Addon Installation Troubleshooting
This topic will detail how to troubleshoot addon installation issues and show how to:
- Verify your FLIP Fluids installation file
- Locate your Blender addons directory
- Verify your FLIP Fluids Blender installation
- Cleanup your Blender addons directory
- Manually install the FLIP Fluids addon
- Create a Clean Installation of Blender
Related topic: Addon Installation and Uninstallation instructions.
You may want to verify that the structure of your FLIP Fluids installation file is correct. If you are using a browser extension, a download manager, or a service to send the installation file via email, these tools may alter the structure of the file and could affect the success of installation.
Blender addons which contain multiple files are in the form of a .zip file. These files are used directly in the Blender install process and should not be unzipped before installing. Our FLIP Fluids addon installation files are typically named with a version number, version type, and release date:
FLIP_Fluids_addon_1.0.9_stable_(26_nov_2020).zip
It is not necessary for the FLIP Fluids addon to have this exact naming format, and this file can be renamed as you like.
- If you open or unzip this installation file, there must be a single directory named
flip_fluids_addon. The naming of this directory is a strict requirement.
- If you open the
flip_fluids_addondirectory, you should see multiple files and directories within. The number of files and names of the file contents may differ between FLIP Fluids addon versions, but the most important file that this directory must contain is the__init__.pyfile. This file is what contains the important addon info that Blender needs and is the file necessary to show up in Blender's addon list.
If the installation file contents do not contain the flip_fluids_addon directory or the __init__.py file, please re-download the FLIP Fluids addon installation file.
After installing the FLIP Fluids addon through Blender, you may want to verify that the addon actually installed correctly. This topic will show you how to check if your FLIP Fluids installation has been installed successfully.
First, locate your Blender addons directory depending on your operating system:
-
Windows:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.90\scripts\addons -
MacOS:
/Users/username/Library/Application Support/Blender/2.90/scripts/addons -
Linux:
/home/username/.config/blender/2.90/scripts/addons
Replace username with your username and replace 2.90 with the Blender version that you are using.
- If you navigate to your Blender addons directory, there must be a directory named
flip_fluids_addon. The naming of this directory is a strict requirement for the FLIP Fluids addon to function correctly. You may see other directories/files, and these will correspond to your other installed addons.
- If you open the
flip_fluids_addondirectory, you should see multiple files and directories within. These files may differ between FLIP Fluids addon versions, but the most important file that this directory must contain is the__init__.pyfile. This file is what contains the important addon info that Blender needs and is the file necessary to show up in Blender's addon list.
- After verifying that your FLIP Fluids installation is correct, restart Blender and you will be able to find and enable the addon in the Blender addons menu by searching for FLIP Fluids:
Make sure your addons filter has Community addons enabled so that Blender does not filter out our FLIP Fluids addon. The addon can be enabled with the checkbox.
If your addon installation structure differs, or is missing, you may want to try verifying the FLIP Fluids installation file and trying to install again. If you are still experiencing issues with installing the FLIP Fluids addon to your Blender addons directory, you may want to try manually installing the addon.
If the FLIP Fluids addon is installed incorrectly, or there is an error with installation, this may leave unwanted files and directories in your Blender addons directory. These files can potentially cause problems within Blender.
Cleaning up your Blender addons directory will involve deleting files. You may want to create a backup of these files if you are concerned about data loss.
First, locate your Blender addons directory.
These are the most common installation errors or mistakes that we see. To clean up these errors, simply delete the following directories (or similarly named) if they appear in your addons directory:
For a complete removal of the FLIP Fluids addon, also delete flip_fluids_addon.
The worst case cleanup scenario will occur if all of the flip_fluids_addon directory contents were installed into your Blender addons directory. This will cause problems with your Blender installation, and some issues in Blender may not become apparent immediately. It will be important to remove the following files and directories if they exist:
Addons in Blender can also be installed without using the Blender installer. You may want to do this if you are experiencing issues with Blender's addon installer or if you find this method easier.
Note: You will still need to open Blender to enable the addon.
First, locate your Blender addons directory.
Blender's addon installer works by simply extracting the installation .zip file and copying the contents into your Blender addons directory. You can do the same by extracting the FLIP Fluids installation .zip file and copying the flip_fluids_addon directory to your Blender addons directory.
After copying this directory, you can enable the addon by restarting Blender, and searching for FLIP Fluids in the Blender addon preferences menu.
To ensure that your manual installation is correct, you can verify your FLIP Fluids Blender installation.
Testing within a clean installation environment will help isolate problems and will remove external factors which can affect testing. The process is relatively simple and involves renaming directories.
Simply reinstalling Blender will not provide you with a clean installation. Blender stores your user preferences such as settings, startup file, scripts, and addons in a location on your computer and these user preferences are not cleared when reinstalling Blender. Sometimes the Blender user preferences can become corrupted or put into a state that can affect how the FLIP Fluids addon or other addons run, can result in errors, and can also affect regular Blender features and stability.
Note on Updating Blender: When updating to a new version of Blender, importing existing settings/preferences from and older Blender version can sometimes be the cause of corrupt userdata, errors, and odd addon behavior. Sometimes older addons that are no longer supported can be the cause of errors. For this reason, we usually recommend to start with new settings when updating to a newer version of Blender.
In this guide we will cover how to locate your user preferences, backup your user preferences, start from a clean installation for testing, and then finally restore your original user preferences.
The user preferences location will depend on which operating system you are using. Blender's Directory Layout documentation will detail where to find its USER directories, but we will also show you below.
-
Windows:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.4 -
MacOS:
/Users/username/Library/Application Support/Blender/3.4 -
Linux:
/home/username/.config/blender/3.4
In this guide we will be using Blender 3.4, but if you are using a different version of Blender, you can simply replace the version number.
If you are unclear of the exact location of your user preferences location, the path can also be viewed in the FLIP Fluids addon preferences menu. Open the preferences menu with Help > FLIP Fluids > FLIP Fluids Preferences. The path will be located under the File entry:
Your user preferences directory contains all of your Blender settings, defaults, and addons, so you will want to backup this directory so that you do not lose this data. We will begin by closing Blender.
A simple method of backing up the directory is to rename the 3.4 directory to 3.4_backup, but you can use whatever backup method that you prefer.
Now that your user preferences are backed up, we can begin testing within a clean installation of Blender. You will not need to reinstall Blender. The next time that you open Blender, a brand new 3.4 user preferences directory will automatically be initialized.
To begin testing the FLIP Fluids addon within a clean installation, open or restart Blender and install the addon according to the FLIP Fluids Installation Instructions.
If the issue is not present when testing within the clean installation, this would indicate that the issue is related to the original user preferences. The issue could be related to other addons, settings, or the startup file. Sometimes an unknown corruption of the user preferences can be the cause of the issue. Issues related to user preferences can be more likely to occur if the preferences have been carried over from previous versions of Blender.
Once you are finished testing, you may want to restore your original user preferences. To restore your original user preferences:
- Close Blender
- Delete the
3.4directory that was used for testing - Rename the backup
3.4_backupdirectory to3.4 - Open Blender
Your Blender installation and user preferences are now restored back to their original state.
