Tech Support for CCX Installer issues when CCX file is good?

Photoshop UXP Plugin API
1

I have thousands of users installing my CCX files with no problems.

However, I have 2 users right now who can’t install. Adobe tech support won’t help them and told them that they don’t support 3rd party plugins.

However, I’m pretty sure these issues are with the Creative Cloud App itself. Even after reinstalling Creative Cloud, these 2 users still can’t install.

For one of the users, when clicking the CCX file, it opens the Creative Cloud app opens but then doesn’t do anything… no messages at all.

For the other user, the CCX file doesn’t launch anything. Creative Cloud doesn’t even open. For that user, I asked him to right click, select “open with”, and see if there is an option to run the “UnifiedPluginInstallerAgent”. I’m still waiting to hear back on that.

These CCX files were created with the UXP developer tool and are working fine for thousands of users. I know for certain there is nothing wrong with the CCX installers.

It is frustrating because I can’t even help the users by manually installing the files for them because that doesn’t work for UXP plugins.

So the users are stuck not being able to install. I have no idea how to fix it. The Adobe tech support technicians won’t help. So I have no idea what to do.

Are CCX install issues supported by Adobe for the cases where the issues are with Creative Cloud itself and not the CCX file? If so, where do I send the users to get support when the issue is with Creative Cloud itself?

2

have you thought about renaming the ccx file in zip then unzip it and copy the folder in the root of the photoshop plugins? It is rightly a temporary solution until a solution is found.

3

I didn’t think that was supposed to work in UXP-land, like it does with CEP… but I’m not always right.

Anyway, sorry to hear about your trouble, @ddbell ! I’ve heard some similar reports from other developers, so I hope we can get to the bottom of this…

@gregbenz has a pretty comprehensive troubleshooting page written up based on similar issues: Lumenzia Installation

Realistically the steps here are to ask afflicted end users to run the log collector tool and send the logs to asupport@adobe.com. If that support team is hesitant to support CCX files distributed outside of the Adobe’s Marketplace, let me know.

If you, as the developer, can collect the log files from your affected users and then share the logs along with a copy of your CCX file (possibly with a coupon, if necessary) then I, or someone else at Adobe, can share the logs and CCX with the engineering team, who will attempt to reproduce the problem.

One shorter-term workaround is to ask users to install the CCX file using the command line tool, which isn’t very user-friendly (as it involves the Terminal or CMD prompt), but it actually work… or it might produce an error message that could be helpful.

I’m working with the engineering team to get error messages to display in a more discoverable way.

4

I’m having similar issues, but what’s happening is that a command-prompt window opens momentarily on Windows computers, and then everything just stops. No error messages . . . nothing. Two of these users were able to successfully install using the command-line tool, but when using this, it’s important that the .ccx filename only contain letters and numbers. No special characters like hyphen and period. Command-line installation did not work for one person, but it’s definitely worth a try for users who have tried all the other usual (and unusual) workarounds. This situation is rare, but one user was able to install an older version of the CC app, and then installation worked fine. So, at least in what I’m seeing, it seems to be related to the the CC app, and is not an issue with .ccx installer files.

5

Thank you Erin. I’ll look into the troubleshooting docs you provided. I’ll try to work with the users to get the logs submitted to the Adobe email you mentioned.

6

for emergency you can use an installer that extracts the plugin to PS plugins directory.

also there’s a way of installing using the command line have you tried it?

7

I’m pretty sure that UXP plugins need to be installed through the CCX file. Copying the files to the hard drive in the correct location doesn’t work as far as I can tell. The plugins don’t show up in the Photoshop menu, even after restarting Photoshop. There is some sort of indexing process that happens in Photoshop when the CCX installer runs that is more than just putting files where they need to be. With CEP, I used to have .exe installers for Windows and DMG installer for Mac. With UXP, I had to go to CCX.

I have not tried the command line but I plan to test it on Monday. This is not a great option though because it is above the capabilities of most of my plugin users and not something I can expect them to do on their own. I really don’t have the time to be logging into users computers and running command line installers whenever someone has an issue. I plan to test this out, but not something I really want to rely on having to use very often.

