Mass Effect 2 Cannot make new saves or create new imports
I am playing Mass Effect 2 on Steam. I started the game a few weeks ago, imported a character in game, did the opening mission, and autosaved. I returned the other day and used the out of game Configuration Utility to see what it was (curious). After running the Utility once and going in game, I am unable to do any new imports and when I played off the old autosave for a few hours I discovered my game was not actually creating new save files.
I am not able to save the game anymore. No new save files are ever created/saved to my hard drive (C). Autosave is enabled but not functional. I can manually save and quick save, but no save files are created despite the game displaying the save disk icon in the lower left corner.
I am no longer able to import characters either using the utility or within the game. If I am within the game and try to import a character I see the list of importable character files, but the "Import Character" button is literally nonresponsive. I can click it but it does nothing.
Ultimately, BOTH the import and saving are nonfunctional. Please advise.
EDIT 1: I uninstalled ME2, reinstalled through Steam. I started a fresh game. When I was able to save I went into the menu > Save > Create New Save > Save Game. The menu exited and the spinning "Game Saved" appeared in the lower left corner. To verify if this worked I went back into the menu > Load. There was nothing there - no characters, no careers, etc. Entirely blank. There was also NO save file under Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect 2. GAME STILL UNPLAYABLE.
Well, after a year and the release of the legendary edition and dusting off the old save files I found a solution.
The problem was Windows Controlled Folder Access. Even the original ME wasn’t loading up properly, nor were other games that create their saves and settings in the Documents folder.
Instructions to disable are here https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/allow-an-app-to-access-controlled-folders
