WorkBuddy loses path access to local paper folders; did I miss authorization?

Last night, my advisor asked me to compress Chapter 3 again. I casually created a "Defense Materials" folder, stuffing it with over a dozen PDFs, two experiment tables, and a pile of Word comments. I installed WorkBuddy about a month ago and usually just let it organize literature packages online. This time, I wanted it to directly scan local files, categorize them by "Background, Methods, Data, Charts," and give me a 15-minute presentation outline. I specifically said to extract structure only, don't generate body text, fearing plagiarism checks. I saw a deployment pitfall article saying file operations need permissions for Desktop, Documents, and Downloads, so I clicked accordingly.

But initially, it got stuck on "Loading Model," waiting for about three minutes with no response. Following the tutorial, I switched the model source and went back to settings to re-request system authorization. The second time it entered the main interface, but as soon as I asked it to read that folder, it prompted "Access Denied, Path Unreachable." I changed the path from Chinese to English, tried running as administrator, and temporarily disabled security software, unsure if that was the cause.

Now I'm most afraid of it messing with my original files. I haven't graduated yet, and plagiarism checks and formatting are already headache-inducing enough; I really don't want to lose materials due to a path issue. Has anyone encountered this? Does initial authorization require selecting everything, or do old task working directories conflict with new paths? Does anyone know if this "Path Unreachable" error is due to lack of folder permissions or if its default working directory isn't set correctly?