Chinese folders in game directory: Issues with loading filters and retaining settings changes

Hello GGG support,

I am at my wits end. I have been trying to get back into PoE with this league. But have not been able to play due to bizzare behavior when trying to do two things:

1) Load an item filter: No matter whether I sync from filterblade to my poe account, or download and place a copy of the filter and place it in the proper directory. I cannot load a filter. 

What I am met with when trying to load a filter from my poe profile is something like:  "(random chinese character"/mygames/onlinefilters/1x(30n could not be found"

Not only is that not the name of the filter I created or wanted to load. It repeats infinitely when try to either open the containing folder for said filter (which does not exist)

So you end up with a game directory full of this...
https://i.imgur.com/2mmWcJY.png
WHY?

and 2) Trying to change in game settings from anything but default.This also creates a random chinese character folder in the game directory but does not save the settings, or rather appears not to read them after a while, since the game seems dead set on creating more of these folders.

I've seen numerous forum posts about this. On the official site and on reddit. Either with no response, or claims that the issue has been fixed. 
Please advise.

it is not Chinese character.......


Rather......your SSD/HDD probably end of life....

I am experiencing this problem as well. Every time I enter a game, all settings are reset. Every time I enter a game, it creates a new folder with Chinese characters in the directory where the game is installed. This is the first time I have encountered this problem.

https://i.imgur.com/2mmWcJY.png

steam/standalone client?

I just tried something and found the solution. I started a new session with Windows, and when I opened the game with that new session, the problem did not occur. It seems that the issue is related to the user files in Windows. The game cannot create a profile in the Documents folder and automatically creates new profile files in the directory where the game is installed.

"

It seems that the issue is related to the user files in Windows. The game cannot create a profile in the Documents folder and automatically creates new profile files in the directory where the game is installed.

This is correct. Though the solution will differ for everyone. What I ended up doing was swapping to the (windows) dev channel build instead of the beta, which restored my home folder stuff to default.

Unfortunately I don't know what caused the issue in the first place.. I hope this thread can serve as a reference for those who may come across this issue in the future.

p.s. if you really can't figure it out, reinstalling windows will (more than likely) fix it.

TLDR: Login using your local account, not your Microsoft account.

Ok so I just ran into this issue. This post ultimately lead me to a fix. I'm going to post it here just incase another exile has the same issue.

My game was making a Chinese subfolders in:

- C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Path of Exile\<chinese folder>\

But it was unable to download filters properly. The subdirectories it tries to make are clearly from C:\Users\<username>\Documents\My Games\Path of Exile\OnlineFilters\ (which is where it should install)

Recreating the folder structure, and copying the filter file manually did nothing and PoE did not even see the local files I made, this tells me its likely permissions related.

I tried changing permissions of the C:\Users\<user>\Documents folder to readwrite, but it would never stick. But I realized I was logged in via my Microsoft account (blah@email.com) instead of a local account.

Apparently when logging in with the Microsoft account, it doesn't use the default local userland in C:\Users\<user>\. Honestly I have no idea what its using, but to fix this all I did was:

1. Logged out of the Microsoft account
2. Logged into my local account
3. Opened PoE and tried to load my filter again.


Note: I already had a local account, so this took 5 seconds. I'm not sure if I made that or if it was already created during my Windows 11 install. You MIGHT need to reinstall PoE again, I'm not sure.

After I did this Chinese folders stopped generating, and I was able to safely delete them, but you will have to redo any settings unless you find the config in the chinese folders and dump it in the local dir

after changing to local and reinstalling the game (with steam) it still doesnt work.
I now also installed the game without steam.
Still same issue (still using win10)

I found a fix for me on this problem. When I opened the game I went to the filter folder by clicking on the folder icon under game settings. When that opens, you want to drag that my games folder out of the Chinese folder and put it into your OneDrive documents folder. That was the fix for me.

After you do that you should be able to delete all the Chinese folders from your poe folder.