Myself and a teammate both downloaded UE version 5.8.2 directly from the epic client, but when creating projects the file association suggests we are using a custom build of UE and assigns a unique ID. This is a problem because our engine versions don’t sync up, which means we need to force UE to open the project in our “custom” version to get it to work. Is this a known bug? Is there a way to fix this?
I’ve tried reinstalling. I’ve also tried deleting the bugged registry path and reverifying. Neither fixed the issue.
What Type of Bug are you experiencing?
Editor
Steps to Reproduce
Download 5.8.2 and create a project. Open the .uproject in text editor. You should see a unique ID assigned to the version association instead of 5.8.
Expected Result
The version association should be 5.8.
Observed Result
The version association is a unique string of numbers and letters (like you would see from a custom build of the engine).
Yes — this happens when the launcher-installed engine registers itself as a RocketBuild (source-type) GUID in the registry. The .uproject gets an EngineAssociation GUID instead of ‘5.8’, and each machine generates its own GUID, so they don’t match across machines.
Fix on both machines:
Open HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareEpic GamesUnreal EngineBuilds — delete the GUID entry that points to your 5.8.2 install (leave genuine custom/source builds alone).
Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREEpicGamesUnreal Engine.8 — this is where launcher builds register. Confirm the InstalledDirectory value points to the right folder.
Open the .uproject in a text editor and change EngineAssociation from the GUID to ‘5.8’.
Right-click the .uproject > Switch Unreal Engine version > pick 5.8.2 to re-register the file association.
The registry GUID path is what reinstall didn’t clear — that’s why reinstalling didn’t help. Do step 3 on the project file itself, and your team will sync up.
Thank you! Having a similar issue after updating to 5.8.2. This helped immensely thank you!
To anyone who sees this after, some of the items mentioned in the instructions were actually missing or different for me in the Registry Editor. For step two, I had to add the 5.8 folder, then add “InstalledDirectory” with a data value of the folder my 5.8 install was at (I looked at the 5.7 folder for what to do).
After that, follow step 3 as written. I didn’t have 5.8.2 as an option, it was ‘5.8’. Still … it’s there now, it’s a friggin’ option now, I selected it and now my project is version associated again. Yay!!!
The registry fix didn’t work for me. I tried deleting the UUID-based build from HKCU “Software\Epic Games\Unreal Engine\Builds” and adding the prescribed entry under HKLM “Software\EpicGames\Unreal Engine\5.8”. That did not make the build appear in the version selector.
Curiously, another machine that had upgraded from UE 5.8 to 5.82 and then later 5.8.3 didn’t have the same problem that my current machine, with a clean install of 5.8.3, did. I checked the registry on the working machine and didn’t see the HKLM “Software\EpicGames\Unreal Engine\5.8” key, but I did find a stale 5.8.2 entry in C:\ProgramData\Epic\UnrealEngineLauncher\LauncherInstalled.dat.
I copied the stale entry from the machine that worked to the one that didn’t, and that seemed to make the version selector show 5.8 as expected.
I revised the AppVersion to match the expected hotfix version and build number, and that seems to work for me.
So, if the steps earlier in this thread don’t work for you, try adding the following into C:\ProgramData\Epic\UnrealEngineLauncher\LauncherInstalled.dat in the InstallationList array.
