Did not work yet. I’ve the same issue as before. But I’m not really sure if it is it deployed already? I’ve UI Build v25.11.24-c41cb8b4 in Download-Settings screen. I did a fresh uinstall/install as well just to get sure.
Are you guys using a different search functionality for Fab than you are for the Epic Launcher? Because this is a little ridiculous that searching for the exact name of an asset doesn’t bring it up in fab, but it does in the Launcher (not fab tab):
@TorQueMoD we recently pushed out some improvements that you should give you better matching results in your Fab library. Give it a try!
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I’d like to +1 the request of the OP, but for three reasons than speed:
- Developers running on Linux
- Team-level asset libraries for studios, regardless of platform
- Automation of asset updates in local repository
Linux
There are a fair number of us who run Unreal Editor on Linux, and we don’t have the Launcher at all. The Fab tab in the engine has some CEF-related problems on Linux, and even if working as designed it is really focused on bringing assets into the current project.
For those of us who do our UE work on a mobile workstation with plenty of local storage, it’s very useful to pre-download Fab assets to a common local repository and then copy them into projects as needed. In an effort to be user-friendly, the Fab tab manages the downloads as a cache, not a repository. (This point would also apply to non-Linux developers who want a local repository because of slow or unreliable Internet connectivity in their locale.)
Having a browser-based download option would empower Linux users – who are usually also versed in automating routine tasks with shell scripts, Python, etc. – to better maintain a local repo of purchased assets, Epic samples, etc. Some of us are already doing this, but it’s kludgy to have to download into a project and then extract the cached version from Fab cache. I literally have a bogus project just for these temporary downloads so I can get the Fab tab to cache something long enough for me to extract it to my local repo.
Asset Manager Studio is a good alternative for individual users, but it’s not officially supported from Epic (thus may break if the Fab web site changes) and it doesn’t address the needs of team tooling.
Team Asset Repositories
Consider also the case of a team that needs to manage an asset library for disaster recovery planning, collaborative workflows, build or test automation, and so on. A studio will want to ensure that everyone is using the correct version of assets and plugins for new projects, and that any automated build and packaging tools are able to validate Fab content against accidental file rot or version regression (or undesired upgrades) due to human error.
Availability of browser downloads, even absent a formal API spec for automation, simplifies the task of the repo administrator keeping that shared repo up to date with the team’s portfolio of engine versions and asset versions.
Asset Version Automation
While it’s unlikely most teams or solo devs would want their projects automatically updated to new asset versions (shudder!), it would be perfectly reasonable to automate the retrieval of new asset versions into a local or team repository, and notify team members that the updates are available so the appropriate people can evaluate the impact and decide whether, when, and how to update those assets within projects.
Summary
If Epic doesn’t want to implement this feature, please consider stabilizing (if not already) and documenting the HTTPS APIs to allow studios to implement custom asset management tooling in a maintainable way.
TL;DR: Please implement full browser-based download capability, and consider documenting the web APIs, to give customers more options to manage their workflow and asset libraries.
Thanks for listening/reading.
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I’ve noticed a new bug that causes the Social tab to randomly open when you’ve got the launcher running. I almost never use the launcher for anything other than Unreal, and yet it keeps opening the Social tab - sometimes even when the launcher is minimized which was really confusing the first time it happened. I didn’t even realize it was Epic at first.