Inventor not recognizing my Add-in

els_ram · ‎10-03-2024

Hi everyone, I'm very new to Inventor as a whole but I was trying to make an Add-In of my own. Right now I'm just interested in making Inventor recognize my Add-in, I've been following certain tutorials but may have been doing something wrong because I couldn't make a single one of them work. I'm using C# with .NET 8. and Inventor 2025.

My first attempt was with Inventor's template, and my second attempt was with class Library WPF template from VS. Settings for my attempts included:

1. Changing debug profile and making it so it would open: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor 2025\Bin\Inventor.exe

2. Checking out that my dotnet version was compatible with Inventor 2025

3. Supported software version greater than: Now, here I had some doubts because some tutorials and the template say it should be "29.." and others say that it should be "28..", I tried both on different attempts.

4. Generating my GUID, this wasn't in my template attempt because it already had one.

5. Inventor Interop reference configuration:

<ItemGroup>
<Reference Include="Autodesk.Inventor.Interop">
<HintPath>..\..\..\..\..\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor 2025\Bin\Autodesk.Inventor.Interop.dll</HintPath>
<EmbedInteropTypes>False</EmbedInteropTypes>
<Private>True</Private>
</Reference>
</ItemGroup>

6. I created my .addin file and my StandardAddInServer.cs, in my AddInServer class I only included a simple try catch in my Activate method. I also checked that my GuidAttribute is the same as the one I used in my .addin.

The .dll name I used was the same as my addin: <Assembly>SimpleAddIn.dll</Assembly>

I have another question here, template comments say: "Assumes that SimpleAddIn.dll is underneath Inventor\bin"

Does that mean that my .dll needs to be under Inventor\bin and not under the folder that later on I chose, which was C:\Users\NAME\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\$(TargetName)\", or does it need to be in both locations for Inventor to find it?

7. Just as a comment, In my attempt with no template I don't have a .X.manifest file, which I have in my add-in template attempt, I also saw that I have a post-build event that goes something like this:

The location is in my project file, is it necessary to have it?

8. Post Build Events, here I also had doubts because I saw that some people cleaned all events and others had it like this:

I understood that this post-build event would copy my .addin file into the target path which I chose out of these options:

All Users, Version Independent
Windows 7/8.1/10 - %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Autodesk\Inventor Addins\
All Users, Version Dependent
Windows 7/8.1/10 - %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Autodesk\Inventor 20xx\Addins\
Per User, Version Dependent
In Window 7/8.1/10 - %APPDATA%\Autodesk\Inventor 20xx\Addins\
Per User, Version Independent
In Window 7/8.1/10 - %APPDATA%\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins
I'm not sure if I chose the right one though, in any case, I tried with almost all of them.

When I run my application I get these files in my "C:\Users\NAME\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\$(TargetName)\" path:

AddinName.addin, AddinName.dll, Autodesk.Inventor.Interop.xml,Autodesk.Inventor.Interop.dll and stdole.dll

From what I understood and please correct me if I'm wrong, Inventor would search for a .dll and a .addin files in those four locations and would show the add-in as an option in Tools-> Options-> Add-ins

What I've been failing to do is exactly that. When I run my application, it only opens Inventor, as if it is not locating my Add-in. At least that's what I think, I would love to read your answers, and thanks a lot in advance for the help 🙂 I would very much appreciate it.

@JelteDeJong

Inventor not recognizing my Add-in

Inventor not recognizing my Add-in

Forums Links

Post to forums