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Why do people delete the Cache and WTF folders?
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Post by
jonathancyrd1
Why do people do it ? and how ? also are eu servers down
Post by
CalaelenDT
To get rid of saved data, such as cached NPCs for the NPCScan addon.
EU Servers are down, as the thread "EU Servers down all day" would've told you.
Post by
lordlundar
Deleting those folders is in essence restoring the game to a "first run" status, where as far as the client is considered it was never run before. People do this to resolve errors that come up on the client or add-ons.
Doing it is simple, go to your WoW install folder (default is
n
:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\
and select and delete the appropriate folders.
Post by
xcrunr1647
to resolve errors that come up on the client or add-ons.
^this
Post by
PaleKing
Would deleting these folders delete my characters? I'm getting a crash to desktop pretty regularly at the moment and I wasn't sure if it was caused by an addon or something else. Would I lose my Auctioneer scan data? If not, perhaps this might be worth a try for me. Would the folders be called "Cache" and "WTF"?
Post by
xcrunr1647
I would try deleting and re-installing your addons, first.
If that doesn't work, then delete the cache and WTF folders.
Post by
PaleKing
Ok, cheers for the help.
Post by
Interest
I guess it wouldn't hurt to clarify what each of these really does:
Deleting the cache will remove all in-game data that you have seen and has gotten cached for easier viewing in the future (sort of like Temporary Internet Files/Temp). This makes item linking and clicking item links a lot faster and generally makes loading something like NPCs marginally quicker. Deleting the cache will remove these records, though a new one will be created and populated through normal play. For instance, seeing an item link will send it to the cache for easier viewing in the future (sometimes if you fetch an item link through a macro it may not be able to retrieve the data from the server if the item link in question is not "there"). Getting close enough to an NPC to see it will cause it to load up, putting the data associated with the NPC into the cache so you can view it (which is when NPCScan triggers).
Deleting the WTF will remove information associated with characters, whether it is macro data, addon information, or something else. Pretty much everything except for the addon information (saved variables, etc) is stored server-side and is automatically retrieved each time you log in. It is handy to delete the WTF when you want to remove clutter, such as backup versions of files like the macro data or character information associated with other accounts that logged in on your computer. This will not delete addons themselves since they are stored in the Interface folder. This will not delete characters or character information (unless for some reason the servers themselves go severely haywire, in which you will lose your characters no matter what, even if you still have the WTF folder).
Post by
kellbyb
May I ask what the wtf folder stands for? I'm pretty sure that it doesn't mean the normal usage.
Post by
Lomedae
May I ask what the wtf folder stands for? I'm pretty sure that it doesn't mean the normal usage.
It's quite mundane actually - Warcraft Text File .
Post by
Amazones
Doing this has been Blizzards standard reply in tickets for years...
(the help menu was not as complicated as it is now, and before battle.net there was even less support)
the resort was always to remove WTF and cache to fix your interface problem, or no matter what th ''bug'' was.
I am a hunter and in WOTLK I had problems with vehicle bars not desplaying because of me having a pet..... and I was only using mandatory addons.., Malygos was a major problem for me and the lock in our raid. Blizz never came up with anything else then this, and their technical staff explained to me vehicle bars and pet bars are basicly the same, there must be a conflict, and always the addons were blamed for it. Frustration was enormous, but Cata solved a lot of vehicle problems for me.
These days I hardly ahve to do this anymore, keeping your addons clean and updated helps avoiding to remove your settings, cause this is annoying (this is WTF). Removing cache is less annoying... Do this first so you can see there is not an error in it, which causes bugs.
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