the game cannot be built from command line

i don't know how the most popular game engine in the world can have zero support for compiling projects from command line but here we are. if anyone is here from a search engine, please feel free to use this as a comment box.

licensing

unity requires a license to compile projects. this shouldn't be a problem because a personal license is free. but it's by far the biggest pain point. there are two schools of thought when it comes to licensing unity. these apply to both personal and professional versions of unity:

manual
- install docker on your local machine
- go to https://hub.docker.com/r/gableroux/unity3d to find docker images maintained by one dude
- run the docker image corresponding to your project's unity version
- the previous step needs emphasis. every version is uniquely licensed. 2020.1.0b5 licenses are not valid for 2020.1.0b4 unity.
- actually i'm just going to leave this here because it's an arduous 20 step process. otherwise i'll be typing this out all day example
automatic
- this is the most popular repo to build unity projects from a github source
- by adding this, you no longer need to use your own docker image. github spins one up when you commit this as a workflow and puts a generated license in your build artifacts
- you still need to go to the website to upload this license, download the corresponding ULF and add it as a github secret
- this is still only valid for one version. whenever unity updates (even a tiny bugfix), you still need to commit the activation workflow again and do the 5 minute licensing dance just to BEGIN compiling your project

building

this is where the fun starts. i'm gonna have a few more cracks at this and edit this issue with some fun errors. the main one that i've found so far is

2020.all - default option (compression enabled) will prevent any project from building

having "compression" enabled in the build settings of ANY 2020 project will prevent the game from building. this is a default setting and i only found it by searching "ReferenceError: unityFramework is not defined" because that's what appeared i tried to play the broken project in a browser. https://forum.unity.com/threads/uncaught-referenceerror-unityframework-is-not-defined-at-htmlscriptelement-script-onload-webgl.803967/ acknowledged in january, still not fixed as of 2020.2.

2020.1.0b4 2020.1.0b5 - the editor literally just dies before doing anything (Segmentation fault).

reported 2 weeks ago, not acknowledged. https://gitlab.com/gableroux/unity3d-gitlab-ci-example/-/issues/91

2019.3.9f1 / 2019.3.8f1 - fatal crash - looks like it's trying to do something VR related and failing when it doesn't get back expected usb devices

i have no VR related packages in my manifest. this is not and never will be a VR project. i don't have the ability to remove this DLL from the docker-hosted image. x5I3KTTKeG

2020-04-26T16:13:08.3676315Z Initializing Unity extensions:
2020-04-26T16:13:08.3699043Z  '/opt/Unity/Editor/Data/UnityExtensions/Unity/UnityVR/Editor/UnityEditor.VR.dll'  GUID: 4ba2329b63d54f0187bcaa12486b1b0f
2020-04-26T16:13:08.4387988Z UpdateMenuTitleForLanguage: 10
2020-04-26T16:13:08.5306960Z Unloading 65 Unused Serialized files (Serialized files now loaded: 0)
2020-04-26T16:13:08.5401963Z System memory in use before: 46.0 MB.
2020-04-26T16:13:08.5471539Z System memory in use after: 44.6 MB.
2020-04-26T16:13:08.5476337Z Unloading 571 unused Assets to reduce memory usage. Loaded Objects now: 2105.
2020-04-26T16:13:08.5479197Z Total: 6.386600 ms (FindLiveObjects: 0.430900 ms CreateObjectMapping: 0.104200 ms MarkObjects: 3.912900 ms  DeleteObjects: 1.934300 ms)
2020-04-26T16:13:08.6738048Z Refreshing native plugins compatible for Editor in 1.66 ms, found 1 plugins.
2020-04-26T16:13:08.7794626Z Scripts have compiler errors. 
2020-04-26T16:13:08.7795674Z (Filename: ./Runtime/Utilities/Argv.cpp Line: 361)
2020-04-26T16:13:08.7802404Z Aborting batchmode due to failure:
2020-04-26T16:13:08.7803108Z Scripts have compiler errors.
2020-04-26T16:13:08.7870894Z /home/builduser/buildslave/unity/build/PlatformDependent/Linux/External/baselib/builds/Include/C/Baselib_ThreadLocalStorage.inl.h(12): Assertion failed (rc == 0)
2020-04-26T16:13:08.7875237Z Caught fatal signal - signo:5 code:128 errno:0 addr:(nil)
2020-04-26T16:13:08.7908869Z ./Editor/Platform/Linux/UsbDevices.cpp:UsbDevicesQuery
2020-04-26T16:13:08.8130774Z Build failed, with exit code 1

2019.2.11f1 - the same as above

except it occurs on ./Runtime/Utilities/Argv.cpp Line: 360

Rossco1337 / 7demake