Opening Inventor creates empty "Ͽ" folder

[TA.Fehr]

I started experiencing a rather strange phenomenon when opening Inventor.

Whenever Inventor loads, an empty folder named "Ͽ" appears in the location of the last part open in Inventor.

I thought it might be related to some of the add-ins I had written, but even when I cleared the add-in's the phantom folder keeps getting created. This is computer specific as no other users have reported this.

This only appears to happen with Inventor 2019, I've tried 2020 and no folder is created, but as hardware has limited me to Vault 2019 I must in turn use IV2019 as well, so no luck with just updating.

Has anyone experienced this? There's got to be something in the settings that is causing this.

[CGBenner]

@TA.Fehr 

Hi,  could you possibly post a video of this happening, or at least some screen shots?  And maybe also a screen shot of your Home page? (do you use the Home page?)  Thank you.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! I have never heard of this issue. Just a wild guess. Please try turning off the following option.

Go to Control Panel -> Region and Clock -> Region -> Administrative -> Change System Locale -> uncheck "Beta: Use UTF-8 Unicode for worldwide language support."

Many thanks!

[TA.Fehr]

@CGBenner I created a screencast, turns out I was mistaken, the folder is not blank, it contains a shortcut to the "default" project file (which is not the one in use I use a 'master' vault project).

@johnsonshiue  the unicode option was already unchecked.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! If you unload "AutoSave" Add-In, does it work better?

Many thanks!

[TA.Fehr]

That was my first assumption, so I unloaded and removed all the custom add-ins that I had installed. But yielded the same results.

[mcgyvr]

I think you can setup auditing to see event logs that may capture what/who is creating the folder..

https://www.manageengine.com/products/active-directory-audit/how-to/track-file-and-folder-creation-d...

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[TA.Fehr]

Thanks for the direction. I was able to audit the folder and get the results, but I'm not sure what the next steps would be.

The folder is being created by Explorer.exe, but I can't see where I would be able to tell why it is being created.
Here is an example of the event:

  <System>
    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing" Guid="{54849625-5478-4994-a5ba-3e3b0328c30d}" />
    <EventID>4656</EventID>
    <Version>1</Version>
    <Level>0</Level>
    <Task>12800</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x8020000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2020-06-30T15:44:48.755512500Z" />
    <EventRecordID>12739509</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="23132" />
    <Channel>Security</Channel>
    <Computer>CAD7-PC.indmach.local</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data Name="SubjectUserSid">S-1-5-21-2609341834-4282529131-2090453327-2116</Data>
    <Data Name="SubjectUserName">tfehr</Data>
    <Data Name="SubjectDomainName">INDMACH</Data>
    <Data Name="SubjectLogonId">0x162925</Data>
    <Data Name="ObjectServer">Security</Data>
    <Data Name="ObjectType">File</Data>
    <Data Name="ObjectName">C:\_Vault Working Folder\Designs\IMM\I031 - NUTRIEN\I031-00000\Ͽ\Inventor\Projects</Data>
    <Data Name="HandleId">0x1bf4</Data>
    <Data Name="TransactionId">{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}</Data>
    <Data Name="AccessList">%%1541
				%%4416
				%%4423
				</Data>
    <Data Name="AccessReason">%%1541:	%%1801	D:(A;OICIID;0x1200a9;;;BU)
				%%4416:	%%1801	D:(A;OICIID;0x1200a9;;;BU)
				%%4423:	%%1801	D:(A;OICIID;0x1200a9;;;BU)
				</Data>
    <Data Name="AccessMask">0x100081</Data>
    <Data Name="PrivilegeList">-</Data>
    <Data Name="RestrictedSidCount">0</Data>
    <Data Name="ProcessId">0x20f8</Data>
    <Data Name="ProcessName">C:\Windows\explorer.exe</Data>
    <Data Name="ResourceAttributes">-</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

[TA.Fehr]

It's been a while, but I thought I'd update.

At some point, one of the files in Inventor became corrupt and I had to re-install completely.

Since then there have not been any random empty folders created. So I'll have to chalk this one up as a random Inventor bug.

Thanks for the help.

[CGBenner]

@TA.Fehr 

Can we select this as a Solution then?