I’m trying to understand what’s the current state of installing a `.ccx` file from an user point of view experience.
Relevant documentation
Give the plugin to your family, friends, and workmates. You can email the .ccx file or, more likely, put it on a cloud folder somewhere for them to download. All they need to do is double click the .ccx file to install using the Creative Cloud application. It’s that easy! Be aware that distributing this way will require them to click through the “do you trust this?” warning dialog boxes that appear after they double-click. https://developer.adobe.com/photoshop/uxp/2022/guides/distribution/distribution-options/
From the documentation double clicking a `.ccx` file is what’s recommended. It will open the Creative Cloud App and ask the user to install the plugin.
Only 1 out of 3 computers had the expected installation flow:
Computer 1 - macOS Sequoia M1 Pro
double clicking the `.ccx` file, the Creative Cloud App displayed a “Compatible app required“ error message. For no reason, here Photoshop (actually many versions) was correctly installed. This looks related to Error message: Compatible app required
the only thing that worked in that case was to switch to the command line with:
cd "/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Desktop Common/RemoteComponents/UPI/UnifiedPluginInstallerAgent/UnifiedPluginInstallerAgent.app/Contents/MacOS"
According to your error message file association in OS was not set. User should check whether Creative Cloud Desktop app is installed properly. It is not associated with Photoshop but with CCD.
Additionally, I have been saying this for about 3-4 years, and I will continue to say it this year. CCD should add a fallback method to install .ccx in case file associations do not work. @Erin_Finnegan
In my experience, it is pretty common for it not to work as expected. I would say maybe around 15-20% have some issues. Hard to really know for sure as it’s not always reported, but lots of users have to do some kind of additional steps to get it to install versus the simple double click. The only real solution that I know of is to make a very detailed install document that lists all the different steps and hope that the users can figure out a way that works for their machine.
Greg Benz has a great example: Lumenzia Installation
Thanks for the speedy answer! I’m new to these problem, though familiar with the old ones (CEP & co)
Note that in my case there was no error code displayed. The “Compatible app required“ error only showed up in the GUI / Creative Cloud App, when calling the UIPA as a CLI it succeeded without error.
About the file association problem, I personally hope it’s an edge case happening for only few machines but given the number of mentions of this problem on this forum, it looks like it’s currently something larger than that so a fallback would be very welcome.
Sometimes the simple things from the old ways are the best, I’m thinking something like an “Install plugin“ action in the Photoshop menu. Easy to find and reliable I guess. (Though I prefer the double-click approach, when it works.)
Also, I must say that the “Lumenzia Installation“ page can look quite intimidating for users, so a fallback approach would make this much easier I think.
Finally what would help too, is to get “Unified“ error codes, it looks like they only exists for the UIPA CLI at the moment. It would be better if the same error codes would also show in the Creative Cloud App.
And hope that it works, if it does’t, try something else.
2. Tell people to open the “.ccx” file with UIPA UnifiedPluginInstallerAgent manually
And hope that it works, if it does’t, try something else.
Note: It’s getting already a bit too technical for some users I think, there will be people that try to do “Open with” with the wrong app.
The previous apps used to install CEP extensions Anastasiy’s Extension Manager, or ZXPInstaller do not support installing UXP plugins currently.
So the alternative would be to create a new one that calls UIPA directly.
Conclusion
Did I forget anything?
It looks to me like the CLI approach is technically the best but also the worst one from a user experience perspective.
So to improve things here either something changes in Adobe’s UXP installation procedure or someone creates a user-friendly third party Windows and macOS app to call the UIPA CLI directly.
@jolg42 If you have any suggestions on how to simplify that information, I’m all ears.
These are all realistic scenarios where I have had to support a user to get installed. Most people double-click the CCX and it just works. But when it fails, there are an endless number of scenarios (mostly involving user error, unclear error messages, or a bad setup which needs repair / re-installation).
There are a few updates I would love to see from Adobe here, as I believe the following would significantly reduce failure to install CCX files:
Many users try to open CCX with Photoshop (or the Creative Cloud desktop app) and it gives a vague warning. It should at least warn that UPIA is needed. Much better would be that it tries to invoke the file via UPIA so that it just works, or invokes the Adobe repair tool (as this scenario often appears to involve the user having permanently altered the default file association to open CCX with the wrong app).
The error handling on “-2” should improve. This is the most common error and any improvement here would be high value. It seems to involve permissions. Typically moving the CCX to the desktop and double-clicking there seems to work.
I was just about to @ Greg and he’s already in the thread… Greg’s guide is maybe the best one for troubleshooting CCX installs: Lumenzia Installation
In addition to ZXP Installer from AEScripts, good old Anastasiy’s Extension Manager will also work for CCX/UXP (but it will try to install ExManCmd, which is unnecessary for newer apps and on macOS asks for a lot of permissions as it installs).
Yesterday a colleague got “Compatible App Not Installed” erroneously… I have the following advice:
Be sure to launch the compatible app at least once before installing the CCX (applicable if you just installed a new app or new version of the app). Creative Cloud apps tend to create a lot of folders on first launch.
Try logging out of the Creative Cloud desktop app, quitting it, relaunching it, log back it, and attempt double-clicking the CCX again. (Totally restarting your computer after logging out is not out of the question and may help…)
I will add the zxp installer to my instructions.
I have not tested this to be sure, but I think for a while if the user ONLY had the beta version of PS installed and not one of the regular versions, double clicking the ccx would give the no compatible apps message. So, I would tell them they need to at least install the regular version.
That might not still be the case, but it is something I ask if they say they got that message.
@JasonM ZXP files are for old CEP panels. I would avoid that for Photoshop if at all possible (Rosetta is required for CEP support with Apple Silicon and causes PS to run at half speed). Unless that installer also supports CCX, you’d be using a rather outdated plugin technology for Photoshop (other Adobe host apps have maintained more support, and some do not yet support UXP/CCX).
@Erin_Finnegan How big leverage do you need for something that could be done in 3-4 hours if I exaggerate?
1-2 hour implementation of adding menu item + command and logging results or returning error
1 hour to make an automated test
1 hour to update documentation and tell people
If that works even partially, you will save much more time on tech support. I think you personally could spend with that at least 10 hours in past and some other people another 10 hours? …probably more.
From the installation PDF I distribute with my plugins:
If there is an error message indicating that “No compatible app” is present for installation, try the following:
•Reboot the computer.
•Make sure that a product version of Photoshop is installed on the computer. Plugins will NOT install if Photoshop Beta is the only installed version.
•Go to the “Apps” tab of the Creative Cloud app and make sure Photoshop is listed as installed. Users with compatibility problems are often able to open Photoshop, but the Creative Cloud app doesn’t show it is actually installed. If this is the case, you might have a problem. If you now install Photoshop using the “Install” button, it will wipe out all your current Photoshop preferences including your Photoshop actions. So, if this is your situation, it’s very important to backup whatever you need to back up first before installing Photoshop from the Creative Cloud app. Probably the best option is to back up the Photoshop preferences and then reinstall them once you have installed Photoshop. This website tells you how to back up your Photoshop preferences: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preferences.html#backup-photoshop-preferences
