ionic - adding plugin fails because it already exists, removing plugin fails because it doesn't exist

Question

I've some how managed to mess up my Ionic project... some help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm trying to add cordova-plugin-camera so I what I'm doing is:

$ cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-camera this returns an error:

Installing "cordova-plugin-camera" for android
Android Studio project detected
Error during processing of action! Attempting to revert...
Failed to install 'cordova-plugin-camera': CordovaError: Uh oh!
"C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\app\src\main\res\xml\camera_provider_paths.xml" already exists!
    at copyNewFile (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\lib\pluginHandlers.js:261:45)
    at install (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\lib\pluginHandlers.js:51:17)
    at ActionStack.process (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\cordova-common\src\ActionStack.js:56:25)
    at PluginManager.doOperation (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\cordova-common\src\PluginManager.js:114:20)
    at PluginManager.addPlugin (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\cordova-common\src\PluginManager.js:144:17)
    at C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\Api.js:247:74
    at _fulfilled (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:854:54)
    at self.promiseDispatch.done (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:883:30)
    at Promise.promise.promiseDispatch (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:816:13)
    at C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:570:49
(node:26116) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: CordovaError: Uh oh!
"C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\app\src\main\res\xml\camera_provider_paths.xml" already exists!
    at copyNewFile (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\lib\pluginHandlers.js:261:45)
    at install (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\lib\pluginHandlers.js:51:17)
    at ActionStack.process (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\cordova-common\src\ActionStack.js:56:25)
    at PluginManager.doOperation (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\cordova-common\src\PluginManager.js:114:20)
    at PluginManager.addPlugin (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\cordova-common\src\PluginManager.js:144:17)
    at C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\Api.js:247:74
    at _fulfilled (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:854:54)
    at self.promiseDispatch.done (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:883:30)
    at Promise.promise.promiseDispatch (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:816:13)
    at C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:570:49
(node:26116) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection. This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block, or by rejecting a promise which was not handled with .catch(). (rejection id: 1)
(node:26116) [DEP0018] DeprecationWarning: Unhandled promise rejections are deprecated. In the future, promise rejections that are not handled will terminate the Node.js process with a non-zero exit code.

Since it seems to exist I may as well try removing it:

$ cordova plugin rm cordova-plugin-camera which then tells me:

> cordova plugin remove cordova-plugin-camera --save
Uninstalling cordova-plugin-camera from android

Android Studio project detected

(node:18656) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open 'C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\app\src\main\assets\www\cordova_plugins.js'
    at Object.fs.openSync (fs.js:646:18)
    at Object.fs.writeFileSync (fs.js:1299:33)
    at C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\cordova-common\src\PluginManager.js:134:16
    at _fulfilled (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:854:54)
    at self.promiseDispatch.done (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:883:30)
    at Promise.promise.promiseDispatch (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:816:13)
    at C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:877:14
    at runSingle (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:137:13)
    at flush (C:\xampp\htdocs\project x\anonymous-social\platforms\android\cordova\node_modules\q\q.js:125:13)
    at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:131:7)
(node:18656) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection. This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block, or by rejecting a promise which was not handled with .catch(). (rejection id: 1)
(node:18656) [DEP0018] DeprecationWarning: Unhandled promise rejections are deprecated. In the future, promise rejections that are not handled will terminate the Node.js process with a non-zero exit code.

At this point I figure there is a problem with my Android platform so I remove the platform:

$ cordova platform remove android --save
Removing platform android from config.xml file...
Removing android from cordova.platforms array in package.json

and then adding it back seems to work fine as it returns:

--save flag or autosave detected
Saving android@~7.0.0 into config.xml file ...

Does anyone have an idea what is going? My android platform seems to be a little messed up because other plugins are doing the same thing... any help? Thank you!

Answer 1

I had a similar problem a few weeks ago. Over a period of several months I added plugins to this project, and since every plugin is stored with its exact version number I ended up in a mess of incompatible plugin versions. In the end, I started from scratch with an empty project, added all the plugins I needed and then copied my source code to this project. Not a good solution, but for me it worked.

Before you go so far, did you

• delete node_modules folder
• delete platforms folder
• edit config.xml and remove platform entries
• npm i
• ionic cordova platform add android

"smaller messups" may be corrected with this way.