Unreal Setup for Lab Environment - Compiling Shaders

[mgshepherd]

Hi Mac Community,

I'm trying to correctly deploy Unreal to my lab environment and I'm having a time making this work smoothly. My lab setup consists of users logging with standard rights along with accounts being removed at every startup.

My issue is, when Unreal is launched, the student has to wait until all the "Compiling Shaders" are finished which can take awhile. I'm aware of a setting called Global Derived Date Cache folder which I've pointed to the /User/Shared/Epic location but it doesn't seem to respect it. Anyone run unto this with a solution? I was hoping to be able to capture this cache folder on a test machine and have it pushed to the full lab. The times that I have done this it still goes through the Compiling Shaders process.

[Qwheel]

Not an amazing contribution but:

Most apps can normally have related directories copied from your local admin library, to a new users library at login. Len owner and permissions changed.

I have found instances where I’ve also had to use defaults write, to replace content within the plists that are being copying to each user.

Might be worth looking through some of the epic related plists and doing a ‘find’ for lines where your user account is explicitly referenced.

[cgeorge]

@mgshepherd not to thread jack, but how are you getting newly created users' instance of Epic Launcher to see that UE is already installed in the users/shared folder? 

[Qwheel]

Had a bash at packaging Unreal 5.3 today. Ran into the same issue you described. I sluethed around for ages trying to get other users to be able to see the current library that was installed but had no luck!
Might open a ticket with Epic - their teams are pretty helpful. I'll feedback if I hear anything useful.

In every Unreal post I've glanced through - nobody has mentioned.
pkgchunker https://github.com/kc9wwh/pkgChunker

Basically, make a big flat PKG using composer (upwards of 7.5GBs).

Install the pkgchunker binary on your computer.
Save the git shell script to your desktop.
Then use use terminal to 'chunk' the big PKG into little ones. You can upload the chunklets easily and they rebuild on the device when deployed via JAMF.

I've used it for Logic Pro libraries, Ableton live libraries... didn't bother with Komplete controll though, I pass those in from a on campus network share (250gbs). It doesn;t work on non-flat PKGs (AKA bulky pkg's that you download directly from the Adobe CC admin console 25GBs).

Below is what I've put in the notes on JAMF so I can remember how to do it annually... (just incase you're scratching your head).

"Script from here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kc9wwh/pkgChunker/master/pkgChunker
Install binary from here: https://github.com/kc9wwh/pkgChunker
Execute like this: sudo bash /Users/ws11/Desktop/script.sh -p /Users/ws11/Desktop/Big\ package.pkg -o /Users/ws11/Desktop/Chunklets"

[adrianw82]

I'm actually just about to try this with some Pro Tools plug-ins, but what do you mean by each package chunk rebuilding...just that it shows up on each computer (and in Jamf?) as a single package? 

[Qwheel]

Has anyone managed to successfully add the 5.3 firewall rules?
What format did you use?
I'm not having much success there either.