Sync reliably between devices. I’m having the hardest time. It’s as if I set up all my plugins on one device, but then when I switch to another, the plugins I’ve previously set up aren’t there, and then on the first machine, the community plugins disappear again. It’s almost as if opening up a 2nd device is registering a “Delete this plugin” event from Sync and so the primary / first / installing device also loses the plugin. Very frustrating.
I understand it may be frustrating, but saying you’ve tried “All the things” doesn’t really help with troubleshooting. Assuming you are using the official Obsidian Sync:
What devices are involved? What version(s) of Obsidian are you using?
What are your Obsidian Sync Settings on each device? The settings themselves don’t sync and need to be set per-device.
What are some scenarios where this happens? e.g. “Hadn’t opened Obsidian on the iPad in a week and when it connected my community plugins were removed.”
What do the sync logs say when this happens? What device is “pushing” the change?
If you’re using the Obsidian Sync service: when setting and plugin changes are pulled in by Sync they don’t apply until the app has restarted. If you open Settings before doing that, you will see the old state and it may be saved and synced. There is a feature request to improve this which you can upvote: Obsidian Sync: Hot\Live Reload of plugin settings and hotkeys after sync