Plugin not loading from the Plugins folder but loads via Developer Tools. SOLVED

Photoshop
1

I’m new to programming and didn’t understand why this happened. While developing a plugin in Developer Tools, I needed to run it as a regular plugin, but it didn’t appear in the plugins menu. Some plugins I downloaded as examples from GitHub also refused to show up. When I figured out the reason, I was surprised—even the sample plugins from Developer Tools wouldn’t load from the Plugins folder.

The issue is quite minor, and I don’t fully understand its cause.

The problem lies in the manifest.json—specifically in the data types used for the host parameter. In some plugins, it’s declared as an array:

[ { "app": "PS", ... } ]

In my case, this version only worked in Developer Tools.

{ "app": "PS", ... }

But this declaration (as an object, without square brackets) works both in Developer Tools and when loaded via the Plugins folder.

1 Like
2

Have you tried packaging via UXP Developer Tools?

3

I ran into a similar issue a while back. I found that the plugin works through Developer Tools when Rosetta is enabled, but for installed plugins to run properly, Rosetta needs to be disabled.

4

It’s always much better to add an answer as a separate post and Mark it as a solution, than adding “SOLVED” to the topic title