WoW Forever addon settings not saving: causes and fixes

If your WoW Forever add-on settings are not saving, the usual causes are a crash before the game could save, a read-only or synced WTF folder, or an add-on error on load. Work through the checks below in order. The beta had its own bug for this, covered at the end.

How saving works

Add-ons write their settings to _forever_/WTF/Account/<account>/SavedVariables when you log out, exit or type /reload. Anything you change after that is lost if the game crashes or you force it closed.

Test it in one minute

Change one setting in the add-on.
Type /reload.
Exit the game normally.
Look in SavedVariables for that add-on's .lua file and check its modified time.

If the time didn't change, the game couldn't write the file: go to the folder checks. If it changed but the setting is back to default after you restart, the file isn't being read or the add-on is resetting it: go to the add-on checks.

Folder checks

Read-only: right-click WTF, Properties on Windows or Get Info on a Mac, and make sure it can be written.
Cloud sync: keep WTF out of OneDrive, iCloud Drive and Dropbox. They can lock or roll back files while the game writes them.
Antivirus: allow the game folder if your antivirus blocks changes there.

Add-on checks

Errors on load: install BugSack. An add-on that errors while starting may fall back to defaults.
Profile per character: many add-ons keep a separate profile per character. Check its Profiles tab before assuming the setting is gone.
New character names: if you copied a beta WTF, folder names may not match your live character. See moving a beta UI to live.
One add-on only: a clean reinstall of that add-on and its saved file often helps. It fixed a blank Questie tracker for one reporter.

Get old settings back

The game keeps the previous version of each file with a .bak ending. With the game closed, rename Name.lua.bak to Name.lua.

The beta bug

During the beta, players reported settings being written on exit but never read back. The author of one workaround add-on, WTFix, has retired it, saying Blizzard fixed the bug. We found no Blizzard statement of our own to link, and we can't confirm it on the live client until launch. If you still see it after these checks, post in the Help board with your add-on list.