Since the 5.6 update, if any of the asset package paths in the localisation tool point to an unmounted/disabled plugin it will early-exit from the asset path processing code and end up not processing *any* of the asset paths.
This is due to UGatherTextFromAssetsCommandlet::BuildPackagePathsFilter() in GatherTextFromAssetsCommandlet.cpp - the calls to FPackageName::TryConvertFilenameToLongPackageName() will fail if the file points to an asset that is inside a plugin that isn’t mounted. This will cause it to return false, aborting processing all paths.
From the code comments and output log text, this should just output a warning on the bad path instead and continue processing.
Create a new project and add some content with localised strings
Create a game plugin with content with localised strings
Set up localisation using the dashboard using folders from the project content and the plugin content
Check that ‘gather text’ works and gathers text from uassets
Disable the plugin
Try to ‘gather text’ and note that it doesn’t gather any strings from uassets, but leaves a message in the log: “Skipping first pass PackagePaths filter due to non-content IncludePathFilters: (Plugin path)”
Thank you for the repro steps. Using them I was able to see this issue consistently. I also tested this in the current release branch (5.7.1) and found that it is no longer an issue. I can disable the plugin which is added to the include paths for the localization target and It is still able to gather text from included modules that arent disabled.
To help you cherry pick the commit I’ve attempted to find what exact change list that this occurred in but have not had any luck, especially when looking at UGatherTextFromAssetsCommandlet::BuildPackagePathsFilter. There are no changes within the function. I suspect the issue was resolved alongside other changes such as the Added support for a multi-process gathering in 5.7. Which means cherry picking the commit might be a bit difficult. Other options include upgrading your project to 5.7 or to remove those plugins from the gather text process while they are disabled.
I hope that is enough the give you a path forward.