FAQ: Notepad++ Crashes/Freezes/Unresponsive after Update

[PeterJones]

Hello, and welcome to the FAQ Desk. You have likely been directed here because you have expressed concern that your copy of Notepad++ crashes every time you load it or run after an update, or it otherwise freezes or is unresponsive or gives you an arcane error message, or one of the members of the Community has reason to think that you have a problem related to one of your plugins no longer maintaining its compatibility with modern versions of Notepad++.
(Effectively, the bulk of this FAQ is a procedure for narrowing down which plugin is causing a problem – any problem – with Notepad++, regardless of whether Notepad++ or the plugin has been updated recently. Please don’t ignore being directed to this FAQ just because you saw the word “crash” and your Notepad++ isn’t crashing.)

Official Distribution

The first thing to do is verify that you have downloaded and installed an official distribution of Notepad++. There are only three official distribution location sites for Notepad++: the main notepad-plus-plus.org website download page, the github repository “releases” section, and the download.notepad-plus-plus.org/repository links that are often shared by the developer in the “release candidate announcement” posts. If you downloaded your copy from anywhere else, the developers take no responsibility for the quality or safety of the download and will not support problems you encounter by using a copy from an unofficial location, and fellow users in this Notepad++ Community forum will encourage you to download an official copy before they provide more help.

Possible Culprit: Known Issue on New Release

Sometimes, in the first week or two of a new release, critical issues are found that weren’t caught during testing for a new Notepad++ version. Such issues are usually discussed in the official Announcement topic for that particular new version. Check there to see if there is any advice.

Possible Culprit: Plugin

In order to debug and isolate your specific problem, the first thing to do is to try running without any plugins.

Why? Because some updates of Notepad++ include changes to the communication rules that are used for plugins to communicate with Notepad++. If plugin developers (who are separate from the Notepad++ developers) do not keep their plugins in sync with Notepad++ changes, the plugins will cease to work properly. For example, back in 2019, v7.6 changed the plugin directory structure, and plugins had to adjust their installers to be compatible with Notepad++ going forward; any time Notepad++ has updated its Scintilla component (like in Notepad++ v7.7, v7.8, v7.9.4, and a recent large Scintilla update in v8.4), plugins that use features of Scintilla that were updated may have to change; and in the 64bit Notepad++, v8.3 updated the communication rules between plugins and the application to better handle large files (>2GB) which required all 64bit plugins that used certain protocol calls to release a new version.

Try without any plugins

There are two easy ways to run your already-installed Notepad++ without plugins:

1. Use the -noPlugin command line option:
   • Close all open instances of Notepad++.
   • Instead of running from your normal shortcut (on your task bar or desktop or in the Start menu), use Start Menu > Run command (accessible from the keyboard using Win+R) or a command prompt or powershell window to run "c:\program files\notepad++\notepad++.exe" -noPlugin (making sure to use the actual path to Notepad++ if it’s not in that directory on your machine).
   • This will start Notepad++ with all plugins disabled, as can be seen by the lack of plugins in the main Plugin menu, and Plugins: none shown in the ?-menu’s Debug Info.
   • Once you are done with your experiment and have exited Notepad++, running with your normal shortcut or without the -noPlugin option will allow you to run Notepad++ normally again.
2. Or you can rename the plugins directory:
   • Close all open instances of Notepad++.
   • Go into c:\program files\Notepad++\ using Windows Explorer (Win+E) , and rename the plugins\ folder to plugins.tmp.
   • Start Notepad++: as with #1, the main Plugins menu will not show any plugins, and the ? > Debug Info will show Plugins: none.
   • Once you are done with your experiment and have exited Notepad++, renaming the plugins.tmp back to plugins will allow you to start Notepad++ normally again.
     • Notepad++ may have created a new empty plugins directory; if it is empty, you can safely delete that one before renaming plugins.tmp back to plugins

Try without a specific plugin

If your problem goes away when you run without plugins, using either method, then one or more of your plugins is the culprit, and you need to isolate which plugin is causing the problem. To isolate the plugins, follow a sequence similar to #2 above, but with each individual plugin’s directory instead of the whole plugins\ directory

