Hmm..., You really must learn how to read. First I said my main mod class then I mentioned a getter which means that I am created it on when my mod object gets init!
However, I tried to change register the channel st FMLCommonSetupEvent, no difference.
Also tried changing how I registered my channel from:
NetworkRegistry.newSimpleChannel(new ResourceLocation("feuniversal", channelName),
() -> PROTOCOL_VERSION,
PROTOCOL_VERSION::equals,
PROTOCOL_VERSION::equals);
to
NetworkRegistry.ChannelBuilder
.named(new ResourceLocation("feuniversal", channelName))
.clientAcceptedVersions(PROTOCOL_VERSION::equals)
.serverAcceptedVersions(PROTOCOL_VERSION::equals)
.networkProtocolVersion(() -> PROTOCOL_VERSION)
.simpleChannel();
and still no difference. And this was taken from two different projects at Github.