Posts made by Anlv

Anlv

Hi everyone, I’m releasing Plugin Debug Manager, a debugging utility for Cinema 4D Python plugin development.

When working on a .pyp plugin, changing a single entry file can otherwise require reloading every Python plugin—or restarting Cinema 4D. Plugin Debug Manager reads the currently registered Python plugins and lets developers reload only the entries they are testing.

Main features:

Reads registered .pyp and .pypv plugins from Cinema 4D
Groups multiple registrations by their actual entry-file path
Displays plugin names, icons, decimal IDs, registration types, and full paths
Filters entries by filename or plugin ID
Reloads one plugin, selected plugins, or all reloadable plugins
Supports click-and-drag checkbox painting for batch selection
Persists checked entries and can move them to the top on demand
Provides Reload Plugin, Reload All, Fold All, and Unfold All context commands
Locates plugin files in Explorer or Finder through c4d.storage.ShowInFinder()
Continues processing when an individual plugin fails to reload

Implementation details:

Registry entries are collected with c4d.plugins.FilterPluginList(c4d.PLUGINTYPE_ANY, True)
Entry files and registration metadata are obtained through BasePlugin.GetFilename(), GetID(), and GetType()
Selective reloads are performed with c4d.plugins.ReloadPythonPlugin()
ReloadDocumentAfterReload(True) is called only once after the reload batch

Before reloading, the manager copies and normalizes the target file paths instead of retaining BasePlugin objects that may become invalid during the reload process. The manager itself remains visible in the list but cannot be selected or reloaded.

Compatibility:

Current target: Cinema 4D 2026.3.3
Selective reloading depends on c4d.plugins.ReloadPythonPlugin, available in this version
Other Cinema 4D versions have not yet been verified

Version: 1.3.0
Plugin ID: 1069486
Author: Anlv
Download: Plugin Debug Manager v1.3.0.zip

By the way, this is open source, and you can edit and modify it yourself to make it better suit your work habits.

Best regards,
Anlv

Anlv

@ferdinand Hi, I think the issue has been fixed. I just tried uploading an attachment (before uploading, I cleared the cache and changed the network environment), and it no longer prompts "Error: Something went wrong while parsing server response."

Thanks for your help,
Anlv

Anlv

@ferdinand A small update:

My first attempt to open the upload endpoint directly only returned Forbidden and did not display a visible Cloudflare verification page.

I then used a small userscript to submit a real multipart file upload as a top-level browser navigation instead of an XHR request. That request succeeded and returned the normal NodeBB JSON response:

{"status":{"code":"ok","message":"OK"}}

More importantly, after this top-level request, the forum’s normal attachment uploader also started working successfully.

This suggests that the top-level request allowed Cloudflare to complete or refresh its verification/clearance state, while the original XHR upload could not handle the HTML Challenge response. It appears to be a Cloudflare Challenge/clearance issue rather than a damaged file or a failure in NodeBB’s upload handler.

Anlv

@ferdinand Hi Ferdinand,

I reproduced the upload failure and found that it is caused by a Cloudflare Challenge, rather than NodeBB itself.

The upload request completes, but the response is:

Endpoint: POST /forum/api/post/upload
Status: 403 Forbidden
Server: cloudflare
cf-mitigated: challenge
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Ray ID: a1c1af0daaf34f1a-LAX
Time: 16 July 2026, 14:26:46 UTC

Cloudflare returns an HTML Challenge Page to the XHR upload request. NodeBB expects a JSON upload response, so its parser subsequently reports: “Something went wrong while parsing server response.” The 100% progress only indicates that the browser finished sending the request body.

Could you please look up this Ray ID in Cloudflare Security Events to identify which WAF/Bot Management rule issued the challenge? A narrowly scoped exception for POST /forum/api/post/upload may resolve it, since an interactive Challenge Page cannot be completed inside this AJAX upload request.

I tested with a small PNG file in Chrome on Windows. I can provide additional non-sensitive request details if needed.

