I got one case last week, in which it is reported that Inventor cannot recognize one add-in if the binary (dll) is deployed to a path that contains non-English chars. e.g. the *.addin file is:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
……
<DisplayName>VBNetRibbonDemo</DisplayName>
<Description>VBNetRibbonDemo</Description>
<Assembly>C:\temp\新建文件夹\VBNetRibbonDemo.dll</Assembly>
Where新建文件夹 is a Chinese string. As you can see, the file header has specified xml with utf-8, however it does not help.
I scratched my head, however did not get a clue what the problem is. And I beleieved both the customer and I have missed something, otherwise, many developers who are working with non-English add-in would have complained.
I had to ask help of engineer team. When one engineer opened my *.addin file at his side, the Chinese chars are messy. I suddenly realized what my problem is.
I opened the *.addin and added Chinese chars by notepad and simply saved the file, while it is ANSI format!. After switching to utf-8 and saving again, it can also work at my side now!
The customer is running the vbscript file to create the addin file. There may be something wrong in creating the *.addin file. thus the file does not tell the correct chars to Inventor.
I am writing down this issue for your reference.