I recently just installed VATSPY and when its done installing it runs and works normally but when i close it and decide to use it later upon reopening I am greeted with an error message saying The VATSPY application data folder does not exist please reinstall vatspy. So thats what i did and the same thing happened and the strange thing is even though it says the data file is missing the search bar always has the last airport i looked up. please help me!
Hey Gage, Welcome to forum,
I’ve noticed that over last couple of months VATSpy seems to have issues loading data etc. I suspect it is the processes getting hung etc. I have either closed and re-launch, or even just ignored error/warning. Sometimes it will hang for an extended period, but I have not had to re-install. It can be annoying but I’ve just accepted that fairly regularly it is clunky.
Sorry for the lack of productive response.
got it its a devoloper issue, VATSPY is relatively new right?
No, VATSpy’s initial release was on 03.05.2008 (see here), so over 15 years ago; the UI also looks accordingly 
I have not encountered any problems with the program myself thus far, but then again I don’t use it very often.
If you simply want to check for online controllers and perhaps other pilots, there are way better solutions out there by now. Apart from various other 3rd party programs, there are also very good browser-based tools.
For the purpose of checking which controllers are online, the best available tool at the moment is VATGlasses (I highly recommend using the beta, which is what the link leads to), which can display the vertical aspect of the airspace and is able to correctly display the various complex sector splits, but it doesn’t cover the entirety of the world (yet). The second best option (or - if VATGlasses isn’t available for wherever you are currently flying - the first best, I suppose) is SimAware, which, while only being 2D and unable to deal with complex sector splits, still does a reasonably good job of displaying the lateral dimensions of most airspaces and it displays coverage globally. And both of these tools are web-based, so you don’t even need to download any additional software.
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I found out that if you run VATSPY as admin this issue fixes thanks for the help and suggestions!
Encountering VATSPY error: “Application data folder does not exist.” Reinstallation doesn’t fix. Last airport search saved.
Mark, are you running as an administrator?