, in the short term, you can re-enable NPAPI in your Chrome browser -

chrome://flags/#enable-npapi

Re-enabling that will get you to September, 2015.  After that?

Well, Unity is working to make it's product more WebGL compliant.  It's still a bit unstable, so I'm not going to start trying to recompile the browser using it just yet; I want to wait until the much-more-in-the-know-about-how-such-things-work-than-I Unity community is happy with it.  Once I get that sense, I'll more forward to switching it.   I'll let you know when / if said switch occurs before the September deadline (my feeling tells me it is - it's not just our game, it's every web based Unity game).

Another alternative is to switch to Firefox, Safari, or Explorer (some people have had varying levels of luck / unluck with each browser).

Google seems firm on making this change permanent.  With Unity relying on NPAPI and their WebGL compiler currently being unstable, there is little Unity based games like myself can do other than offer alternatives and react to the changes and attempt to keep it's player base informed.

So that's where things are.  Thanks for your patience.

--Mike

PS - I am rewording and relaying here - I'm pretty ignorant to a lot of these technologies, and what I have learned is based on research done over the last several days.  If I butchered anything, let me know and I'll reword it.  But the solution and longterm implications should be pretty spot on. :)

































(athat'll kill Unity in the near future until Unity updates their WebGL to make it more stable.

Good news from what I understand : You can enable NPAPI using the Chrome experimental settings :

chrome://flags/


..it is still not showing up for me, but you should see something to enable it there.  Hopefully, that will fix the issue.

This work around should work until September - hopefully Unity will have a more permanent work around in the future, as Google (Chrome's maker) seems firm on their stance to disable NPAPI.

Hope this helps!

--Mike