Failure to write config in app.json, no community plugins

Help
1

Steps to reproduce

Open a freshly installed Obsidian and activate community plugins in the UI. It reloads, but the community plugins are still disabled. Investigating the issue showed that the config in .obsidian/app.json remains empty. Permissions and everythings is ok. Themes work, so this file in the same context is correctly written.
I tried this in the sandbox, too. Same issue there.

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]

Y

Expected result

I expect the config to be saved and applied.

Actual result

Nothing I can repeat the activation of plugins, but they are still disabled.

Environment

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: 1.12.7
Installer version: 1.12.7
Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 25.3.0: Wed Jan 28 20:53:31 PST 2026; root:xnu-12377.91.3~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T8103 25.3.0
Login status: not logged in
Language: en-GB
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on
RECOMMENDATIONS:
none

Additional information

2

I haven’t tried to repro (yet ? :innocent: ) but what do you mean by that, more precisely ?

Do you mean that you enable Restricted mode in Community plugins while having plugins installed and enabled in your vault ? Or disable Restricted mode to be able to install community plugins ? … Or something else ?

Now this :backhand_index_pointing_down: sounds a bit strange to me…

I mean, as far as I know, the list of enabled community plugins isn’t stored in the app.json but in the community-plugins.json (while the disabled/enabled Core plugins are stored in the core-plugins.json)

3

Thanks for your answer!

Sorry if my description was confusing. I wanted to disable restricted mode to be able to install community plugins. And it does not work. It reloads and is still restricted. Manual restart doesn’t help either.

I cannot add any community plugins, because I am stuck in restricted mode. So I did not expect a list of installed plugins to appear. That’s why I thought there would be some kind of “config flag” in app.json. But that is just a guess, to be honest.

4

The restricted mode setting is stored outside of that folder, in a place only accessible to the app itself.

5

Ok. That might help me debug the issue.

Where is that stored, so that I can have a look whether it is stored there or not?

6

The file itself is not really readable.

You can run this in the dev console to get the state
localStorage.getItem(‘enable-plugin-’ + this.app.appId)

7

Thanks, that is helpful. I can see the state in Local Storage now.
Ok, from a short debug with viewing the “local storage”, it toggles the enable-plugin of the app twice: it if false, if I open the setting. when I click “turn it on” it toggles to “true”. Then I see the “Restricted Mode”-Message in the UI. I need to click “Turn on and reload” there, to enable the plugins. But that toggles the enabled flag again to false.

What is the intended logic here? Because bypassing the UI by setting the enabled flag to “true” quitting the app, starting it again (verifying it is still true, and it is) has not effect on the settings. I still cannot add a community plugin. What else would I need to set as a workaround to get plugins?

Is that just my system? Or is that a bug in the latest release?

8

“Turn on and reload” enables restricted mode.
Also see that little text next to that button.

When you see that button you can install plugins from the “Browse” button.