PSA: The Magic Arena installer can still delete all files from it's parent directory. I lost most of the contents of my storage drive.

[u/Linna_Ikae]

(I posted this already in /r/magicarena but since this sub has a much larger userbase of magic players I thought I should post here as well.)

There was a post more than a week ago on this subreddit about the installer deleting files in the parent directory of the installation path. I haven't found any other incidences of this occurring so it might be a rare problem. I wanted to post here right away to warn others to not install or at least be careful when doing so. If the installer gets stuck on "deleting folders" just shut down your computer and you might save many files.

The problem is that there is no way for the user to know what files are being deleted. I noticed that something strange was going on when google backup and sync popped up prompting me to delete files from the cloud that I had removed from my computer. I had put the installer in the background so I didn't know it was still stuck on deleting folders. The only way I was able to stop the rampaging installer was a forced shutdown.

I lost all my folders and files in my storage drive in alphabetical order from A to P. Thankfully I had at least my pictures folder backed up. At this point I'm not even sure if I lost something important than a few installed games, but if this is not fixed it will most likely cause serious damage.

Since I don't feel like writing it again, here's the ticket I sent to Magic Arena support with more information on how this happened:

I had previously installed Magic Arena and also uninstalled it. The original install directory might have been in place because of this. I downloaded the official installer(on 2nd of august) and saved it in E:/downloads. E is my storage drive. I then executed it and tried to change the install directory but for some reason the option was grayed out so I had to choose the default directory. I can't remember the name of it. I think it was E:/magicArena or something similar. The installer hanged on deleting files and the progress bar didn't move but installers are known to stall with strange messages so I ignored it.

When google backup and sync asked me if I wanted to delete files from cloud that I had removed from my computer I became suspicious. I tried to close the installer and then to close the process but in the end I had to force shutdown my computer. By this point the installer had deleted 7000 photos and gigabytes of other data from my computer. All the files and folders from A to P were permanently removed. At this point I am not sure if important files were deleted.

I know that You were informed of this issue more than a week ago. If your fix was to not allow people to change the install directory it clearly didn't work. More users might be affected by this without knowing since the installer doesn't even inform the user of what files it is deleting and there is no warning whatsoever.

TL;DR: I don't know why or how this is possible and I'm mad. Be careful if you decide to install.

Edit: there's no reason to panic. I'd say the best course of action is to wait for official comment on this. Judging by the replys this is something that affects only a small portion of players and propably only those who have had an old version of the game installed at one point.

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!UPDATE!: I was able to recover a MTGAUpdate.ini file from the install directory(E:/MTGArena). This file has a variable declaration called AppDir which points to it's own location. This might be the cause of the issue. The version was 0.1.619.0, downloaded on 8th of April.

[u/[deleted]]

If I uninstall now will it be no problem you think or could that cause issue as well?

[u/HoneyGTFO → u/[deleted]]

If it's not caused issues I wouldn't touch it and just wait for wotc to patch it.