Sunsetting LinkedSource Scripts in Studio

Updates Announcements
#1

[Update] May 22, 2024

Hey Creators,

In 2019, we announced our intention to sunset LinkedSource scripts and removed the option to create new LinkedSource scripts in Studio. This was following the launch of packages as our best way for creating an asset once and using it anywhere. Today, we are announcing that we will remove support for LinkedSources in Studio on May 20.

After this change, it will no longer be possible to edit LinkedSource scripts in Studio. In particular, you wouldn’t be able to:

  • View LinkedSources in Script Editor
  • Publish new versions of existing LinkedSource scripts
  • See LinkedSources in Asset Manager

LinkedSources will continue to load and execute, even in Studio test modes, but most Studio editing features will no longer work for linked source instances.

As always, we are committed to keep existing games functioning. LinkedSources will continue to load at runtime, and thus existing games that use LinkedSource scripts will continue to work. But in order to edit them in Studio, you will need to migrate any LinkedSource scripts to traditional scripts.

To make this transition easier we are providing a migration tool that can automatically migrate all your LinkedSourced scripts to embedded (traditional) script instances. The migration tool is available starting today.

How to migrate your LinkedSource Scripts

If you open a place that has LinkedSource scripts in it, a dialog box will pop up that will ask you if you want to migrate your LinkedSource scripts or not.

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The migration tool will copy the contents of the LinkedSource asset into the embedded source property of the script, then clear the LinkedSource property itself, finally saving the old value as an attribute. At runtime everything should be the same. We highly suggest doing this migration as soon as possible.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Thank you.

122 Likes
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#2

This topic was automatically opened after 11 minutes.

#3

As the informal LinkedSource script representative on the DevForum for the past few years, thank you for creating a formal tool to convert them. Greatly appreciated, should save a lot of time. :pray:

39 Likes
#4

Not going to lie, this update seems a little weird in my perspective. BUT, overall it seems good that it could save a bunch a time for many people.

19 Likes
#5

I support the removal of LinkedSources because of the unreliable experiences I had with them in the past.

The one thing I would love to have with packages though is the ability to publish a package and automatically publish all selected places with that new package version. Unfortunately, I have to open like 15 studio sessions to pull the up-to-date package and then publish the place. Been waiting a few years for an in-house solution to this - don’t want to try figuring out how to do this via OpenCloud publish APIs

42 Likes
#6

Would love this functionality. It’s currently the most painful thing with Packages which is why I held onto some of my LSS for so long. The removal of the “Publish Whole Game” option was honestly such a productivity loss for my workflow.

I had tried using the OpenCloud APIs to do this, but unfortunately throttling limits + validation gets in the way doing this reliably.

20 Likes
#7

I absolutely agree. If they want to deprecate technology like this, then they should at least give us the ability to use the feature they want us to use in a much better and more convenient way.

I’ve used packages in the past but stopped shortly after because it was so tedious having to update every place in my game just to get the most recent version of the package.

20 Likes
#8

For games/experiences that cannot be updated by May 20th, will their code be automatically converted?

9 Likes
#9

They will still get a pop up for the migrator

12 Likes
#10

Thank you for creating this simple tool to convert LinkedSource Scripts to regular Scripts. This should make it much easier to migrate for many developers :pray:

6 Likes
#11

Is there any way to access the tool if you click cancel on the migrator prompt?

5 Likes
#12

I’ve tried it on an open source game named “Skirmish 2018”, I launched the game on studio and it failed to migrate LinkedSources

Does this only work on games you own that HAVE LinkedSource??
image

8 Likes
#13

Do the scripts here actually load if you play the open source game in test mode (not by clicking the play button on the website)? This dialog pops up when the migrator can’t load the linked source from the backend for some reason.

2 Likes
#14

Nope, They never do when i playtest.

4 Likes
#15

how does this help if the game never gets updated past that point?

I may be out of my depth here because I came here only because I got a prompt based around badges I have in my game. Are all games with legacy badges just… no longer going to work?

3 Likes
#16

Unpopular opinion here, but if Roblox is to continuously modernize their engine, then they shouldn’t always have to hold themselves back for games that have been abandoned.

If something is abandoned, then it’s clear that the creator has no interest or ability to maintain it, and just like everything else, will eventually lose to the test of time.

The pop up is still useful, since sometimes developers are still active but have games they’ve made years ago and forgotten.

8 Likes
#17

Nope, They never do when i playtest.

That’d be the issue then - for whatever reason those scripts can’t load so the migrator can’t migrate them. Most likely your account doesn’t have access to the linked script assets associated with that game (uncopylocking a game does not automatically make all its assets public).

1 Like
#18

What’s the difference between that and the package auto-update feature? Was it more control over which places get the new version?

2 Likes
#19

What will be the attribute name? will it be LinkedSource?

2 Likes
#20

Another outdated piece of bloat cleaned up. A shame that old abandoned games may be broken by this, but if the devs aren’t maintaining them then it was only a matter of time anyways.

Good change.

2 Likes