Troubleshooting and limits
What Athena Asset Tables supports, what it leaves alone, the files it keeps in your project, and what to do when it says it can't.
Documentation pages
Requirements
- Minimum editor: Unity 6000.0.85f1. The current validation targets are 6000.0.85f1, 6000.3.27f1 and 6000.6.7f1.
- RC1 passed smoke/integration checks on Windows, Linux and macOS, and owner UAT on macOS. The changed candidate passes Windows core functional and scale checks. Fresh Mac/Linux verification, the final URP check and overall release acceptance remain open.
- No other packages. Addressables is recognised when it is installed and not needed when it is not.
Athena Asset Tables is editor-only. Nothing of it runs in your game; the one assembly that can reach a build holds the two field attributes and runs nothing. See Code and automation.
When Athena Asset Tables says it can’t
Every refusal says what stopped it and what to do next. The ones you are most likely to meet:
| It says | Because | Do this |
|---|---|---|
| An asset changed since you staged your edits | Something else wrote the file after you edited it: the Inspector, a script, version control | Look at the cell, then edit again or discard |
| Play Mode is on | Athena Asset Tables writes nothing while the game runs | Stop Play Mode; see Play Mode |
| A value is not a number, not a member, too large | The field cannot hold it | Fix the value; the reason names the cell |
| A recipe won’t stage over a cell edited by hand | Recipes work from saved values | Apply or discard the hand edit, then preview again |
| Google sent a web page instead of the sheet | The sheet is private | Share it with “Anyone with the link”; see Google Sheets |
| A prefab’s rows are read-only | Version control has it locked | Check it out, then reload |
| Unity could not compile a script change | A new or renamed field broke the build | Nothing to undo: every script was put back. Fix the named line or choose another name |
The bottom line of the window shows the last message. Right-click it and choose Copy to put the message and the table’s state on the clipboard, which is the most useful thing to send with a question.
Your own code runs during Apply
Unity calls OnValidate on an asset when Athena Asset Tables writes it. If your OnValidate changes a value it just
wrote, such as clamping it, Athena Asset Tables notices, puts every file back, and tells you which type did it, rather
than leave you with values you did not preview.
What Athena Asset Tables does not edit
- Scene objects. Athena Asset Tables edits assets on disk: ScriptableObjects, prefab components, materials, Unity’s own asset types and import settings. Objects in a scene are not rows.
- Adding components to prefabs, and creating prefabs.
- Dictionaries, properties and other fields Unity does not save. There is nothing on disk to write.
- Values that come from importing a file, such as a texture’s width. Edit its import settings instead.
- Localization tables. Unity’s Localization package has its own editor for them.
Lists and arrays hold up to 10,000 items each, and one create, duplicate or delete covers up to 500 assets. Neither limit applies to edits: an Apply can change tens of thousands of assets.
How fast it is
Tables use virtualized rows. Long Applies show progress and can be cancelled with rollback; Unity still saves every targeted asset, so editor version, storage and project data affect the wait.
On Windows 11, Ryzen 5 9600X, 32 GB RAM and Unity 6000.6.7f1, the current candidate measured the following. The 10k figures are medians of five runs; 20k is one full Apply/Undo run. These are Windows reference measurements, not promises for every machine, project or editor.
| Task | 10,000 assets | 20,000 assets |
|---|---|---|
| Typing latency, 95th percentile | 29.9 ms | 58.3 ms |
| Recipe preview | 1.681 s | 3.431 s |
| Apply | 79.941 s | 172.270 s |
All required Windows timing budgets pass. The changed candidate still needs the remaining pipeline/platform and owner checks before release acceptance.
The journal’s Grouped (faster) option reduces flushes; its recovery trade-off is explained in Undo, history and recovery.
Files Athena Asset Tables keeps in your project
| Where | What | Commit it? |
|---|---|---|
.athena-recovery/ at the project root |
The recovery journal and History: copies of the files each Apply changed | No. Athena Asset Tables puts a .gitignore inside it, so Git leaves it out by itself |
AthenaSnapshots/ at the project root |
Named snapshots | Yes, to share them |
Library/StackBlender/ScriptBackups/ |
A copy of each script before Athena Asset Tables changed it | No; Library is never committed |
UserSettings/StackBlender.DataWorkbench*.json |
Your preferences and each window’s last table | No; they are yours |
*.dataview.json, *.datarecipe.txt, *.dataimport.json |
Saved views, recipes and imports, wherever you save them | Yes, so the team shares them |
Removing Athena Asset Tables
Remove the package in the Package Manager. Your assets are ordinary Unity assets and stay as they are. If
your scripts use [AthenaColumn] or [AthenaRule], remove those attributes first, or the scripts will not
compile without the package. The folders above can be deleted.