URC2 Restores Deleted Empty Folders After Push, Causing Ghost Directories in UEFN Projects

Summary

Deleted folders inside the Content Browser are automatically recreated after pushing changes with URC2, even when the folders were completely removed both inside UEFN and from the Windows file system.

Please select what you are reporting on:

Creative

What Type of Bug are you experiencing?

Assets

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Create several folders inside the Content Browser (e.g., /Models/, /Temp/, /Test/).

2.Import any asset (FBX, GLB, etc.) into one of these folders.

3.Move the imported asset to a different directory within the project.

4.Delete the original folders from the Content Browser.

5.Close UEFN.

6.In Windows Explorer, verify that the deleted folders do not exist physically on disk.

7.Reopen UEFN. Confirm that the folders do not appear in the Content Browser.

8.Make any small modification in the project (e.g., import a new asset).

9.Submit a push/check-in using URC2.

10.After the push completes, observe the Content Browser.

Expected Result

Folders deleted from the project should remain permanently deleted, regardless of restarts or URC2 pushes, as long as they contain no assets and have no valid references.

Observed Result

After performing a URC2 push, all previously deleted folders reappear in the Content Browser, even though:

They were removed from the Windows file system,

They contained no assets,

UEFN did not show them when first reopening the editor.

URC2 appears to recreate empty folders during synchronization, causing permanently stuck “ghost” directories that cannot be fully removed from the project.

Platform(s)

windows

Additional Notes

This issue does not appear to be related to redirectors, World Data Layers, or missing assets. All redirectors were fixed, and the affected folders contain no files of any kind. The folders also do not exist on disk before the push operation.

This behavior only occurs after a URC2 push. Immediately reopening UEFN before pushing does not recreate the deleted folders, which strongly suggests that URC2 is restoring empty directories during synchronization.

This matches similar reports from other creators where URC2 does not properly register folder deletions, restoring them as empty directories even if they were removed from both Content Browser and the filesystem.

This problem makes it impossible to maintain a clean project structure, because temporary or test folders become permanently stuck in the repository.

Any clarification or workaround from Epic regarding URC2’s handling of folder deletion would be very helpful.