Well, I was pleasantly surprised, sirinsidiator, to find that ESO quietly discarded my first attempt to load a duplicate "LoadAddon" via an embedded folder. So I was wrong, again... darn it! But now I know why I was wrong which I did not know before.
The good news is that I also proved to my satisfaction that the "LoadAddon" stub does not interfere with anything ESO does and it can help trap and debug really dumb packaging mistakes. In other words; it doesn't hurt anything and it can help in specific circumstances.
This is the content of a the first LoadAddon folder. This is the folder I would use on the Live servers. LoadAddon loaded without error and successfully created its "LoadAddon" global table. LoadAddon was left running as a Stand-Alone add-on while the other tests were completed.
Code:
## Title: LoadAddon
## Description: A Stand-Alone Stub for loading and updating Stand-Alone Add-ons.
## Version: 1.0.0
## AddOnVersion: 100
## APIVersion: 100025 100026
## DependsOn:
## SavedVariables:
## Contributors: Seerah, sirinsidiator, Votan, Baertram, and many more
## Author: Drakanwulf & Hawkeye1889
LoadAddon.lua
; This Add-on was not created by, affiliated with, or sponsored by, ZeniMax Media Inc. or its affiliates.
; The Elder Scrolls® and related logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of ZeniMax Media Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.
; All rights reserved
;
; You can read the full terms at https://account.elderscrollsonline.com/add-on-terms
And this is the content of the first test of the TestEmbedding folder and manifest file. As you can see, all it does is try to load a "LoadAddon" folder a second time. ESO caught this mistake and quietly disposed of the duplicate load attempt. This is a really good thing. I did not fully comprehend the significance of this improvement until I saw it for myself.
Code:
## Title: LoadAddon
## Description: A Stand-Alone Stub for loading and updating Stand-Alone Add-ons.
## Version: 1.0.0
## AddOnVersion: 100
## APIVersion: 100025 100026
## DependsOn:
## SavedVariables:
## Contributors: Seerah, sirinsidiator, Votan, Baertram, and many more
## Author: Drakanwulf & Hawkeye1889
LoadAddon
; LoadAddon.lua
; This Add-on was not created by, affiliated with, or sponsored by, ZeniMax Media Inc. or its affiliates.
; The Elder Scrolls® and related logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of ZeniMax Media Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.
; All rights reserved
;
; You can read the full terms at https://account.elderscrollsonline.com/add-on-terms
And this is the content of the second test of the TestEmbedding folder and manifest file. As you can see, this test contains a really stupid mistake because the manifest tries to load the "LoadAddon" folder a second time which ESO caught, but ESO did not catch the third attempt to load the "LoadAddon.lua" file itself. ESO passed the third try through to the add-on code when it loaded the add-on by mistake.
Code:
## Title: LoadAddon
## Description: A Stand-Alone Stub for loading and updating Stand-Alone Add-ons.
## Version: 1.0.0
## AddOnVersion: 100
## APIVersion: 100025 100026
## DependsOn:
## SavedVariables:
## Contributors: Seerah, sirinsidiator, Votan, Baertram, and many more
## Author: Drakanwulf & Hawkeye1889
LoadAddon
LoadAddon.lua
; This Add-on was not created by, affiliated with, or sponsored by, ZeniMax Media Inc. or its affiliates.
; The Elder Scrolls® and related logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of ZeniMax Media Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.
; All rights reserved
;
; You can read the full terms at https://account.elderscrollsonline.com/add-on-terms
The attachment is a cropped screenshot of a ZBug window showing the assertion trap message for the really stupid, duplicate attempt. This was a bad thing, in my opinion, because the first load of LoadAddon (AddOnVersion 100) was still running when the "third" load was requested. A "/tbug LoadAddon" command showed that the global "LoadAddon" link was still there after all the tests and rejections had been completed.
I think you can verify what I did by using one of your own Stand-Alone add-ons to corroborate the hiccup in the duplicate load detection and prevention methodology. Anyway, I am a happy camper again. Thanks for all your help and assistance. We can continue this discussion in private on the Gitter channel if you would like to do so.