Cheers,
Anlv

Anlv

Hi Ferdinand,

Here is an identical situation. I can see the file upload progress reaching 100%, followed by the error message: "Error: Something went wrong while parsing server response."

Since I am unable to successfully upload the image, below is the console information I copied.

nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:65  POST https://developers.maxon.net/forum/api/post/upload 403 (Forbidden)
send @ nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:65
ajax @ nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:65
(anonymous) @ nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:51
r.fn.ajaxSubmit @ nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:51
(anonymous) @ topic.1839ecb58ed413849a53.min.js:3
dispatch @ nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:62
De.handle @ nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:62
trigger @ nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:63
(anonymous) @ nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:63
each @ nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:62
each @ nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:62
trigger @ nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:63
a.fn.<computed> @ nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:65
push.43103.v.ajaxSubmit @ topic.1839ecb58ed413849a53.min.js:3
(anonymous) @ topic.1839ecb58ed413849a53.min.js:3
dispatch @ nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:62
De.handle @ nodebb.min.js?v=0b8ddba251d:62

Cheers,
Anlv

Anlv

Hi Community,

I noticed a small issue with Plugin Manager → Create Reload Script on Windows.

I often use Reload Python Plugins while developing Python plugins, but it reloads all Python plugins. In some cases, especially with renderer-related plugins, this can also trigger viewport/material refreshes.

Create Reload Script is very useful because it allows reloading a specific plugin only. However, on Windows, the generated script uses an unescaped path with backslashes:

plugins.ReloadPythonPlugin(
    path="C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Maxon\Maxon Cinema 4D 2026_XXXXXXXX\plugins\PluginName\PluginName.pyp",
    reloadDocumentAfterReload=False,
    reloadOnlyActiveDocument=False
)

Running the generated script in the Script Manager causes:

SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-3: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape

Manually replacing \ with /, using a raw string, or escaping the backslashes fixes the issue.

It would be great if Create Reload Script could generate a Python-safe path automatically on Windows.

Thanks!

Anlv

Another small tip: you can simply use a single <br> for line breaks — there’s no need to use <b> or </b>.

Also, just like in the script example, scripts can support localized language strings as well:

"""
Name-US:Example
Name-CN:示例
Description-US:Example line 1.<br>Example line 2.<br>Example line 3.
Description-CN:示例第 1 行。<br>示例第 2 行。<br>示例第 3 行。
"""

Anlv

Hi @ferdinand,

Yes, this example was written with the help of AI, and I performed a basic review;

I wanted to avoid installing dependencies, so I used the currently supported ctypes, but I indeed did not fully consider the issue of supporting every operating system. Thank you for the reminder.

Best regards,
Anlv

Anlv

@ferdinand Thanks for the encouragement, much appreciated!

Anlv

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some community advice. I’ve accumulated a collection of personal scripts from my previous work, and I’m now planning to integrate them into a single plugin to release for free.

However, I’ve realized that the integrated features are quite similar to several existing paid or subscription-based plugins on the market. I’m a bit concerned about whether releasing a free alternative would be seen as "harmful" to the developers who rely on those paid tools.

What is the general etiquette regarding this in the developer community? I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you!

Anlv

Hello @ferdinand,

Thank you very much for your detailed guidance and for pointing out the necessary forum procedures.

Following your suggestion, I managed to implement the multi-file selection feature by utilizing a third-party GUI API, and I successfully outputted the selected file paths to the console.

Please note that this solution has only been tested on the Windows so far. I am sharing my example script below in the hope that it might help other developers facing the same requirement:

import ctypes
from ctypes import wintypes


# Flags used by the Windows file dialog.
OFN_EXPLORER = 0x00080000          # Use the Explorer-style dialog.
OFN_ALLOWMULTISELECT = 0x00000200  # Allow selecting multiple files.
OFN_FILEMUSTEXIST = 0x00001000     # Require selected files to exist.
OFN_PATHMUSTEXIST = 0x00000800     # Require the selected path to exist.
MAX_BUFFER = 65536                 # Buffer size used to receive the result.


