What is "zip" in Extension Manager ? Can I uninstall it?

Hi
I try to clean up unused extension and I found this “zip”
There is no any info in extension manager browser.

Shall I delete it ?

Thank you.

It’s not an extension I am familiar with and it is certainly not part of the basic setup, so it must be something you installed.
If you remove it and then find an extension missing that would at least help you identify it so you can reinstall it, or ignore it if it’s one you don’t need.
It shouldn’t create any ‘damage’ by removing it.

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Hi
Thank you for your reply.
I may ignore it and keep it for a while is it not harm to my SKP.
Just afraid if I delete it, some extensions may not work.

No extension should depend on another extension without clearly saying so. I’d perhaps manually open the plugin folder and make a backup of the file(s) before uninstalling it.

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Would it show up in the Manager if you accidentally moved something into the Plugins folder, I wonder?

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Everything in the plugin folder shows in the Extension Manager, even if it isn’t an actual extension. Could be a simple ruby script.

I just moved my screenshot into my plugins folder to see what happens, but it doesn’t show up in the Manager. However, could that be because I have not reloaded Sketchup?

Oh, it has to be an .rb file.

So the OP’s file must be zip.rb or zip.rbz?

It doesn’t have to have zip in the file name, but it could be a Ruby file .RB or .RBE insibe a named folder.
The code in the Ruby file will name the extension, so it doesn’t have to match the file that’s creating it.
However, it’s likely that the ‘zip’ name comes from a simple Ruby that’s loading directly from the Plugins folder - e.g. zip.rb
Then SketchUp gives it a name based on its file-name…
See if you have such a file.
Rename it zip.rb! and it won’t load next time SketchUp is run…
I suspect that somehow you’ve copied a RB file from somewhere and it’s ended up in the Plugins folder ??

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Thanks all for telling me where to check. I have checked my SKP folder and fold it like this.
Shall I delete, rename or do anything with this ZIP folder ?


Thank you very much.

After remove this “ZIP” from plug in folder, I got “Load Errors” message. Luckily I back up this file and after copy this ZIP back, SKP come back to work as normal again.

Any ideas what is this ZIP ? I am not sure if it is something related to Sketchucation ?

Load ERROR

Thanks

This is a Ruby GEM. A kind of packaged program or library. Let say ‘similar’ to the extension.
One of your extension using it and installed it. And yes you are right, Sketchucation is using that GEM.
The source code is here: GitHub
But normally this folder must be in here.

c:\Users\_YOUR_USER_NAME_\AppData\Roaming\SketchUp\SketchUp 2021\SketchUp\Plugins\SketchUcation\Data\Rubyzip\

So, I guess, if the Sketchucation extension is working properly, looks like you accidentally copied (moved?) this folder to the root of the Plugin folder. You are safe to delete it.
But see the explanation below:


As you see the ZIP folder does not come alone. There should be a file zip.rb in your Plugin folder.

When Sketchup starting the program will load all the .rb files and execute its content. So, the zip.rb file will be loaded and executed, which is referring to the content of the ZIP folder. Since you were deleted the folder the references are lost, that is the reason you get error messages in the Console.

If you want to disable loading you have to delete the loader file (zip.rb). Or rename the file after the . ( e.g.: zip.rb >> zip.rb_backup)
__
If the Sketchucation extension will not work after deleting the ZIP folder and zip.rb , just reinstall it from here: https://sketchucation.com/pluginstore?pln=SketchUcationTools

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Thank you for your explain. Good for me to learn :slight_smile:
I will try to rename it to .rb.

It seems like something called SketchUCation SCF RBZ Tools (or something similar) has part of its source code outside of its own installation folder.

This is not really the recommended way to make SketchUp extensions. Either the zip stuff should be contained within the extension using it, or it should itself be a proper extension with a name and an author showing up in the Extension Manager, and the extension using it should have error handling with a download link and installing instructions if it is missing.

The SCF SketchUcation Toolset ships with a modified version of RubyZip in its own subfolder within its RBZ, which is installed into Plugins, it’s loaded if no zip rubies are in use already:

C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\Roaming\SketchUp\SketchUp 2021\SketchUp\Plugins\SketchUcation\Data\Rubyzip

That Rubyzip subfolder [should] contains a zip.rb file and a zip subfolder of helper rb files.
It’s used to extract zip/rbz contents in older SUp versions.

Check that you have that Rubyzip subfolder and its contents.
I suspect that its contents have somehow been moved into Plugins, because when it’s installed it never adds that RB or folder into the Plugins folder !
The failure is due to the fact that the SCF tools can’t find the zip script’s required files to load it properly…

Delete the zip.rb and zip folder in the Plugins folder and reinstall the SketchUcation toolset using the Extension Manager - from here… v4.1.0
https://sketchucation.com/pluginstore?pln=SketchUcationTools
The missing files/folder should be recreated…
Restart Sketchup to resolve…
If you have copied things over from another set up perhaps you missed some vital parts - always install from the RBZ…


PS: Please update your profile to show v2021 - it currently shows v2019

I guess he already get similar explanation, just 3 post above yours… :wink: :peace_symbol:

On my Mac, I too see that zip ruby and folder in my 2021 Plugins folder. I have never knowingly moved it to that location and it is not present in SU 2020 Plugins, which is the only place I might have copied it from. It seems there is something going astray, perhaps during the installation of the SketchUcation extension, which I updated recently? There is a second copy inside that extension’s folder.

If you re-read the thread you’ll see that the problem isn’t that the ZIP folder was missing, but that it existed in the first place.

Having an extension install files outside of it’s own installation folder isn’t recommended as it contradicts the way extension normally works and causes confusion. It’s better to keep every part of the extension within the extension itself, or make the required library a proper extension with a name and author displaying in the Extension Manager.

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@ene_su

Sorry you misunderstand me.

The SCF toolset extension does not install anything outside of its own subfolder…
It has never done that.

Somehow the OP has moved the zip.rb and zip folder from deep within that extension’s subfolder into the base Plugins folder.
It still loaded OK but was confusing.
If he deletes the wayward rb and its folder and then installs the SCF toolset again from its latest RBZ it should, set things up properly, once again.
The SFC toolset only loads the zip code from its own subfolder if there is no zip methods predefined…
When the wrongly placed zip.rb loaded from Plugins OK if masked the fact that it was now all wrong.

I don’t have the faintest idea as to why the file/folder got relocated into the Plugins folder, it certainly is not done within the SCF toolset code or its RBZ structure, which is the standard SketchUcation.rb and SketchUcation subfolder…

As the zip file/folder was shown by the error messages to be missing from within the SCF subfolder’s
…/Data/ folder that shows me that someone [the OP ?] has either accidentally or deliberately moved them !

Perhaps he was messing with other Plugins folder’s subfolder contents - e.g. copying extensions across rather than installing fresh copies.
His profile says he runs v2019, but the error messages report for v2021, so he may well have not done the extensions’ installation ill advisedly, and thereby broke things…