See the ticket for this pull request: https://jira.autodesk.com/browse/DYN-9348

Pull Request Overview

This PR fixes installing Dynamo packages using the DynamoRevit version-specific path by implementing a singleton initialization pattern for PathManager. The fix allows the PathManager to be initialized with host version information before first access, ensuring the correct package path is used based on the host's major and minor version numbers.

Key changes:

• Added static initialization method for PathManager singleton with version parameters
• Modified DynamoModel constructor to initialize PathManager with host version information
• Replaced immediate lazy initialization with deferred initialization pattern

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Hi @RobertGlobant20, after much debugging and considering different options, here are my thoughts and recommendations. Please let me know what you think about them.

The indeterministic nature of PathManager initialization causes it to be initialized with empty PathManagerParams() if PathManager.Instance is accessed before host applications (Revit, Civil3D) have a chance to supply DynamoModel with their desired configurations.

Note that the default empty PathManagerParams() does initialize PathManager with sensible defaults, but these don't necessarily match what the host application has in mind. For example, running Dynamo in Revit gives us the defaults shown below (note that this is without your sample path fix in PR #16578, so we still see ProgramData below):

Tweaks Needed

I agree with @mjkkirschner 100% that the singleton static PathManager is a bad idea - it needs a design overhaul, and I'd opt to rip this singleton out in a heartbeat. However, we are too close to the release date for that. So here's an alternative I'm proposing to keep the risk to a minimum.

This PR is quite close to the "ideal" way, and is frankly the better approach compared to PR #16460. It just needs a few tweaks:

1. Remove the bool PathManager.isInitialized variable - checking if (lazy == null) is sufficient.

2. As Copilot suggested, use a lock for thread safety:

   private static readonly object lockObject = new object();
   
   public static void Initialize(PathManagerParams parameters)
   {
       lock (lockObject)
       {
           if (lazy != null)
           {
               // Or do we want to reset the existing instance? See below for discussions.
               throw new InvalidOperationException("PathManager has already been initialized.");
           }
   
           lazy = new Lazy<PathManager>(() => new PathManager(parameters));
       }
   }
   
   public static PathManager Instance
   {
       get
       {
           if (lazy == null)
           {
               lock (lockObject)
               {
                   if (lazy == null)
                   {
                       // Fallback to default if not initialized
                       lazy = new Lazy<PathManager>(() => new PathManager(new PathManagerParams()));
                   }
               }
           }
   
           return lazy.Value;
       }
   }

3. In DynamoModel.CreatePathManager(), we will call your new PathManager.Initialize() method:

   internal PathManager CreatePathManager(IStartConfiguration config)
   {
       var pathManagerParams = new PathManagerParams();
   
       var version = config.HostAnalyticsInfo.HostVersion;
       if (version != null)
       {
           // Use host versions if provided
           pathManagerParams.MajorFileVersion = version.Major;
           pathManagerParams.MinorFileVersion = version.Minor;
       }
   
       Dynamo.Core.PathManager.Initialize(pathManagerParams);
   
       // Existing code...
       if (!config.StartInTestMode) { }
   }

4. After AssignHostPathAndIPathResolver is called with the host path, the paths will be as shown below, which are quite sensible (again, this is without your sample path fix in PR #16578, so we still see ProgramData below):

   Path	Value
   BackupDirectory	%AppData%\Dynamo\Dynamo Revit\backup
   DefaultBackupDirectory	%AppData%\Dynamo\Dynamo Revit\backup
   DefaultPackagesDirectory	%AppData%\Dynamo\Dynamo Revit\4.0\packages
   DefaultUserDefinitions	%AppData%\Dynamo\Dynamo Revit\4.0\definitions
   LogDirectory	%AppData%\Dynamo\Dynamo Revit\4.0\Logs
   PreferenceFilePath	%AppData%\Dynamo\Dynamo Revit\4.0\DynamoSettings.xml
   PythonTemplateFilePath	%AppData%\Dynamo\Dynamo Revit\4.0\PythonTemplate.py
   UserDataDirectory	%AppData%\Dynamo\Dynamo Revit\4.0
   CommonDataDirectory	%ProgramData%\Autodesk\RVT 2027\Dynamo\4.0
   DefaultTemplatesDirectory	%ProgramData%\Autodesk\RVT 2027\Dynamo\templates\en-US
   SamplesDirectory	%ProgramData%\Autodesk\RVT 2027\Dynamo\samples\en-US
   DynamoCoreDirectory	%UserProfile%\Documents\dev\Dynamo\bin\AnyCPU\Debug
   HostApplicationDirectory	%UserProfile%\Documents\dev\DynamoRevit\bin\NET100\Debug\Revit

5. Finally, EnsureDirectoryExistence will be called to actually create these directories, so there won't be any race conditions - the paths will have the correct values when directories are created.

Final Thoughts

• We still need to remove the IPathResolver.CommonDataRootFolder property as we move things to AppData. Both Revit and Civil3D are providing this value right now. If we'd like to keep it for compatibility reasons, we may want to mark it as obsolete and ignore its value for now.

• The above Initialize approach will likely not make things better for Civil3D. If I'm reading it correctly, they force create a PathManager before they call AcDynamoModel.Start, which instantiates our DynamoModel, so we lose the chance to properly call Initialize with the right data. We may want to consider making Initialize override and recreate a new instance of PathManager. Crude, I know, but it would make things work for Civil3D.

• One step closer, great work! Please help close out PR #16460 🙂

LGTM with one comment @benglin I think this PR is pending your another look

Thanks for accommodating the changes, @RobertGlobant20, good work as always! LGTM! 🚀