Failed to Refresh List of .esps

[TURBO_FIST]

Hey guys, I've got a problem.

 

So I recently got a virus that erased all my Skyrim mods (yes, I was livid). Luckily, I had just recently made the full reversion to vanilla Skyrim so I could use MO instead of NMM, so I hadn't lost that much. Now I have Norton Security, the virus is gone, and I want to get back to modding Skyrim.

 

Here's where the problem starts. I've downloaded and successfully installed several basic mods to get started (USLEEP, RaceMenu, SkyUI, etc.). So I go to the plugins tab on the right side and check all the boxes, then go to the left side and check all the boxes for the mods, and suddenly an error pops up:

 

Failed to refresh list of esps: failed to find " ... /Steam/steamapps/common/Skyrim/Mod Organizer/profiles/Default/plugins.txt"

 

All plugins on the right side become unchecked.

 

Now this is the really strange part. If I close MO and go to said folder, the plugins.txt file is there, but if I keep that folder open while I try activating all the mods and plugins again (checking the boxes), I get the same error and simultaneously I see the plugins.txt file vanish from its folder! I had been using MO for about a week and a half before the virus happened and I never had this error, so my assumption was that my new Norton AV software was interfering with MO. However, I have now set MO and LOOT as Norton trusted applications, and set my entire Skyrim directory as an excluded folder for Norton's Auto-Protect, SONAR, and Download Intelligence, and I'm still getting the error.

 

I'm on Windows 10, using MO v1.3.11. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I apologize for such a long explanation. 

[Greg]

Completely disable Norton AntiVirus and repeat the test again. Norton unfortunately is more trouble than it's worth so I would go with one of the more friendly packages like Windows Defender that's bundled with Windows 10.

[TURBO_FIST]

I'm hoping for a way to fix the problem without completely disabling Norton, if possible. Only using Windows Defender is what got me the virus in the first place.