[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@Hitch - that is based on a sample of one

[...]

After one restart I noticed ePubTools wasn't on the menu, I went to COM Addins, saw it was unchecked; so, with a deep sigh** I checked it and carried on with my "IS&EP" tests.

lol. Yep, this damn COM Addons is so annoying. And like mentioned previously, I can't figure out a rhyme or reason on why it disables. Sometimes it happens if I closed a document and opened up the same exact one minutes later.

Now that I'm searching for it, I've found oddly similar complaints with Outlook:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...m-the-registry
https://community.spiceworks.com/top...or-slow-addins

Looks like there might be a thing added to more recent (2010+) versions of Office that auto-disables "slow" add-ins.

which lead me to these Microsoft links:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/off...dd-ins-enabled
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/eme...-slow-add-ins/

That last link mentioned this:

Outlook's resiliency logic was introduced with Outlook 2013 and it builds on the foundation set by the resiliency logic in Outlook 2010. As opposed to 2010, Outlook 2013 allows controlling how slow add-ins are handled, giving the users the option to go with the default logic and disable add-ins that take longer than 1 second to load or unload for example, or choose to always enable a certain add-in.

That last one also has some instructions on how to get it to NEVER disable the add-in (but this is for Outlook):

Spoiler:

Solution / Workaround
To work around the resiliency logic, one can use a simple .reg file and add the add-in to the trusted addins list or a Group Policy Object to deploy the same values that would be generated locally to all the users in the domain:

1. Add a dword entry called ADDIN_NAME with a value data of 1 under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Offi ce\1x.0\Outlook\Resiliency\AddinList

2. Set the LoadBehavior (US English spelling!) dword value to 3 under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outloo k\Addins\ADDIN_NAME

3. Delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\1x.0\O utlook\Resiliency\DisabledItems key

4.Re-create the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\1x.0\O utlook\Resiliency\DisabledItems key

5. Delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\1x.0\O utlook\Resiliency\CrashingAddinList key

6. Re-create the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\1x.0\O utlook\Resiliency\CrashingAddinList key

7.Add a dword entry called ADDIN_NAME with a value of 1 under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\1x.0\O utlook\Resiliency\DoNotDisableAddinList

... and here's another few I stumbled upon:

Re-enabling Microsoft Word Add-In after Error

One of our customers had the problem, that each time he started Word, he had to manually activate the Add-In (Word Options > Add-Ins > Go... > tick the checkbox for the corresponding Add-In). [...]

Or this one:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/...or/td-p/125516

where the person had their addin being disabled after a crash. They mentioned looking in the:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Office/15.0/Word/AddInLoadTimes

I did poke around in my own Registry, and see this folder:

Note: I currently have Word 2016.

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word\AddInLoadTimes

with a:

Name: Toxaris.ePUB Tools
Type: REB_BINARY
Data:
05 00 00 00 96 01 00 00
87 01 00 00 A6 01 00 00
68 01 00 00 58 01 00 00

No idea what that's used for... but according to the above link, once the person deleted it for their plugin... Word stopped auto-disabling their plugin. (But maybe they only had a sample of one! lol)

One of our customers had the problem, that each time he started Word, he had to manually activate the Add-In (Word Options > Add-Ins > Go... > tick the checkbox for the corresponding Add-In). [...]

Long Story Short

Perhaps EPUB Tools hung/crashed some time in the past, which created that registry key.

Then because of that registry key, Word thinks EPUBTools is "slow" and goes on the random hunt to disable automatically.

(Perhaps this also occurs after you do a huge cleanup/export? I'll have to pay more attention on what I'm working on before it disables.)