# OPENFILENAMEW structure used by the Windows API.
class OPENFILENAMEW(ctypes.Structure):
    _fields_ = [
        ("lStructSize", wintypes.DWORD),
        ("hwndOwner", wintypes.HWND),
        ("hInstance", wintypes.HINSTANCE),
        ("lpstrFilter", wintypes.LPCWSTR),
        ("lpstrCustomFilter", ctypes.c_wchar_p),
        ("nMaxCustFilter", wintypes.DWORD),
        ("nFilterIndex", wintypes.DWORD),
        ("lpstrFile", ctypes.c_wchar_p),
        ("nMaxFile", wintypes.DWORD),
        ("lpstrFileTitle", ctypes.c_wchar_p),
        ("nMaxFileTitle", wintypes.DWORD),
        ("lpstrInitialDir", wintypes.LPCWSTR),
        ("lpstrTitle", wintypes.LPCWSTR),
        ("Flags", wintypes.DWORD),
        ("nFileOffset", wintypes.WORD),
        ("nFileExtension", wintypes.WORD),
        ("lpstrDefExt", wintypes.LPCWSTR),
        ("lCustData", wintypes.LPARAM),
        ("lpfnHook", wintypes.LPVOID),
        ("lpTemplateName", wintypes.LPCWSTR),
        ("pvReserved", wintypes.LPVOID),
        ("dwReserved", wintypes.DWORD),
        ("FlagsEx", wintypes.DWORD),
    ]


def open_multiple_files():
    # Create a writable Unicode buffer to receive the file path data from Windows.
    buffer = ctypes.create_unicode_buffer(MAX_BUFFER)

    # Configure the parameters for the file-open dialog.
    ofn = OPENFILENAMEW()
    ofn.lStructSize = ctypes.sizeof(OPENFILENAMEW)
    ofn.hwndOwner = None
    ofn.lpstrFilter = "All Files\0*.*\0Text Files\0*.txt\0\0"
    ofn.lpstrFile = ctypes.cast(buffer, ctypes.c_wchar_p)
    ofn.nMaxFile = MAX_BUFFER
    ofn.lpstrTitle = "Select Files"
    ofn.Flags = (
        OFN_EXPLORER
        | OFN_ALLOWMULTISELECT
        | OFN_FILEMUSTEXIST
        | OFN_PATHMUSTEXIST
    )

    # Call the native Windows file selection dialog.
    comdlg32 = ctypes.windll.comdlg32
    result = comdlg32.GetOpenFileNameW(ctypes.byref(ofn))

    # The user canceled the dialog, or the call failed.
    if not result:
        err = comdlg32.CommDlgExtendedError()
        if err:
            print("GetOpenFileNameW failed, error code:", err)
        return []

    # Read the returned content from the buffer.
    # Single selection: returns a full file path.
    # Multiple selection: returns [directory, file1, file2, ...].
    raw = ctypes.wstring_at(ctypes.addressof(buffer), MAX_BUFFER)
    parts = [p for p in raw.split("\0") if p]

    if not parts:
        return []

    # If only one file was selected, return the full path directly.
    if len(parts) == 1:
        return [parts[0]]

    # If multiple files were selected, combine the directory with each filename.
    directory = parts[0]
    filenames = parts[1:]
    return [directory + "\\" + name for name in filenames]


def main():
    paths = open_multiple_files()

    if not paths:
        print("No file selected.")
        return

    print("Selected files:")
    for path in paths:
        print(path)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Best regards,
Anlv

Anlv

Hi everyone,
I found that through the “Open...” or “Merge...” options in the File menu, I can open “Load File(s)”, which allows handling multiple files.
However, with c4d.storage.LoadDialog(), I can only select a single folder or file.
In the latest SDK documentation, I couldn’t find a method to load multiple files. Is this an internal API?
My current workaround is using AddMultiLineEditText, but it’s not very user-friendly.

import c4d


def main():
    path = c4d.storage.LoadDialog(
        title="Select File",
        type=c4d.FILESELECTTYPE_ANYTHING,
        flags=c4d.FILESELECT_LOAD,
    )

    print(path)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()