Troubleshoot Issues Installing Extensions and Add-ons for Creative Cloud apps

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How to Troubleshoot Issues Installing Extensions and Add-ons for Creative Cloud Apps

“This week’s guest post is co-authored by Abhishek Jain. Abhishek is a Lead Software Engineer who has been with Adobe since 2015.”

— Erin Finnegan, Community Engineer, Creative Cloud

This article contains troubleshooting steps for issues you may face when installing extensions, add-ons, or plugins for Creative Cloud apps from the Adobe Exchange portal for Creative Cloud, or when uninstalling extensions from the My Exchange page. This article is also available as a help page on Adobe’s website. We’ve decided to post it here since we updated this guide just last week. We hope that cross-posting it will help increase visibility for extension users as well as help extension developers troubleshoot with their users.

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Please follow the steps below in sequence until the extension is successfully installed.

NOTE: Though the steps below have been given for installation issues, most of these are applicable for uninstallation issues as well.

A note on Adobe XD: The procedures below do not apply to Adobe XD plugins, which are not listed on the Exchange. For help troubleshooting XD plugin installations, see this article.

1. Ensure that you have signed in to Exchange portal and Creative Cloud with the same Adobe account

Extensions acquired on the Exchange portal are synced with the Creative Cloud and added to your application only if you sign in to the Exchange portal and the Creative Cloud using the same Adobe account.

2. Check the entitlement file on your machine

After you acquire extensions on the Exchange portal, the entitlement file in your computer should get updated automatically. The entitlement file can be found in one of the following locations depending on your machine:

Mac OS: /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Extension Manager CC/Configuration/Entitlement/

Windows: C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Extension Manager CC\Configuration\Entitlement\

You can verify the timestamp of the file (the “Date Modified”) to check whether the entitlement file has been updated or not. You may also open the XML file and search for the extension’s name. If the extension you’re trying to install is not showing up in the entitlement file, or the date modified hasn’t changed yet, wait for some time and check again.

For macOS Catalina, see this article: Fix Creative Cloud desktop app issues on macOS Catalina (10.15).

3. Ensure that your Creative Cloud application is closed while installing extensions

Once the extension is installed, you can launch the Creative Cloud application again (for example, Photoshop).

4. Check for app compatibility

Next, double-check to make sure you have installed a version of the Creative Cloud app with which the extension in question is compatible. For example, if the Exchange page lists that the extension is compatible with Illustrator CC (2017) 21.0 — CC (2020) 24.0, and you only have Illustrator CC 2016 installed, it may cause issues.

You can also check compatibility using our command line tool, ExManCmd, by running one of the following ExManCmd commands, depending on your machine:

This command will return a list of compatible Creative Cloud app versions. For more on app compatibility, see: Unable to install add-ons for Creative Cloud products.

5. Check your machine notification settings

It’s possible that the extension got installed correctly but you didn’t receive the notification due to incorrect notification settings on your machine. If you see the extension in your Creative Cloud application, but missed the installation dialog, for future installations, you may want to correct your notification settings. First make sure your notifications are on in the Creative Cloud Desktop app:

︎Click the gear symbol on the upper right to adjust your notification settings in the Creative Cloud Desktop app.

︎Click the gear symbol on the upper right to adjust your notification settings in the Creative Cloud Desktop app.

If you are still unable to see installation notifications after updating your Creative Cloud Desktop app settings, check the notification settings of your computer (for example, in System Preferences -> Notifications).

6. Use the command-line tool, ExManCmd, to check if extensions have been added after updates to your application

When you update a Creative Cloud application (a major update, like Photoshop 2019 to 2020), your extensions for that app should be automatically installed to support the newer version. After the update, you can check if your extensions have been re-installed using one of the following ExManCmd commands, depending on your machine:

If you can’t find the extension(s) on the list, check if the new version of your Creative Cloud application supports the extension (go back to step 4).

7. Install extensions with admin privileges

If you get the following error while installing an extension, you need to install it with admin privileges:

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When you start the installation again on Exchange, it will prompt for admin credentials. Enter the credentials to complete the installation.

Still facing issues? Contact Support with log files

Email asupport@adobe.com with the EMCL.log and ACC.log log files. Here’s how to generate the log files:

  1. First create an empty file named ExManCoreLibLog.YES (with .YES extension, not .txt extension) in the following location:

2. Relaunch the Creative Cloud desktop app.

3. Reproduce the scenario by trying to install the extension again.

4. Run the log Collector tool and share the generated logs. (You need not install the log Collector first.)

Were these steps helpful in getting your extensions installed (or uninstalled)? Let us know by tweeting to @adobedevs or @AdobeExchange, or tell us in the comments.

Finally, I would like to thank Pahup Bilala for his extensive participation and willingness to improve the quality of this article.

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