Issue: Since three weeks ago, the World of Warcraft updater for Windows appears to be deleting Folder Junctions and overwriting them with a brand new Addons folder.
Background: You can create a folder junction in command prompt using the command mklink /J "[wow installation]/_[edition]_/Interface/Addons" "[pathToGo]" so that addons can be stored in any arbitrary place and the operating system redirects everything to the new path.
Steps to Reproduce: Create the junction, and store your addons inside that other space. It works for a while, but then suddenly it will disappear and you have an empty AddOns folder (Classic) or a default Addons folder (Retail). The junction disappears, but the addon folders are still genuinely stored in the other location.
Workaround: Delete the folder that appears to be created by the launcher, and reconnect the other location by typing the mklink command again. (And reload the game, if necessary).
Recommendation:
- Firstly, confirm it is in fact the Blizzard launcher deleting the junctions by trailing it in a test environment.
- Second, confirm if any changes were made to how the Blizzard launcher checks for the existence of the the Addons/AddOns folders since around the time of Classic launch.
- Third, if necessary, revert or tweak those changes to avoid overwriting junctions.
12 Likes
I’ve been experiencing this issue in both classic and retail now. In my case I have multiple WoW accounts, and use Junctions to link them all together so that all my settings are merged and I see all my characters in my addons (as I don’t multibox). This has worked fine for 10+ years and all of a sudden now every update blows them away (Today was the first time for me in retail, but it happens quite frequently in Classic).
This is also happening to me, and happens with juctions, symlinks or hard links. It’s really frustrating as I use a file share to store my addons/settings on, so that I can have the everything sync’d between my laptop and desktop depending on what I’m doing. If this was linux I’d just make it immutable but I don’t believe windows has that concept. : ( Is this intentional, Bliz?
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I can add that it isn’t just deleting the junction, but may also delete the parent interface folder if nothing else was in it. I discovered this in the past 24 hours while toying with the Blizzard launcher.
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Confirmed. Also if it deletes that folder, then the “Addons” button in game go away.
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I’ve spent some spare time today in between things at work writing an app to monitor these folders for me and re-create them if they get deleted (what a silly solution). Of course silly me chose to do it in C# and creating Junctions from C# isn’t an easy task (luckily via some googling I found someone who had already done the work for me).
I just can’t for the life of me figure out what it’s doing that’s wiping these. Maybe it’s trying to wipe all empty folders and thinks the Junctions are empty folders (as they technically are)?
I’ve removed the delete permission from the link and that seems to be working for now. (To do this, right click on it, properties, security tab, advanced, disable inheritance, make a local copy of permissions, edit accounts, show advanced permissions, uncheck delete, apply).
Never mind, I thought that was working but the small patch tonight blew them up. Really frustrating.
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This happened to my spouse a few weeks ago, but since he only plays on the one machine anymore, he just moved the folders back where the game seems to want them and isn’t having any problems now.
I’ve just encountered it for the first time on my PC, the mac still seems fine with the symlink (so far.) Having to relink the folder every time the game updates is maddening, I hope there’s a fix for this out there somewhere.
+1 to this. The OP has a great breakdown of this but I notice it was posted 4 days ago. For me, this didn’t start happening until 8.2.5 release.
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Same started with 8.2.5 for me on retail (don’t play classic). Didn’t see this post, had made my own thread.
I figured out this happened on my laptop last night and had to reestablish the links twice. On my desktop this morning, I saw the same thing had happened on it, unsurprisingly. I recreated the links and opened the launcher, which said it needed to restart for an update. After its update, the links had been replaced with folders again. I wish this behavior would stop.
Okay, I’ve managed to set permissions where the junctions can’t be deleted. THIS IS DANGEROUS, do only if you know what you’re doing.
Right click the directory above your junction, click security, Advanced, Add.
This should bring you to a screen that on the top says “Select a principle”. Click that, in the box type “everyone”, and hit ok. Then show advanced permissions, select type DENY, and check ONLY delete subfolders and files, delete.
Press okay and apply, and voila, your junctions are no longer able to be deleted.
Hopefully bliz fixes the client so that these kind of measures aren’t necessary. I know we’re a small percent of the player base but obviously we exist.
2 Likes
@Infy–will this still allow the combat logs to be deleted, if i’ve got a junction for those? you know how bloated logs get after just a few raids.
This did not work for me. I did this before the update on retail this evening and I logged onto my 2nd account and the junction is gone.
Faizal - it should allow deletion of files, just not of directories.
Mag - create the junction AFTER setting the permissions. If you do it before it still has the old permission set and can be removed.
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In thinking about it, I’m doing junctions for entire directories, not single files, that could be a difference as well. eg, I’ve got a junction for my “addons” folder that resides elsewhere.
Faizal - it should allow deletion of files, just not of directories.
Mag - create the junction AFTER setting the permissions. If you do it before it still has the old permission set and can be removed.
So where am I setting the permissions? Normally i do mklink /D, how are you creating yours?
Someone posted on my other post that it is a twitch problem, can anyone confirm?
No, it is not Twitch. I set Twitch not to always load, because I don’t want it accidentally overwriting my work while I am building addons.
Happened today, and Twitch was never running since the machine booted.