MC not starting after updating to v16.0 (build 3186)

[ncodina]

Today I started MC and got the notification to update. I did it via the app dialog. At the moment of restarting the app, I got the following messages: Failed to open or read config file: ...MultiCommander.xml. It might be corrupt, try to replace it with a backup or delete it. Same message for the rest of config files.

I have tried to delete them, uninstall MC completely, reboot, reinstall MC... even with a fresh installation from the downloaded installer I'm getting these messages. Even though I click on Accept, there's a moment where it freezes.

Any help, please?

[Mathias (Author)]

I can't replicate that..

What OS ?
You have any security software that might block MC from reading it ?
You have something else that are unique for your system ?
Do you have special characters in your user name ? so the path to the config folder has none standard a-z character ? if yes.. Do portable version work if started from a folder in the root eg C:\MCPortable16\

Is there anything more details about the error in the error log , the latest *-MultiCommander.log located in
C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\MultiCommander\Logs\ 

(look in the last couple of row in the file if there are any information about it)

[ncodina]

Hi Mathias, thanks for your quick reply.
I'm running it on Windows 11 Pro (26200.8655).
My user name does contain a special character "é", but MC has been working fine until today within the same path.
I tried Portable version from an easier path. First run was ok, I restarted it and I'm getting the same error again, pointing at the same original path (AppData\Roaming...).
I'm attaching one of the logs I got.

[Mathias (Author)]

Hi Mathias, thanks for your quick reply.
I'm running it on Windows 11 Pro (26200.8655).
My user name does contain a special character "é", but MC has been working fine until today within the same path.
I tried Portable version from an easier path. First run was ok, I restarted it and I'm getting the same error again, pointing at the same original path (AppData\Roaming...).
I'm attaching one of the logs I got.

Xml handling in MC is done from a 3rd party library. and all of them are updated. and I saw something that they do not handle Windows UTF16 encoded path anymore.. so must be UTF8 encoded.. so I think that that might be the reason

[Mathias (Author)]

16.1 out now. It should now load config file using UTF8 encoded path. so it is not fail on path containing special characters