Sublime Forum

Unable to get packages list under regular user in Windows

#1

Hey,

I’m messing with regular user/admin separation on Windows which is I believe not a frequent case for the most of home users. Thus, I do everything under a regular local user and provide admin password for elevated requests.
The issue I stumble upon is Package Control. First, I cannot install the Package Control itself using the menu “Tools - Install Package Control…”. Nothing happens once I click it. There is nothing in ST console. Ok, I came over it by downloading the package file and placing it under user Installed Packages folder. Now I can use Ctrl+Shift+P and select “Install Package”. Then I get “There are no packages available for installation”. Console says: “Error parsing JSON from channel https://packagecontrol.io/channel_v3.json”. However, if I run ST under admin user there is not a single problem installing both the Package Control and a package using the Package Control.
I’ve been trying to find a solution, but haven’t succeeded.
Does anybody experience the same? What is the solution to make ST Package Control work in a context of a regular user?

Thanks in advance.
Eugene

1 Like
#2

By default Sublime Text maintains all packages and settings under %APPDATA%\Sublime Text. Hence no admin privileges are requried to install Package Control or packages.

Note packagecontrol.io, the primary package registry is currently down. Thus users registered to default “channels” won’t be able to install or update any package.

Community driven channel is however up and alive.

To opt in, add the following to your Package Control.sublime-settings.

	"channels": [
		"https://packages.sublimetext.io/channel.json",
	],
1 Like
#3

I’m afraid my case has nothing in common with the web resource availability, since as I stated, it worked just fine once I restarted ST under admin account and did the same actions.

1 Like
#4

Most likely %APPDATA%\Sublime Text of your admin account is in a state with Package Control installed and a cached channel_v3.json being present, while that of your normal account isn’t.

ST4200 installs Package Control from currently down packagecontrol.io.

1 Like
#5

You’re right, it was cached. I removed the cache, and the elevated Sublime Text struggled the same way as the non-elevated one.
However, once I left the only channel for updates you suggested, the elevated ST was able to download and show the package list, whereas the regular Sublime Text wasn’t.
The ST console says:
Package Control: Channel https://packages.sublimetext.io/channel.json does not appear to be a valid channel file because the “schema_version” is not recognized. Must be one of: 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.0 or 3.0.0

1 Like
#6

This just means your normal account still has Package Control v3.x installed, which is not compatible with package information from packages.sublime.text.io

You first need to manually update to Package Control 4.

1 Like
#7

I appreciate your valuable help, you were absolutely right. I’ve copied the Package Control package from admin folder to the same folder of the regular user, and it started working.
Thanks again!

1 Like