I’m not sure if I’m right but I believe this is a variable set by Local, not by Windows or anything. Now, what if we (end users) were able to override this variable, by a config file in the root of Local’s installation folder, or switches/flags/whatever-they’re-called (example)? Would that make sense?
PS: I installed Local for “all users” (even on a different drive partition) so I don’t find it logical to keep using the user data path for files that could/should be shared, but that’s another thing.
There seems to be a problem if any of the following have non alphanumeric characters
website name
admin user name
admin user password
as a workround keep it alphanumeric
Security Reminder
Local does a pretty good job of scrubbing private info from the logs and the errors it produces, however there’s always the possibility that something private can come through. Because these are public forums, always review the screenshots you are sharing to make sure there isn’t private info like passwords being displayed.
Since there is issue with special characters ongoing, please just check everything (website name, username, password) and warn user to correct it before we received error.
Looks like folks at Local will never fix this issue… but I want to share some good news about finding a workaround! Here is a tutorial to change the user folder name in Windows:
Hi @barisunver - Never say never! Thank you for your comment here, however, and that tutorial for others to find. Much appreciated
I know the issues regarding special characters in usernames and passwords have been a long outstanding one, but I wanted to provide a note here that it has not been forgotten. There have been some factors impacting the movement of a resolution on this, some outside of our own team/product. These issues also have readily available workarounds to quickly resolve them and move on, which have kept them from being a complete “work stoppage”. I’ve nudged our Devs, however, and they plan to review it in an upcoming sprint. Thank you all, as always, for your patience and communication with us on these things.
Thanks Nick! I figured if you weren’t able to solve the issue in 4+ years (despite the fact that this topic is revived every once in a while) it means you probably won’t fix it, so in this case I guess I can say “never” Of course, I’m ready to be surprised!
Also, you misunderstood the issue: It’s not at all about special characters in usernames or passwords. It’s about the name of the Windows user’s folder (e.g. “C:\Users\Barış Ünver”).
As mentioned, the reasons why this persists are layered, and some have been beyond our control. Additionally, since this is a problem that has simple workarounds, we also have to prioritize work, for example, on bugs or other fixes for which there are no solutions.
No misunderstanding about the issue which basically boils down to these two items:
People with special characters in their Windows username, because that’s just their name like this, can’t create directory issue
I understand that you have more issues about special characters, but this forum topic is specifically about the folder name of the user (not the Windows username, which can be different than the folder’s name). Hopefully you’ll fix them all!
Is this issue not being addressed at all?!? It’s been almost 2 years… Even if you don’t figure out how to make it work, at least offer a setting for people to manually set a different data folder! That’s less of an imposition than to require people to make systemwide changes to their PC.
I have fixed it for myself by renaming my user folder — only because I already knew how to do it.
I’m not, under any circumstances creating a new user on my PC for a single app, especially for developing. I have my user account on my PC set up specifically to my needs, finely tuned over several years, from my desktop image and pinned apps to user specific settings in multiple programs and plugins I use on a daily basis, some of which I use during dev, including wp dev.
Adding a setting to change the location of the data folder should be such a simple change to make
To borrow from my last comment, the reasons why this persists are layered, and some have been beyond our control. Additionally, since this is a problem that has simple workarounds, we also have to prioritize work, for example, on bugs or other fixes for which there are no solutions."
We do have bugs filed for this and I’ve followed up with our developers. We’ll be sure to share any updates here as soon as we have them!