# Disable plugins without restarting?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-plugins-without-restarting/34980
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [October 27, 2015, 6:24pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-plugins-without-restarting/34980 "2015-10-27T18:24:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@kcoop](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kcoop)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2015, 6:24pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-plugins-without-restarting/34980/1 "2015-10-27T18:24:59Z")
I’m finding Amazon oneboxes are failing to expand on my production server, but they work on [meta.discourse.org](http://meta.discourse.org), and on my dev site. I’m thinking it’s likely a conflict with discourse-affiliate or discourse-adplugin. I’m able to ‘soft’ disable discourse-affiliate, since it has a setting, but I’m not sure that’s trustworthy in testing this, and there isn’t one for discourse-adplugin.
Restarting with launcher is very obtrusive at this point, probably a 20 minute down time. Is there a way to disable plugins without this? Don’t mind ssh if it’s relatively bullet proof.
---
### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2015, 7:28pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-plugins-without-restarting/34980/2 "2015-10-27T19:28:52Z")
> [@kcoop](#):
>
> Restarting with launcher is very obtrusive
You’re not testing in a non-live site?
Anyway, AFAIK disabling a plugin means it won’t “do its thing” but as Discourse compiles plugin code a lot of it may still be causing conflicts.
The only sure way I’ve found is to _uninstall_ (remove) the plugin then rebuild
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### Author:  [@kcoop](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kcoop)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2015, 8:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-plugins-without-restarting/34980/3 "2015-10-27T20:32:00Z")
I am testing in a non-live site, but was doing so without those plugins for various reasons. I am now adding them on the non-live site to see if I can replicate it.
I understand what you mean about the code’s presence alone being enough to cause problems. What I guess I’m wondering is if there’s a way to only partially rebuild that isn’t so costly in time. I can, for example, update to new versions of git hosted plugins from the docker manager; is there a way to remove a plugin using this same execution path?
---
### Author:  [@JSey](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JSey)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-plugins-without-restarting/34980/4 "2015-10-27T20:46:16Z")
> [@kcoop](#):
>
> Restarting with launcher is very obtrusive at this point
You could also do a
```
RAILS_ENV=production rake assets:precompile
```
in the /var/www/discourse directory if you’ve SSH’d in, and then do a
```
sv restart unicorn
```
…that should be much faster. You can move plugins in and out of /var/www/discourse/plugins, which should do the trick…
---
### Author:  [@kcoop](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kcoop)
#### Post date: [October 27, 2015, 11:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-plugins-without-restarting/34980/5 "2015-10-27T23:14:13Z")
Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 8:54am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-plugins-without-restarting/34980/6 "2015-10-28T08:54:44Z")
Note, rake is a shell script that takes care of env in the docker container, no need to specify it again
---
### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2018, 10:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-plugins-without-restarting/34980/7 "2018-11-18T10:10:48Z")
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2018, 4:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-plugins-without-restarting/34980/8 "2018-11-18T16:50:58Z")
@sam added a Discourse “[safe mode](https://meta.discourse.org/t/53504?silent=true)” to handle this case
> [@Using Safe Mode to troubleshoot issues with themes and plugins](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-use-discourse-safe-mode/53504):
>
> bookmark This guide explains how to use Discourse’s [Safe Mode](https://meta.discourse.org/t/53504?silent=true) to troubleshoot issues with themes and plugins. person_raising_hand Required user level: All users Discourse offers a “JavaScript [Safe Mode](https://meta.discourse.org/t/53504?silent=true)” that allows any user to isolate the root cause of JavaScript issues caused by plugins, themes, or theme components. This feature is particularly useful for troubleshooting problems on your Discourse site. Accessing [Safe Mode](https://meta.discourse.org/t/53504?silent=true) To access [Safe Mode](https://meta.discourse.org/t/53504?silent=true), follow these steps: Open a new browse…
---
### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2021, 4:15pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-plugins-without-restarting/34980/9 "2021-09-10T16:15:46Z")
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2021, 12:49am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disable-plugins-without-restarting/34980/10 "2021-10-12T00:49:06Z")