Remove Unity Analytics as a mandatory dependency of com.unity.ml-agents

[JesseTG]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
I'm developing a game for a platform that Unity Analytics does not support. Since ml-agents depends on com.unity.modules.unityanalytics, this means that I can't use ml-agents on said platform.

Describe the solution you'd like
Only enable the features that use Unity Analytics if com.unity.modules.unityanalytics is installed in the project.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Manually removing the Unity Analytics DLL from the build pipeline. I don't know if this would work. It wouldn't work as this is a compiler error. The only alternative is to work on something else while this issue is resolved.

Additional context
Setting aside the issue of compatibility, I'm removing unused core Unity modules from my project to keep the file size down. For example, my game doesn't use terrain so I'm excluding the terrain module.

[awjuliani]

Hi @JesseTG

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. This package should only have an impact on the Editor, and not the builds containing ML-Agents. Can you share what error you are running into, and at what point it is occuring? It is when importing the package, or when trying to build for your platform? It would also be helpful to know the specific platform which you are having issues targeting, as that will help us to reproduce the issue.

[JesseTG]

Hi @JesseTG

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. This package should only have an impact on the Editor, and not the builds containing ML-Agents. Can you share what error you are running into, and at what point it is occuring? It is when importing the package, or when trying to build for your platform? It would also be helpful to know the specific platform which you are having issues targeting, as that will help us to reproduce the issue.

The platform I'm using does not support Unity Analytics; when I set it to be the active build platform, all Unity Analytics APIs are simply unavailable, resulting in compiler errors. This occurs in the editor, so I assume it would be the same when building.

I get pretty much the same error in multiple places, all in TrainingAnalytics and InferenceAnalytics. Here's one of the errors:

[CompilerError] The type name 'AnalyticsResult' could not be found in the namespace 'UnityEngine.Analytics'. This type has been forwarded to assembly 'UnityEngine.UnityAnalyticsModule, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' Enable the built in package 'Unity Analytics' in the Package Manager window to fix this error.
Compiler Error at Library\PackageCache\com.unity.ml-agents@1.8.0-preview\Runtime\Analytics\TrainingAnalytics.cs:67 column 17
65:               {
66:   #if UNITY_EDITOR
-->67:                   AnalyticsResult result = EditorAnalytics.RegisterEventWithLimit(eventName, k_MaxEventsPerHour, k_MaxNumberOfElements, k_VendorKey);
68:   #else
69:                   AnalyticsResult result = AnalyticsResult.UnsupportedPlatform;

The type name 'AnalyticsResult' could not be found in the namespace 'UnityEngine.Analytics'. This type has been forwarded to assembly 'UnityEngine.UnityAnalyticsModule, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' Enable the built in package 'Unity Analytics' in the Package Manager window to fix this error.

Unfortunately, I can't publicly say which platform I'm targeting as its details are confidential. However, there are other useful things I can say:

• You can easily reproduce this issue for any target platform by simply disabling com.unity.modules.unityanalytics in the package manager. The effect, errors, and fix should be the same.
• My target platform doesn't offer the UnityEngine.Analytics assemblies, even if com.unity.modules.unityanalytics is enabled.
• I believe this issue affects multiple NDA-protected platforms and that the same fix should work for all of them. Whichever guess you make will probably be the correct one.

[surfnerd]

Is the platform you are using under NDA? Or is there a define that the analytics code uses that we aren't aware of?

[JesseTG]

Is the platform you are using under NDA? Or is there a define that the analytics code uses that we aren't aware of?

The platform itself is under NDA. Well, its development details. The platform itself is quite famous (and odds are good you have one in your living room -- or in your backpack).

No unusual #defines are in use, to my knowledge; the Analytics DLLs are just not included in the compiler's search path when my platform is active.

[surfnerd]

Thanks for the info @JesseTG,
I'm going to create a PR that makes the analytics module an optional dependency. This should address your problem and hopefully anyone else that is using an NDA platform.

[JesseTG]

Thanks for the info @JesseTG,
I'm going to create a PR that makes the analytics module an optional dependency. This should address your problem and hopefully anyone else that is using an NDA platform.

Thank you! I appreciate it.

[surfnerd]

@JesseTG,
which version of unity are you using, and which version of the package are you using? Optional dependencies will only work with Unity versions 2019.4 and later.

[surfnerd]

He @JesseTG,
#5109 was merged into main. Please let us know if this fixes your issue.
Thanks,
Chris

[JesseTG]

@JesseTG,
which version of unity are you using, and which version of the package are you using? Optional dependencies will only work with Unity versions 2019.4 and later.

I'm using 2020.2.7, and I intend to upgrade to 2021.1.0 when it comes out.

He @JesseTG,
#5109 was merged into main. Please let us know if this fixes your issue.
Thanks,
Chris

With pleasure, thank you very much! When's the next release?

[surfnerd]

There is a release coming out this week, but it will not contain these changes. The changes will make it into the April release alongside the changes to make physics and physics2d optional dependencies as well.

[JesseTG]

There is a release coming out this week, but it will not contain these changes. The changes will make it into the April release alongside the changes to make physics and physics2d optional dependencies as well.

Thank you! I'll report back if there are any problems.

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