To help you debug your application, Unity can generate a package that contains symbol files for native Unity libraries. Symbol files contain a table that translates active memory addresses into information you can use, like a method name. The translation process is called symbolication. You can upload a symbols package to the Google Play Console to see a human-readable stack trace on the Android Vitals dashboard.
There are two types of symbol files:
You can generate symbol files for the following libraries:
libmain: Responsible for initial Unity engine loading logic.libunity: Unity’s engine code.libil2cpp: Contains C# scriptsA piece of code that allows you to create your own Components, trigger game events, modify Component properties over time and respond to user input in any way you like. More infoUnity generates the libmain and libunity symbol files. GradleAn Android build system that automates several build processes. This automation means that many common build errors are less likely to occur. More info
See in Glossary generates the libil2cpp symbol file.
A public symbol file contains information that resolves function addresses to human-readable strings. Unity uses the --strip-debug parameter to create public symbols that remove more in-depth debug information. This makes public symbol files and packages smaller than debugging symbol files and packages.
A debugging symbol file contains full debugging information and a symbol table. Use it to:
Unity uses the --only-keep-debug parameter to create debugging symbols. For more information, refer to –only-keep-debug in the Linux user manual.
Note: If debugging symbols aren’t available, Unity places a public symbol file in your project at build time. For the libmain and libunity libraries, debugging symbols aren’t available and Unity always generates public symbol files.
There are two ways to enable symbols package generation for your application:
To enable symbols package generation through the Build Settings window:
Open the Build Settings window (menu: File > Build Settings).
Select the Android platform.
Set Create symbols.zip to one of the following:
After you enable symbols package generation, building your project generates a .zip file that contains symbol files for the libmain and libunity library. If you set your scripting backendA framework that powers scripting in Unity. Unity supports three different scripting backends depending on target platform: Mono, .NET and IL2CPP. Universal Windows Platform, however, supports only two: .NET and IL2CPP. More info
See in Glossary to IL2CPPA Unity-developed scripting back-end which you can use as an alternative to Mono when building projects for some platforms. More info
See in Glossary, the .zip also contains a symbol file for the libil2cpp library. Unity places this symbols package within the output directory.
If you enable Export Project in the Android Build Settings, Unity doesn’t build the project. Instead, it exports the project for Android Studio, generates symbols for libmain and libunity, and places them within unityLibrary/symbols/<architecture>/ in the output directory. When you build your exported project from Android Studio, Gradle generates the libil2cpp symbol file and places it within the unityLibrary/symbols/<architecture>/ directory alongside the libmain and libunity symbol file.
After you upload your application to Google Play, you can upload a public symbols package for it. For information on how to do this, refer to Google’s documentation: Deobfuscate or symbolicate crash stack traces.
Note: Google Play doesn’t symbolicate crashes that your application received before you uploaded the symbols package.