Installation Methods
All the installation methods for the Unreal Engine SDK.
There are three common ways to install an SDK to use with Unreal Engine:
- Download a pre-built SDK from a GitHub Releases page and install
- Install from the Epic Games Fab (formerly known as the marketplace)
- Clone and build the SDK yourself and install
While you can use any of the three methods to install Sentry, each has its own limitations, as described below.
The table below highlights some key differences between different versions of the SDK:
| Feature | GitHub Releases* | Fab | Build Yourself |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supported engine versions | 4.27 and newer | 5.1 and newer | 4.27 and newer |
| Supported UE project types | C++ only | Blueprint and C++ | C++ only |
| Backend (Windows) | Crashpad | Breakpad | Crashpad |
on_crash hook (Windows) | Supported | Not supported | Supported |
| Sentry CLI ** | Included | Manual download | Included |
| Fast-fail crash capturing | Supported | Not supported | Supported |
Legend: *: Recommended version of the SDK **: Sentry CLI is a standalone tool that the plugin uses under the hood to automatically upload debug information files upon game build completion.
The GitHub Releases page provides two plugin packages: github and marketplace. The key difference between the two is the crash capturing backend, which is used under the hood on Windows.
We recommend using the github version, because it uses Crashpad, an out-of-proc handler that sends the crash report right away. The marketplace version relies on Breakpad, an in-proc handler which requires the UE application or game to be relaunched before any crash reports can be sent to Sentry.
To install the SDK, download the most up-to-date sources from the Releases page and add them to your project's Plugins directory. On the next project launch, UE will prompt you to build the Sentry and SentryEditor modules.
Currently, this method is available only for C++ UE projects. Blueprint projects can be converted to a C++ one by adding an empty class using the editor.
To avoid warnings during the build for licensee versions of Unreal Engine, the EngineVersion key is not set in the Sentry.uplugin for the github package.
Sentry SDK can be downloaded via the standard installation process from its Epic Games Fab page.
This method is recommended only for Blueprint UE projects. If you already have a C++ UE project or don't mind converting an existing Blueprint UE project to a C++ one, consider downloading the plugin from GitHub instead.
To get started, we recommend cloning the Unreal SDK repository and running the initialization script:
./scripts/init.shon macOS/Linux./scripts/init-win.ps1on Windows
Initialization scripts require GitHub CLI to be installed.
If the initialization script fails due to errors on Windows, check your PowerShell version by printing the built-in variable $PSVersionTable. If the version is 5.x, upgrading to a newer version of PowerShell may resolve these errors.
This script links the checked out version of the plugin (the plugin-dev directory) to the sample app and downloads the latest builds of native SDKs from our GitHub CI.
After successful initialization, copy the contents of the plugin-dev directory to <your_project_root>/Plugins/Sentry. This will allow you to use Sentry in your Unreal Engine project.
To make sure the Sentry plugin has been enabled after installation has been completed, go to the editor and navigate to the Settings > Plugins > Code Plugins menu and check for the installation.
To access the plugin API from within C++, add Sentry support to the build script (MyProject.build.cs):
PublicDependencyModuleNames.AddRange(new string[] { ..., "Sentry" });
Our documentation is open source and available on GitHub. Your contributions are welcome, whether fixing a typo (drat!) or suggesting an update ("yeah, this would be better").