"Could not find map file"

[Justjoe]

Hello! This is my first time doing a thread and my problem is I can't play any custom game maps. I just downloaded the v. 1.31. Beta and Demo version here in HIVE and when I downloaded it and did all the instructions. I've had many problems. The first time I tried to open the application, there was only black and the movie the first time you open it did not appear but there was a sound. Second, when I successfully opened it and saw the Menu, I clicked one of the options and it crashes and freezes. I already fixed those problems and another one appeared when i thought I would finally be able to play peacefully. I didn't see a map at the "Warcraft III" folder so I created one and put all my previously downloaded custom games there. I opened the W3 app and was excited to play but when I clicked "Create Game" in one of the maps; it said "Could not find map file". I searched on google how to fix it and the first solution I saw was to turn off my "Controlled Folder Access" I had to delete all of my Anti-Viruses just to do that. I thought that would solve my problem but it didn't. Up until now I can't find the solution and been pretty stressed about it lately. I NEED HELP PLS!!! Someone said at Re**it that I should Uninstall and Install the game again but I don't wanna go through all the problems I encountered right from the start. If there's really no solution rather than Deleting and Install again then I would have no choice. Also, my custom campaign are working perfectly fine so it's the custom game maps that aren't working.

 

[A]mun]

Your maps are in C:\Users\yourname\Documents\Warcraft III\Maps\Download - thus in documents?
(that still a thing in windows 11 right? i'm still on win 10)

 

[Ravager16829]

First things first: if you ask about technical problems with Warcraft III, please specify which version of the game are you currently using (either pre-Reforged or Reforged). This will avoid more confusion about the Warcraft III versions since the download link in this thread has three releases of the game (ROC Beta, TFT Beta, ROC Demo, and the final release, which was commonly used nowadays). To be fair:
1.Beta versions of Warcraft 3 (both ROC and TFT) doesn't have a single player functionality. You can only play this version through modified Battle.net server. Also, there are numerous gameplay limitations.
2.Demo versions of Warcraft 3 (ROC) will only give you 5 playable chapters in Prologue campaign (the last 3 are missing in the final release and were playable in TFT without voice acting).

In short, you can only play custom games on normal release of Warcraft 3 (not Beta and Demo).
This question will assume that you are using the 1.31.1. of the game, which is the last one before Reforged.

If you get "Could not find map file" error, this means your map is corrupted or it was missing from the appropriate folder.
The default directory for placing the custom maps is "C:\Users\[username]\Documents\Warcraft III\Maps". If you don't have the folder, create it yourself.
On the older versions, it must be placed in the game folder itself under the "Maps" folder.

As you may noticed, it feels like your game is not properly installed. Please delete the old ones, including the registries, then simply re-install the whole game by extracting the archives.