8

I heard a rumor that Anastasiy’s Extension Manager can install it and tried it. In fact, I was able to install the UXP plugin with a CCX file.

9

OK, I was wrong about not being able to install UXP into the plugins folder. Manually installing the files wasn’t working for my plugins when using the files before running the files through the UXP Developer Tool to create the CCX. However, if I unzipped the CCX files that were created from the UXP Developer Tool, those files would work when manually installed under the plugins folder.

What I found was the UXP Developer Tool was fixing the manifest syntax for me. It didn’t like having the array brackets for the “host” section around the object brackets . The manifest wouldn’t work as I had made it. However, the UXP Developer Tool was fixing the manifest and removing the array brackets when creating the CCX.

So while not the preferred solution, at least being able to manually install CCX plugins files into the plugins folder does provide a much needed solution for when a user can’t install any other way.

When installing the files in to the plugins folder, those plugins don’t show in “Manage Plugins” so can’t be uninstalled from there. However, if the user installs with CCX file later, it uses the new version installed through CCX and not the version that was manually installed. So that is good.

Thanks for helping with this :slight_smile:

// From manifest that does not work
"host": [
    {
      "app": "PS",
      "minVersion": "22.0.0",
        "data": {
          "apiVersion": 2
        }
    }
  ],

//Corrected manifest that was fixed automatically by the UXP developer tool
  "host": {
    "app": "PS",
    "minVersion": "22.0.0",
    "data": {
      "apiVersion": 2
    }
  },
2 Likes
10

For the record, Anastasiy’s is just calling the UPIA command line tool “under the hood” to install UXP plugins.

That said, if your manifest isn’t formatted correctly, it’s going to cause problems… but an error should surface somewhere about the manifest, ideally… cc: @pkrishna

1 Like
11

@ddbell Does the CCX package, which works in most cases, also have host in manifest declared as an array?

12

The CCX files were created with the UXP developer tool. The CCX files install for >99% of the users. It’s less than 1% that have issues.

Anyway, the work-around suggested to install manually into the Plugins folder works. Although not the preferred solution, in order to get the users computers running, it is an easy way to get it going.

Regarding your question about the host in the manifest, the CCX files that were created from the UXP dev tool don’t have array brackets. The manifest that I created before running through the UXP developer tool did have array brackets. However, the CCX developer tool removed the brackets automatically when building the package. The CCX that I have been distributing to the users were all the corrected manifest that was packaged by the UXP developer tool without array brackets. These files with the array brackets work for >99% of the users but just not a few users.

For the users that were having issues, I first tried to install manually into the Plugins folder using the files that were created before running through the UXP dev tool so they did have the array brackets. Once I figured out that was causing an issue, I using the unzipped the CCX file with the corrected manifest used those to install manually in the Plugins folder. That does work. So it is a temp work-around that works to get the plugins running for the users that were having issues.

Here is how the manifest was set.

/* From manifest that does not work. This was never 
distributed to users in CCX files. This was the file I 
was trying to install manually at first for users that 
had issues with the CCX. I figured out this was 
wrong and corrected it.
*/

"host": [
    {
      "app": "PS",
      "minVersion": "22.0.0",
        "data": {
          "apiVersion": 2
        }
    }
  ],

/*This is the corrected manifest that was fixed automatically 
by the UXP developer tool when packaging. This is what 
is in all of the CCX files that I am distributing to the users 
in the CCX files. This one works for >99% of the users, 
but just has issues for a few users.  I updated the manual 
install files to this and those now work to install manually 
into the PLugins folder for users with issues installing 
the CCX files.
*/

  "host": {
    "app": "PS",
    "minVersion": "22.0.0",
    "data": {
      "apiVersion": 2
    }
  },

I hope this your question.

13

After re-reading my last answer, I may have been too confusing when trying to explain.

So to make it short… the answer is no. The CCX files didn’t have the host declared as an array.