Epic Games Laucher, Unreal Engine tab, Can't update installed plugins

General Issues and Bug Reporting (Unreal Engine)
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Summary

When clicking on the Update plugin in the Epic Launcher, unreal engine tab, installed plugins, “update”, it does nothing, like the button don’t have any code associated with it.

For me, it started happenning all the way back on UE5.7, and still happenning today on UE5.8.2

I’m running Windows 11 Home 25H2

What Type of Bug are you experiencing?

UI / Tools

Steps to Reproduce

Unsure, have a plugin installed on the engine, wait it get some update, try to update it from the epic launcher

Expected Result

It should update the plugin, or fix staled files/cache and update

Observed Result

Nothing happens, no error, no warning, no nothing

Affects Versions

5.8
5.7

Platform(s)

Windows

Upload an image

plugin.png
plugin.png1008×705 92.6 KB

Video

For crash reports, include your callstack

there is a weird error at the end, not sure if it is related:
[2026.09.02-18.03.51:997][976]~SCommunityPortalMainImpl UEPVM:3
[2026.09.02-18.03.52:005][976][MainRouter] RedirectToUrl(‘/null’)
[2026.09.02-18.03.52:005][976][MainRouter] Resolved To: ‘/null’
[2026.09.02-18.03.52:005][976][MainRouter] Best Match: null
[2026.09.02-18.03.52:005][976][MainRouter] Navigation Stopped. Already at location.
[2026.09.02-18.03.52:005][976][MainRouter] Navigation Canceled.
[2026.09.02-18.03.52:006][976][MainRouter] Refresh(‘/null’)
[2026.09.02-18.03.52:006][976][MainRouter] Best Match: invalid - [0] states compared
[2026.09.02-18.03.52:006][976][MainRouter] Navigation Canceled.
[2026.09.02-18.03.52:006][976]Portal: Destroying User Presentation Layer

Additional Notes

The video reference shows from openning the launcher to the problem, it does take time for it to load all asset library, can safely be skipped to 1:44

Let me know of any files, logs or whatever I can collect from the launcher that will help with this.

Note that this is after running the powershell script from this thread: Fab is not showing up anywhere at all. - #41 by ElenaNizhnik

Note 2 is that I already uninstall epic launcher, unreal, and deleted the %appdata%, vault, cach, and related folders before, and the problem just comes back after while.

There is also this thread, where multiple people report the same issue: Cant update any plugin after unreal 5.7.4 update - #23 by D4KiR

And a thread from 2025: Plugin does not update

cc: @Flak

Fab is not showing up anywhere at all.
Cant update any plugin after unreal 5.7.4 update
2

thank you for posting this as a separate bug/issue report @Swornh. Shared this with the team and will follow-up once I have more information.

3

EpicPluginUpdateFixer-1.0.0-windows-x64.zip (13.0 MB)This can temporarily fix the issue

4

Title: Plugin updates fail when MainGame association points to the Unreal Engine installation — verified workaround on UE 5.6.1

Summary

On my machine, Blueprint Assist updates under UE 5.6.1 are affected by the MainGame association fields in the plugin’s installation manifest.

When these fields point to the Unreal Engine installation, the Launcher targets UE_5.6 for the update request and subsequently fails to create an installation task. After changing only the three MainGame identifiers to reference Blueprint Assist itself, the Launcher correctly targeted the plugin, downloaded the update, and completed installation.

This confirms a local trigger condition and a working workaround. Without access to the Launcher’s internal implementation, I cannot determine the underlying code defect or whether this behavior relates to an intended design.

Controlled Test

The test changed only three fields in the following installation manifest:

C:\ProgramData\Epic\EpicGamesLauncher\Data\Manifests\DA0D75FC4C0199B7FA370A91A006D305.item
Field Original value Test value
MainGameCatalogNamespace ue 89efe5924d3d467c839449ab6ab52e7f
MainGameCatalogItemId 73923380f4d944d5bcb6d77a0640d26d 2f4af062b97742948633c711f669951c
MainGameAppName UE_5.6 Blueprin0777d1c84a45V15

The manifest was backed up before modification. A comparison confirmed that these were the only three fields with semantic changes. HostInstallationGuid, CompatibleApps, and InstallLocation retained their original values.

