Targeting a layer when none is selected.

Found the same problem after all these years... Has this bug been reported?

It happens both when no layer is selected and when all layers are selected.

So far, the solutions below work (a big thank you!), but it leaves kind of unnecessary code in the script...

Hi Davide,

I have the same error as you on the last version of Photoshop (19.1.4).

I know you said you don't want AM code, but somehow this will delete all the hidden layers with no error on the "delete".

deleteAllHiddenLayers();
function deleteAllHiddenLayers() {
  var c2t = function (s) { return app.charIDToTypeID(s); };
  var s2t = function (s) { return app.stringIDToTypeID(s); };
  var descriptor = new ActionDescriptor();
  var reference = new ActionReference();
  reference.putEnumerated( s2t( "layer" ), s2t( "ordinal" ), s2t( "hidden" ));
  descriptor.putReference( c2t( "null" ), reference );
  executeAction( s2t( "delete" ), descriptor, DialogModes.NO );
}

function reselect_active_layer()
    {
    var r = new ActionReference();   
    r.putProperty(stringIDToTypeID("property"), stringIDToTypeID("layerID"));       
    r.putEnumerated(stringIDToTypeID("layer"), stringIDToTypeID("ordinal"), stringIDToTypeID("targetEnum"));   
    var id = executeActionGet(r).getInteger(stringIDToTypeID("layerID"));
    var r = new ActionReference();
    r.putEnumerated(stringIDToTypeID("layer"), stringIDToTypeID("ordinal"), stringIDToTypeID("targetEnum"));   
    var d = new ActionDescriptor();
    d.putReference(stringIDToTypeID("null"), r);
    try { executeAction(stringIDToTypeID("selectNoLayers"), d, DialogModes.NO); } catch(e) {}
    var r = new ActionReference();
    r.putIdentifier(stringIDToTypeID("layer"), id);
    var d = new ActionDescriptor();
    d.putReference(stringIDToTypeID("null"), r);
    d.putBoolean(stringIDToTypeID( "makeVisible"), activeDocument.activeLayer.visible);
    try { executeAction(stringIDToTypeID("select"), d, DialogModes.NO); } catch(e) {}
    }

When you make a loop that deletes an element like a layer, you need to change what "i" is less than. The layers length is going to change as you delete layers. Put that into a variable then us that variable in the loop statement.

var Len = app.activeDocument.layers.length;

for (var i =0;i<Len;i++)

I tired second case (no layer selected) with hidden layer[1] or background and it worked, but only then. The same was when I made a loop from end to beggining, so it failed when first (not bottom / background) layer was hidden.

When I checked which layer is active when none of them was selected it always said the first one, even if before I unselected any other that was below top layer. It must be bug.

It doesn't work also with simple:

activeDocument.activeLayer = activeDocument.layers[0]

no matter top layer is (in)visible, when all are unselected

it works only for any other layer beside first one in case of all (manually) unselected layers

I do not think so.  I have had to catch that error in some scripts  when the user used the script and had nothing targeted. Even when the script was processing all layers. I had to catch that error I thought should not have happen because I was processing all layers in a recursive loop.  I had to target the top layer the use the scipt's main function to get the recursive loop to work.  I think your loop will also miss layers in layer groups that have their visibility off.