Add-in Loading on only some computers in Engineering Group

[RNDinov8r]

We recently had one our engineers write an add-in (using Visual Studio). We have an executable that installs the add-in to IV 2020. (We have one for 2022, but as we have not moved to 2022 yet, we have not used it). As engineers are getting ready to start exporting their BOMs using this add-in, they are installing. Currently, we are discovering that when the Add-in is installed, even though we have the "Automatically Load" box checked, the Add-in will not load. 

Myself and one other Engineer have this version of the Add-in successfully installed, while anyone now installing, is seeing it in the add-in list, but not loading (and it's unblocked).

We are all running the same, most current version of IV (2020.4.2) All workstations are identical with hardware and software. 

Is there a way to force the Add-in to load, or someplace to look to change permissions?

[Michael.Navara]

This question can't be answered generally because it is specific for your environment.

But the most common issue (in my cases) is reference to bad version of Autodesk.Inventor.Interop.dll. Check the reference in VisualStudio project. Referenced version must be less or equal to 24.x.x (24.0.0 is recommended by me) for Inventor 2020

[RNDinov8r]

Thanks @Michael.Navara . I will look into this. As I am not super familiar with Visual Studio Environment, this may take me a while to figure out.

[Michael.Navara]

Open the VS solution and open Solution Explorer and Properties windows. Then expand References and select Autodesk.Inventor.Interop.dll

[RNDinov8r]

I spoke with my engineer who created this code (he is an intern at school now) and he informed me that the .dll referenced was in fact, not newer than 24.

I will also add that I was able to successfully install the add-in on another computer with the same version of inventor (up to date).

[RNDinov8r · Accepted solution]

We figured out the issue. It was resolved by copying one of my .dll files onto the machines where the add-in would not load.

we found that the file in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Autodesk.Inventor.Interop\v4.0_24.2.0.0__d84147f8b4276564\Autodesk.Inventor.Interop.dll on my machine worked when pasted into the same folder of the "non-working" machines.

From what we could see, the only difference was the date. My machine was dated 3/22/2021, but any file newer than that wasn't working (April and May of 2021).

Additionally, this solution was based on the solution shown in this forum: 

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ilogic-api-vba-forum/add-in-automatically-unloads-on-some-co...

(see last forum entry)

[phlyx]

We figured out the problem 'most' of the way.  We can get it to work on all workstations now but the ones it was not working on at all will not load the add-in automatically.  When we need it we can load it and it works, but we cannot get it to load automatically.

[RNDinov8r]

OK...now things are getting wierd. I have iPropWiz 7 installed for 2022 as well on my machine. Went ot test somthing this morning on 2022 and no iPropWiz won't load...but it did yesterday...and I never restarted my machine.

[NachoShaw]

maybe you unchecked the autoLoad by mistake? in the .addin file that loads the addin for your tool, check to see if LoadBehavior is correctly set to load automatically?

<LoadBehavior>1</LoadBehavior>

and also the SupportSoftwareVersionGreaterThan & SupportSoftwareVersionLessThan

<SupportedSoftwareVersionGreaterThan>19..</SupportedSoftwareVersionGreaterThan>
<SupportedSoftwareVersionLessThan>26..</SupportedSoftwareVersionLessThan>

id be happy to update you project for you, you can PM me if you need

Also

depending where the .addin is placed during install will determine how its loaded per version. There are lots of locations for .addins files to be placed

version independent

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Inventor Addins

version dependent

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Inventor 2021\Addins

version dependent

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Inventor 2022\Addins

version independent

C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins

User & version dependent

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Inventor 2022\Addins

Also, i have seen cases personally where Policy permissions cause some addin issues especially if there are any registry needs. I had to write a small tool to copy the registry settings from one table to another for my addin to work..

Hope that helps