Q&A: How to solve that plugin installer throws FileNotFoundException during installation of the CiliaQ plugins?

Q&A: How to solve that the Plugin Installer throws a java.io.FileNotFoundException during installation of the CiliaQ plugins?

Answer provided on 9th of October 2020.

The problem

When installing the CiliaQ plugins to a FIJI distribution on Mac OS, e.g. by dragging & dropping the plugin files, e.g. CiliaQ_Preparator....jar) into the FIJI window, FIJI's plugin installer throws a java.io.FileNotFoundException.

The solution

This relates to a problem of FIJI/ImageJ with the "path randomization" performed by Mac OS. Mac OS generates random paths for software that is placed in the Applications folder and continuously shifts the files to new random paths as a security mechanism. However, in some cases, FIJI cannot deal with this process and cannot find its own files.

You can circumvent this by placing your Fiji distribution somewhere else than in the Applications directory, i.e. if you just drag the FIJI software to the desktop or the documents directory and launch it from there, this error will no longer appear during installation.