3. For each plugin:
   • Close all open instances of Notepad++.
   • Go into c:\program files\Notepad++\plugins using Windows Explorer (Win+E)
   • Rename the folder of the plugin you want from pluginName\ to pluginName.tmp
   • Start Notepad++: the pluginName should no longer be in the Plugins menu
   • If Notepad++ works without that plugin, but crashes or freezes with that plugin, then that plugin is the culprit (or one of the culprits).
   • It may be possible that you have to disable multiple plugins simultaneously in order to get Notepad++ fully working, because multiple plugins may be out of date.
   • Once you are done with your experiment and have exited Notepad++, renaming the pluginName.tmp folder back to pluginName will allow you to use that plugin again (assuming it’s not the culprit)

If you have found one or more plugins that are the culprit:

4. Update that plugin:
   • Check Notepad++'s Plugins > Plugins Admin to see if there is a newer version of the plugin available to install, and see if it works when you install the newest version
   • If there isn’t a newer version listed there, check the plugin’s homepage to see if there is a new release that hasn’t propagated to Plugins Admin yet
   • If there isn’t a newer version listed on the homepage, check the plugin’s “issue” or “bug report” page to see if others have reported the same incompatibility:
     • if they have, add your upvote or comment on the existing issue or bug report
     • if they have not, create a new issue or bug report to let the plugin developer know that their plugin has a problem with the version of Notepad++
       • For either of those reports, make sure to include a copy of the Debug Info from Notepad++'s ? menu
   • Your choices while waiting for a new version of the plugin include:
     • Run Notepad++ without that plugin until the plugin catches up
     • Run an older version of Notepad++ with your plugin installed, until the plugin catches up with newer Notepad++. (For example, for plugins that have not been updated since Notepad++ v8.3, you should be able to run the old version of the plugin in Notepad++ v8.2.1)

Possible Culprit: Your installation

If you cannot get Notepad++ working, even with all plugins disabled, then there might be a problem with your specific installation.

Try a portable Notepad++

To help verify that, download an official “portable” (aka “zip” or “7z”) version of Notepad++ from one of the official download locations listed above. Every version of Notepad++ has zip and 7z archives, which you can unzip into a temporary directory (maybe on your desktop). Then you can close all Notepad++ instances, and run Notepad++ from that unzipped folder instead of from your normal shortcut or file association.

If it works in the portable, but not in your installed Notepad++, there may be a problem with one of your settings. Go to %AppData%\ or equivalent, and temporarily rename Notepad++ to Notepad++.old. When you re-start Notepad++, it will re-create the config files with default values which should match what were in the portable Notepad++, and Notepad++ should work for you again. (And by having renamed the old Notepad++ config folder, you can still see what your old settings were to start trying to get Notepad++ back to the way you like it… but do it slowly and methodically, so you can see if it re-enabling one of your old settings brings back the problem).

If that’s not sufficient, but the portable worked fine, then again delete your new %AppData%\Notepad++ (still keeping your Notepad++.old) and uninstall your existing Notepad++. Try installing again from an official installer downloaded from one of the official sites listed above.

Report the problem

If Notepad++ still has a problem even when you are running the most recent version from the portable copy, then it is more likely you have found a bug or problem with Notepad++ itself.

If you would like more confirmation, post here in the Community forum with a description of your exact problem, along with confirmation that you tried without plugins and with using portable and it still has the problem, and include a copy of Notepad++'s ?-menu’s Debug Info, along with enough details for us to replicate your problem.

However, the forum Community users can only confirm or contradict your problem, and maybe give a workaround: we cannot fix Notepad++ for you. To get Notepad++ fixed, after going through these debug steps, requires opening an official issue in the bug tracker. This Community has another FAQ Entry on bug reports and feature requests, which explains the steps required for opening an official issue. If you do not follow those instructions, the problem is not known by the developers, and the problem is not going to be tracked, and will likely never be fixed, because the developers do not use this Community for tracking issues.

Also remember: if you found the problem was with a specific plugin, then report it to the plugin’s author, not in the main Notepad++ issues tracker. The Notepad++ developers do not maintain all the plugins: the individual plugins’ developers are in charge of their own plugins.