Plugins downloaded from here do not contain the start.php file!

So all the bundled plugins work fine... but every third party plugin I downloaded from this very site do not work. Inside Elgg I get the error that has been discussed in here before "This plugin is invalid: The required file "start.php" is missing."   The problem is in all those discussions the start.php really is present within the directory and the issue was usually a permissions issue. However for me, EVERY SINGLE 3rd party plugin I download from this site doesn't even contain a start.php file at all. I've checked... there is no start.php file in any of them. So I'm at a loss on how I'm supposed to get these plugins working. All the ones I downloaded were for the current 3.3 version. One was even updated just 15 days ago so I know I'm not having a version problem either. I could use any and all help! Thanks a ton!

  • 1 - Check how you placed these plugins. The start.php should be in:

    /mod/plugin_name/start.php

    2 - Check the read/write rights permissions on these uploaded plugins' directories/files.

    3 - As always, try use search before creating a new discussion.

  • Are you definitely sure that you have Elgg version 3.3 installed? Could it be that you have installed Elgg 2.3 instead?

    Before Elgg 3 a start.php file was required. Now it could have happened that you unzipped the plugin archive within a subfolder of the plugin folder inside the mod directory (i.e. you would have mod/plugin_name/plugin_name/start.php instead of mod/plugin_name/start.php). Or there was a permission issue with the unzipped files preventing the webserver from accessing/reading these files (i.e. there files seems non-existing to the webserver even when being there).

    With Elgg 3 the plugins no longer need to have the start.php file in all cases. For the time being they still can have a start.php. Alternatively, they can have a ootstrap class containing the init function. Or if a plugin doesn't require an init function the plugin won't need a start.php or bootstrap class at all.

    The start.php file not being present in a plugin compatible with Elgg 3 should be no problem. But if you try a plugin without start.php written for Elgg 3 on Elgg 2 it will result in the error message about the missing start.php file. But even with the start.php file re-added the plugin won't work on Elgg 2 as it was released for Elgg 3!

    So, make sure you really have Elgg 3.3 installed. Make sure you use the plugin versions compatible with your Elgg version (may it be Elgg 2 or 3). And make sure the permissions assigned to the files and folders of the plugin and the owner:group the plugin files/folder belong to are correct.