Most of my plugins stopped loading after latest update

[eappell]

I’ve been using NPP for many many years, and everything always works great. Until the last update (running v7.6.6 32-bit in Windows 10). After the update, nearly all of the plugins I have installed stopped loading, including the Plugin Manager! Any idea what could have gone wrong? The DLLs are still in the plugins folder, so it just makes no sense that they won’t load… I’ve restarted MANY times - the app, and my computer - but that doesn’t help.

Thanks for your help figuring this one out!

-Eddie

[Ekopalypse]

Since npp 7.6 the plugin structure has changed and made Plugin Manager obsolete.
The new tool for installing plugins is called Plugins Admin.
With the changes it is needed that each plugin is now located in its own directory under plugin. For example if you check plugins directory you will see that there is a folder called mimeTools and within this folder there is the plugin dll.
Either make the changes manually or use the PluginsAdmin to install it again.

[dinkumoil]

@eappell

Since Notepad++ v7.6 the plugin management system has undergone some changes. In v7.6.3 and above every plugin needs to be moved to a separate folder under <Notepad++-install-dir>\plugins which has to be named like the plugin’s DLL file itself.

Example: If a plugin’s DLL file name is ABC.dll it has to be moved to <Notepad++-install-dir>\plugins\ABC.

Please note: If a plugin needs some companion files, mostly they need to be moved to that folder too. If these companion files have been located in e.g. <Notepad++-install-dir>\plugins\doc they have to be moved to <Notepad++-install-dir>\plugins\<Plugin-name>\doc, i.e. the former folder structure has to be kept. Sometimes, depending on the plugin, that even means that the folder <Plugin-name> has to be doubled, i.e. <Notepad++-install-dir>\plugins\<Plugin-name>\<Plugin-name>.

Some plugins use hard coded access paths to their companion files, thus they will not find them at the new location. In that case the companion files have to stay at their old location (where they have been stored in Notepad++ versions prior to v7.6).

If you have a lot of plugins you could use a script I wrote to automate the migration process. But be aware of the restrictions mentioned above! They are also applicable when using this script.

You can download a ZIP file containing the script >>> from here <<< . You can read a description of the script >>> here <<< .