Publishrecovery and mediaindexing folders are automatically created in the C:\App_Data folder

We have noticed a publishrecovery and mediaindexing folder created in the C:\App_Data\ folder. Despite deleting this folder, it was being recreated every once in a while.

We raised a ticket with the Sitecore Support team and the rensponse we got was:

This behavior is not expected and the publishrecovery folder should be created in a folder which is defined as a dataFolder variable in the configs of a server. By default, it should be created under ‘\App_Data’ folder.

This was registered as a bug in the Sitecore’s bug tracking system (reference number #419944).

As a workaround for the issue, they recommended using a full path as value of the dataFolder variable. In the CM servers, you should create a new config-file patching the dataFolder setting. For example:

<sc.variable name="dataFolder">
     <patch:attribute name="value">C:\inetpub\wwwroot\sps42sc93sc.dev.local\App_Data</patch:attribute>
</sc.variable>

As a result, the publishrecovery folder will be created in the mentioned folder.

Credits

Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash.