I posted some of this once before and pretty much got downvoted into oblivion by folks who don’t really know better or aren’t aware of everything involved.
Yes, Blizzard is attempting to solve this, but no, it’s not essentially a Blizzard issue.
Some, most probably, inexpensive or free anti-malware software adjusts file meta-data in order to prevent ransomware attacks (or at least try to prevent them - this method is not terribly effective, but it’s common).
NEW files get written just fine, but UPDATES to files can get lost - they’re saved but not saved in a sense. They’re not “committed” (in technical terms) because the meta-data says not to unless approved by the anti-malware.
Sometimes registering the software with the anti-malware is not possible or fails internally.
Windows default protection and Malware Bytes are two that do this and also have the occasional problem (by occasional, I don’t mean each machine has an occasional problem - I mean occasionally a system update will cause all machines using these products to have the problem). I’ve seen it with McAfree and Norton as well.
There is a solution, but it involves several steps that have to be taken in the correct order.
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Replace your anti-malware software with something less basic. Two that I know work are Kaspersky (Russian in origin and somewhat suspect because of the endemic criminal activity there - enough so that most European governmental computers are prohibited from using it) and Bitdefender (Romanian in origin). These two are neck and neck the best two available at any price and at least Bitdefender is free (I think there’s a free version of Kaspersky as well, but I’m not certain. I’m gonna assume Bitdefender going forward with this, but substitute Kaspersky if you wish.
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Once Bitdefender is in place and has completed its initial scan, you are still left with the meta-data from the PREVIOUS anti-malware, so you have to reset it. For most things, you can simply copy the folder where the files live to another location, delete the original, and the rename the copy as the original. The COPIES don’t get the meta-data settings of the originals. They get default settings. But for program files you’ll want a reinstall. so I recommend this:
- Copy (Ctrl-C, not Ctrl-X) your WTF folder somewhere safe. This contains all your add-on settings (assuming you have addons).
- Uninstall the game.
- Reinstall the game.
- Paste your WTF folder back where it was to start with under its original name.
This should fix the problem.
I’ve been running Bitdefender for a decade and every time this issue pops up (and it does every few years) it ends up being the fault of anti-malware software.
Try this or not. No one’s making you.
But I’ve not had this issue at all and if it were Blizzard’s software, there’s no real explanation for that.
Again, Bitdefender alone will not solve this. Once the meta-data on your files has been set, you have to unset it. There are ways to go about this without a reinstall, but they’re so finicky that I don’t want to attempt to explain them. This solution is simpler, if a bit more time consuming, and it should work just fine.