I know that a simple “OK” (in all caps) can be generated by GPG in some cases on my computer, usually the filename is just “1” in my home directory, that is surprisingly close to the behavior you are seeing, is it possible an integration or addon is calling GPG for some reason?
I don’t use add-ons so that is a negative. I just checked by doing a file compare between my backup of v2021.4 & v2021.5 and there were no new custom integrations added then either.
the result is “Ok” (not all caps) and I have no idea why anything would be running GPG (I had no idea what that was until I googled it after you mentioned it) so I don’t think that’s it.
there was a blueprint that was added (not sure how since I don’t use those either) so I got rid of that and the “nul” file but the “nul” file came back immediately after a restart.
So I’ve still got some digging to do.
Thanks to both of you for the suggestions so far tho.