too many plugin-paths used by FMP(A)12 (2 Comments)

Issue report by menno

Product

FileMaker Pro

Version

Pro 12 and Pro Advanced 12

Operating system version

Windows 7, 8 and Server 2008 (R2)

Description of the issue

Filemaker loads plugins from: %root%:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\FileMaker\FileMaker Pro Advanced\12.0\Extensions (or %root%:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\FileMaker\FileMaker Pro\12.0\Extensions) ,which is correct since that is the place where plugins are installed from autoupdating plugin.

However plugins are also loaded from: %root%:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\FileMaker\Extensions ,which (is to say the least) is annoying since Pré-12 versions are installing their plugin there and there are plugins that only load the first occurence found, hence loading an old (a too old) version of that plugin or maybe loading plugins that you don't want to use. All kinds of problem may occur, because of licensing-issues, version-conflicts, etc.

Steps to reproduce the problem

Use besides FM12 older FM-versions like 9 or 10 or 11 and use the autoupdate-features in filemaker. This is typical for developers like myself, since not every customer is up to date and I can't force them to upgrade and it's considered a best practice to develop and debug with the same version as the customer uses.

Expected result

Only loading plugins from: %root%:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\FileMaker\FileMaker Pro Advanced\12.0\Extensions

Actual result

first loading plugins from: %root%:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\FileMaker\Extensions
after that loading plugins from: %root%:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\FileMaker\FileMaker Pro Advanced\12.0\Extensions

Exact text of any error message(s) that appear

No errormessages directly from this procedure.
In some cases plugins are loaded that explicitly are switches off,
Sometimes plugins are loaded that are unfit for FM12.
Sometimes the wrong version of a plugin is loaded into FM.
It concerns plugin from Troi, myFmButler, Dracoventions and 360Works

Configuration information

Several Windows-versions

Workaround

Empty %root%:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\FileMaker\Extensions before starting up FMP(A)12
This results in always downloading plugins when starting a fp7-database-solution.