Cant Package Project in SHIPPING configuration in UE5.6

Hey everyone,

I’ve been trying to package my project for two days now, but I keep running into an issue where, even though I’ve set the build configuration to Shipping in the project settings, the final package still ends up as a Development build.

To troubleshoot, I also created a brand new project and tried to package that in Shipping mode with the same result. Interestingly, when I downgrade the same project to UE 5.5, the packaging works correctly and produces a proper Shipping build.

I’m currently using Unreal Engine 5.6 (the version downloaded from the Epic Games Launcher – not built from source).

Has anyone else experienced this or found a workaround?

Thanks in advance!

2 Likes

Have you tried using the Project Launcher ( tools menu ) instead of the main screen menu?

Try:

Yes, I’ve already tried that as well, since I read that a similar issue happened before.
However, when I try to package using the Shipping configuration, I get the following message:

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I already tried that as well, unfortunately without success.
I also tested whether enabling “For Distribution” would make a difference, but sadly that didn’t help either.

Ah, nuts…

Can confirm the exact same results you are seeing. Total stable building in 5.5 then 5.6 i get the exact same errors. They made all sorts of changes to the project launcher in 5.6 including making Zen apart of the main pipeline. Honestly they need to patch this ASAP its a total disaster what they have done to the project launcher with no support or info on the proper settings. They have prioritized development builds over shipping and its a really bad direction.

2 Likes

I am having same problem exactly as described with 5.6 even on brand new clean projects.

Getting this issue still, did you end up finding any fix?

For anyone still having this issue, I found a workaround building via RunUAT.bat

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It didn’t work in my case.

Yes, the Package Project for UE 5.6 is not working, even on a default clean project using the FPS Template, it does not work. I receive Unknown Package Error. I only tried Shipping Build by the way, which is what is supposed to be for a game you want to release for players.

I also cannot package the game in anything other than Development build with the new project Launcher, under Platforms in the main viewport window you can select Legacy Project Launcher… and this will allow you to do shipping builds again.

Same here. It was driving me crazy. RunUAT.bat cleared it up for my Windows build. Oddly, macOS builds seem to be honoring target selection in “Package Product” - feeding that into Xcode with no problem.

"path\to\UE\Engine\Build\BatchFiles\RunUAT.bat" BuildCookRun ^
 -project="C:\Path\To\YourProject\YourProject.uproject" ^
 -noP4 -build -cook -pak -prereqs -CrashReporter -utf8output ^
 -targetplatform=Win64 -clientconfig=Shipping -stage -archive ^
 -archivedirectory="C:\Builds\YourProject\Win64-Shipping"