Joomla Error – Plugin Uninstall: Folder field empty, cannot remove files

When trying to remove an extension in Joomla 2.5, sometimes you may get the following error:

Plugin Uninstall: Folder field empty, cannot remove files

What causes this error?

According to reports in the Joomla forums, this error most likely is caused by differences in table structures between Joomla 1.5 and later versions of Joomla.

How to get around this error

To uninstall an extension when receiving this error, one solution is to remove the extension’s entry from within your Joomla 2.5 database. While this may not generally be the cleanest method, it gets the job done.

1. Log into your Joomla 2.5 admin backend
2. 

   Find the id of the plugin you wish to remove.

   To do this, in the top menu click Extensions and then click Extension Manager. Then, click the Manage tab. In the list of extensions on the page, find the ID of the extension under the ID column.

   In this example, we are going to delete the Authentication – GMail plugin, which has an ID of 400

3. Log into phpMyAdmin and open the _extensions table of your Joomla 2.5 database
4. 

   Browse the table until you find the extension that you want to remove. The ID that you found in step 2 will be the same as the extension_id column in your extensions table. When you find the entry, click “Delete”.

   Congratulations, you have successfully uninstalled a Joomla 2.5 extension using phpMyAdmin!

   Please be aware however that this simply deletes the extension from the database. If there are any residual files form the extension still on the server, you will still need to remove them.