The Epic Games Launcher was fully closed before editing the manifest.

Before the change

Multiple consecutive update attempts targeted UE_5.6 and failed with:

unable to create Install Task

After the change — 16:43:29

  • PopulateInstallConfigFromCurrent reported Blueprint Assist itself as MainAppId.
  • CreateInstallRequest targeted Blueprin0777d1c84a45V15.
  • An installation task with Action: Update was successfully created.
  • The target build was 5.6.0-57374845.

Installation completed — 16:44:56

  • ProcessSuccess: TRUE
  • ErrorCode: OK
  • HandleTaskComplete referenced Blueprint Assist with AlertCode=[ok].
  • The local BlueprintAssist.uplugin file’s VersionName changed from 4.9.2 to 4.9.4.
  • The installation manifest reported bIsIncompleteInstall=false.

Expected Behavior

Updating an installed plugin should create an update task for that plugin and complete successfully, while preserving its association with the appropriate Unreal Engine installation.

Actual Behavior

With the original MainGame association pointing to UE_5.6, the update request targeted the engine and failed to create an installation task. Changing the association to reference the plugin itself allowed the update to complete.

Why the Issue May Recur

After installation completed, the logs explicitly showed ResolvePluginMainGameAssociation reassociating Blueprint Assist with UE_5.6. The Launcher automatically changed MainGameAppName back to UE_5.6.

The manifest modification is therefore a verified update workaround, not a permanent fix to the Launcher. Future updates may encounter the same issue.

The entire old manifest should not be restored after a successful update, because doing so would revert version information and other installation metadata.

Other Potentially Affected Installations

The following installed plugins also have MainGame associations pointing to their engine installations and have exhibited similar engine-targeted task failures or duplicate-task skipping during update attempts:

  • UE 5.6: SteamCore PRO
  • UE 5.8.2: Blueprint Assist, SteamCore PRO, and Electronic Nodes

The workaround has not yet been applied and validated individually for these installations. Successful updates have only been confirmed for Blueprint Assist under UE 5.6.1.

Troubleshooting Already Performed and Evidence Limitations

  • Rebuilding the Launcher’s webcache did not resolve the issue.
  • The download queue was empty when checked.
  • The installed plugins’ .item manifests were valid and parseable. The relevant manifests were not marked as incomplete installations.
  • Item is null and Found 0 Mod to UPDATE also appeared during the successful controlled test. These messages alone should therefore not be treated as evidence of the root cause.
  • The desktop automation tool could not obtain a controllable Launcher window. I clicked the update button manually, and the outcome was verified using both local logs and the installed plugin version.

Request for Investigation

Please investigate how plugin update requests resolve their target from the MainGame association fields, and why an association with the host engine causes the update request to target the engine and fail in this case.

Please also investigate whether the post-installation ResolvePluginMainGameAssociation step restores the condition that caused the failure, potentially allowing the issue to recur on subsequent updates.

5

This is still a serious issue that can’t really screw our environments. What’s the priority on this? People are, as is typical, accusing Epic of not caring about these sorts of things… but I can’t help but feel there is some movement on it.

My environment is now currently screwed from this annoying bug, so I have to resort to shoddy workarounds and alternative tools. Not ideal.

6

This problem has been bothering me for several months. I reinstalled Epic several times and spent a long time tinkering. Finally, I discovered: The Epic developers wrote a bunch of bugs in the new Epic launcher that couldn’t be fixed. The more I tried to fix them, the more problems arose. Could it be that the code was written by an AI?

My ultimate suggestion is - reinstall the old version! Also, don’t blindly give administrative privileges to the engine-related programs when running them. Otherwise, when using UE, you will encounter the problem of being unable to drag in assets.

8

The status of UE-398559 changed to ‘Needs Triage’. We are routing this to the appropriate team for investigation.

9

I’ve also been running into the same issue for a long time.

Reading through the comments here, I was ‘inspired’ to try and download assets through the FAB plugin inside UE5, and to my surprise it actually does update the plugin to the latest version!

Maybe this can help anyone in some way :slight_smile: