Repeated local.dat Access Denied Errors

[TheAncient]

For your information only - no action required
(I asked Copilot to summarize the investigations related to this topic in the form of a ticket)


Patch My PC Home Updater v5.4.5.0 Repeated local.dat Access Denied Errors
Resolved by Complete Application State Reset
Product:
Patch My PC Home Updater v5.4.5.0
Issue Description:
Multiple systems were reporting the following errors during application startup and catalog refresh operations:
Plain Text
Scheduled task has been invalidated
Plain Text
Failed to write bytes due to an error:
Access to the path 'C:\ProgramData\PatchMyPC\local.dat' is denied.
The application otherwise continued to function normally.
Affected Systems:
•   XXXX1 (Windows 11)
•   XXXX2 (Windows 10)
•   XXXX3 (Windows 11)
•   XXXX4 (Windows 11)
•   XXXX5 (Windows 11)
Investigation Performed:
•   Verified local.dat existed.
•   Verified NTFS permissions were correct.
•   Verified ownership and inheritance were correct.
•   Verified file was not read-only.
•   Successfully wrote to local.dat manually from an elevated command prompt.
•   Confirmed scheduled tasks existed and pointed to the correct executable.
•   Observed two ProgramData folders:
Plain Text
C:\ProgramData\Patch My PC
C:\ProgramData\PatchMyPC
Root Cause (Suspected):
Corrupted or stale Patch My PC configuration/state, including one or more of:
•   ProgramData contents
•   local.dat
•   Scheduled task configuration
Issue does not appear to be caused by Windows file permissions.
Resolution:
1.   Delete all Patch My PC scheduled tasks:
o   Patch My PC Home Updater - Check Apps
o   Patch My PC Home Updater - Update Apps
o   Patch My PC Home Updater - Self Updater
2.   Uninstall Patch My PC Home Updater.

3.   Delete the following folders:
C:\ProgramData\Patch My PC
C:\ProgramData\PatchMyPC
4.   Reboot the system.
5.   Reinstall the latest Patch My PC Home Updater.
6.   Launch the application and allow it to recreate its scheduled tasks.
Result:
•   Error no longer occurs.
•   Scheduled tasks recreated successfully.
•   local.dat recreated correctly.
•   Clean application logs observed after reinstall.
•   Resolution validated on five separate systems (Windows 10 and Windows 11).
Status:
✅ Resolved
✅ Reproduced and corrected on 5/5 affected systems
✅ Incident Closed

[dking02]

Thanks for the Copilot analysis.

I do have separate (1) "C:\ProgramData\PatchMyPC" and (2) "C:\ProgramData\Patch My PC" folders. This is normal.  The first folder contains the local.dat file and log file created and used by Home Updater. The second folder is my "Cache Location" (aka "Download Location" in Settings) where installer files are saved. I also have a separate portables location. The log file, cache, and portables locations are user-configurable in the Settings view. The cache and portables locations are also user choices in the Apps view.

Deleting the two folders will delete cached installer files, as well as log and local.dat files. Home Updater will retain location settings but the log file will be reinitialized when Home Updater is reinstalled, and the installer cache will only be re-populated as non-portable apps are subsequently updated. I saved a temp copy of  the two folders before deleting them and manually restored the latest installer files to the cache folder after reinstalling Home Updater. The portable apps are downloaded and updated in a separate location and were not affected by the reinstallation process.

I did not see any "access denied" error records in the log file after implementing the proposed fix. However, manually deleting folders and reinstalling the program should not be necessary and suggests an error exists in Home Updater or an inconsistency was introduced at some point in updates to the program.

PS. A simpler fix that has been subsequently identified by user monchote is to delete the local.dat file and then launch Home Updater which will recreate the missing file - see https://forum.patchmypc.com/index.php/topic,8949.0.html

[monchote]

In my case, I've tried both solutions, the one proposed here and the simpler one I proposed in the other post. Even though it seems to help for a while, the same error always comes back after a while.

Looks like this needs a proper fix by the team.