Synchronous Workflow

Synchronous Addressables APIs help to more closely mirror Unity asset loading workflows. AsyncOperationHandles now have a method called WaitForCompletion() that force the async operation to complete and return the Result of the operation.

API

TObject WaitForCompletion()

Result

The result of WaitForCompletion is the Result of the async operation it is called on. If the operation fails, this returns default(TObject).

It is possible to get a default(TObject) for a result when the operation doesn't fail. Async operations that auto release their AsyncOperationHandles on completion are such cases. Addressables.InitializeAsync() and any API with a autoReleaseHandle parameter set to true will return default(TObject) even though the operations themselves succeeded.

Performance

It is worth noting that calling WaitForCompletion may have performance implications on your runtime when compared to Resources.Load or Instantiate calls directly. If your AssetBundle is local or has been previously downloaded and cached, these performance hits are likely to be negligible. However, this may not be the case for your individual project setup.

All currently active Asset Load operations are completed when WaitForCompletion is called on any Asset Load operation, due to how Async operations are handled in the Engine. To avoid unexpected stalls, use WaitForCompletion when the current operation count is known, and the intention is for all active operations to complete synchronously.

When using WaitForCompletion, there are performance implications. When using 2021.2.0 or newer, these are minimal. Using an older version can result in delays that scale with the number of Engine Asset load calls that are loading when WaitForCompletion is called.

It is not recommended that you call WaitForCompletion on an operation that is going to fetch and download a remote AssetBundle. Though, it is possible if that fits your specific situation.

Code Sample

void Start()
{
    //Basic use case of forcing a synchronous load of a GameObject
    var op = Addressables.LoadAssetAsync<GameObject>("myGameObjectKey");
    GameObject go = op.WaitForCompletion();

    //Do work...

    Addressables.Release(op);
}

Scenes

Due to engine limitations scenes cannot be completed synchronously. Calling WaitForCompletion on an operation returned from Addressables.LoadSceneAsync will not completely load the scene, even if activateOnLoad is set to true. It will wait for dependencies and assets to complete but the scene activation must be done asynchronously. This can be done using the sceneHandle, or by the AsyncOperation from ActivateAsync on the SceneInstance as shown below.

IEnumerator LoadScene(string myScene)
{
    var sceneHandle = Addressables.LoadSceneAsync(myScene, LoadSceneMode.Additive);
    SceneInstance sceneInstance = sceneHandle.WaitForCompletion();
    yield return sceneInstance.ActivateAsync();

    //Do work... the scene is now complete and integrated
}

Note

Unloading a scene cannot be completed synchronously. Calling WaitForCompleted on a scene unload will not unload the scene or any assets, and a warning will be logged to the console.

Note

Due to limitations with Scene integration on the main thread through the SceneManager API, it is possible to lock the Editor or Player when calling WaitForCompletion in association with scene loading. The issue primarily surfaces when loading two scenes in succession, with the second scene load request having WaitForCompletion called from its AsyncOperationHandle. Since scene loading takes extra frames to fully integrate on the main thread, and WaitForCompletion locks the main thread, you could hit a situation where Addressables has been informed by the SceneManager that the first scene is fully loaded, even though it hasn't completed finished all the required operations. At this point, the scene is fully loaded, but the SceneManager attempts to call UnloadUnusedAssets, on the main thread, if the scene was loaded in Single mode. Then, the second scene load request locks the main thread with WaitForCompletion, but cannot begin loading because SceneManager requires the UnloadUnusedAssets to complete before the next scene can begin loading. In order to avoid this deadlock, it is advised that you either load successive scenes asynchronously, or ensure a sufficient delay is added between scene load requests.

Synchronous Addressables with Custom Operations

Addressables supports custom AsyncOperations which support unique implementations of InvokeWaitForCompletion. This method can be overridden to implement custom synchronous operations.

Custom operations work with ChainOperations and GroupsOperations. If you require chained operations to be completed synchronously, ensure that your custom operations implement InvokeWaitForCompletion and create a ChainOperation using your custom operations. Similarly, GroupOperations are well suited to ensure a collection of AsyncOperations, including custom operations, complete together. Both ChainOperation and GroupOperation have their own implementations of InvokeWaitForCompletion that relies on the InvokeWaitForCompletion implementations of the operations they depend on.

WebGL

WebGL does not support WaitForCompletion. On WebGL, all files are loaded using a web request. On other platforms, a web request gets started on a background thread and the main thread spins in a tight loop while waiting for the web request to finish. This is how Addressables does it for WaitForCompletion when a web request is used.

Since WebGL is single-threaded, the tight loop blocks the web request and the operation is never allowed to finish. If a web request finishes the same frame it was created, then WaitForCompletion wouldn't have any issue. However, we cannot guarantee this to be the case, and likely it isn't the case for most instances.