Enable Developer Mode error displays, despite developer mode being enabled in Photoshop

A community member reached out to me about this error. I’m posting the error and troubleshooting steps below.

Developer Mode needs to be enabled in order to load and debug UXP plugins that you are currently developing.

The developer did enable developer mode in Photoshop.

Note that UDT failed to launch for both Photoshop and XD in this case.

System specs:

  • Windows
  • Creative Cloud desktop app 5.9
  • UDT v1.6.0.14
  • Photoshop 23.5.1
  • XD 54.1

Here’s what to check:

Check if this file is present settings.json at /Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/UXP/developer/in on macOS or C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\UXP\developer in Windows with content:

 {
 "developer": true
 }

Check if the user has access to this folder.

When they click on Enable and add the admin credentials this file is supposed to have been automatically created.

This fix did work, it was important to have it in the “Common Files” directory.