pluginlib terminates when there are no plugins

edit

I want to create a scenario where I have one package ("the_exec") that defines an interface the_exec::AEIF and depending on a configuration file loads some plugins.

When I create just the interface and a simple main this line doesn't work:

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
    pluginlib::ClassLoader<the_exec::AEIF> poly_loader("the_exec", "the_exec::AEIF");

and gives me:

terminate called after throwing an instance of 'pluginlib::LibraryLoadException'
  what():  rospack could not find the the_exec package containing the_exec::AEIF

This happens even when I do not try to load any plugins.

However, when I define one simple package that contains plugins, even if they are not being loaded it works fine. I cannot guarantee that there are plugins available for this package as they are plugins to be defined optionally, so the program should work without any plugins.

I could probably fix this by defining a dummy plugin in the the_exec package, but I'm wondering if there is a better cleaner way or how to fix this properly.