Addins do not show in customize dialog

[PaulKroseman]

Addin controls on my computer no longer show up in the Commands tab of the Customize Mode dialog. They do not create the Add-In Controls category and will not show up in an existing category.

Deleting Normal.mxt and the entire Desktop9.4 folder from the user profile did not fix the problem. I tried a complete uninstall and reinstall of ArcGIS and ArcObjects with no success. Using a different user on the same computer has this same issue. Using my profile on a different computer works fine.

Does anyone have any idea what could have caused this or how to fix it (preferably without reinstalling windows)?

[ArokiyaJoseph]

Hey,

Can you please verify whether your Add-in Manager(Customize Menu-> Add-In Manager) lists your installed add-in. Also, is your add-in developed in Java/.Net?

Add-ins are not added to a default category, say Add-in Controls category. Just like COM commands and tools, you can define the category for your button and tools in the config.xml. Notice the category attribute in the xml below.

<Commands>
        <Button caption="New Button 1" category="My AddIn Commands" class="Button1" id="MyButton"/>
      </Commands>

[PaulKroseman]

The add-in does show in the Add-In Manager window and was made in .Net.

I tried 3 different values for category in the xml. The default value the template provides for category ("Add-In Controls"), an existing built in category (I tried "CAD" and "Display"), and a new value of my own ("My Category").

The add-in did not show in the 2 built in categories and the Add-In Controls and My Category did not ever show. The same add-in works on another computer. All add-ins on this computer behave this way, including the samples.

The last thing I was working on before noticing this was making a toolbar using xml. I used the CustomUIElements sample and http://help.esri.com/EN/sdk/9.4/ArcObjects_NET/ConceptualHelp/index.html#/d/0001000000Z0000000/ to build the xml. The built in commands were added to the toolbar but the custom tools showed up with "Missing" on the toolbar. This was true even for the sample.

I performed a repair install of windows and I'm reinstalling ArcGIS 9.4 now, I'll post back with an update later.

[RalfGottschalk]

Try deleting the Add-in from your Add-ins folder.  On Windows XP it is located in your my documents folder under: \My Documents\ArcGIS\Desktop9.4\AddIns.

Then recompile your add-in and see if it shows up now.

[PaulKroseman]

I tried that multiple times through my troubleshooting.

I even deleted the add-ins I had in that folder, uninstalled 9.4 (ArcObjects and Desktop), uninstalled Visual Studio, re-installed Visual Studio, re-installed Desktop and ArcObjects for .NET. Created a new add-in, did not work on this computer but worked on a different computer.

The Windows repair install has fixed the problem it appears. Both new and previously designed add-ins are working again.

How and why this happened are still puzzling. I might play around and try to get this to happen again.

[RalfGottschalk]

If you can reproduce it, please log a support call so we can get this issue to the right people.

[AdrianMarsden]

Hi

Was the cause of this ever resolved?  It sounds similar to my current issue with 10 SP1 - The only way I can see the categories associated with add-ins is running ArcMap as a local admin.

Cheers

ACM

[BradNesom]

If you can reproduce it, please log a support call so we can get this issue to the right people.

No longer beta. I don't know what is causing but did find a workaround. It might lead to fix.

I removed the addin/addins I am trying to use. from the add-in manager. The selected the options tab in the add-in manager.
I added the search folder for my add-in (one folder above) and it put my add-in into the shared add-ins section in the add-in manager.

I then was able to go to customize and I had an add-in controls category with my addin in it.

[AdrianMarsden]

We found the cause, but not the reason.

The cause was we have, via Group Policy, defined our "my Documents" to live on the network - a mapped drive u:\

Users with the default (c:\documents and settings\username\) worked fine, as soon as we made the change to the network this broke (BTW our Local Admin accounts had it set to the local drive, which is why it appeared to work when logged in as an admin)

Esri(UK) failed to recreate the problem, so we assumed that something isn't quite right with our GPOs.

However, by setting the registry to look for shared AddIns (which was my ultimate goal anyway - just let the users use add-ins from a central location) it all worked.