Multiple project config folders/paths with the same content

[Anubarak]

What's the purpose of multiple different cryptic project config folders with the same content?
I tried to dig into the source Code but I wasn't able to find a reference for it.
Deleting the duplicates and re-building the config didn't work (the files were re-created sooner or later) and I have this in multiple projects for > Craft 3.5.

What I mean is the following

There are 3 folders with the same content for global sets und 4 folders that contain the entire fields config. These files are the same - no differences at all.
Are those meant to be temp files before or after an update?
I would just like to know their purpose.

[andris-sevcenko]

That is not something Craft does. At least intentionally?

Can you check the contents of your projectconfig table and see if anything jumps at you?

[Anubarak]

Maybe those are meant to be for deleted things?
I deleted a global set recently -> the set was removed from project config
I run project-config/rebuild a few minutes ago now the project config file for this set was re-created but in the
..cDi folder (not in the normal globalSets folder)
it now looks like this

The set is still marked as "deleted" tho + my projectconfig table does not contain values from this file

[andris-sevcenko]

Can you try clearing your caches and then running project-config/rebuild?

[Anubarak]

Sorry for the late response..

I deleted those file, rebuild the config and they were re-created
after that I cleared all caches, deleted those files, rebuild the config, this time they were not re-created

I guess I know what I have to do for my other projects.
Thank you very much for your help

[brandonkelly]

Very weird…

[Anubarak]

@brandonkelly I think I know when it happens, however I don't have the time to figure out why it happens.
Our internal server is a little bit "misconfigured" to say at least.. we cannot run a composer update nor craft commands without root permissions (don't judge me, I have nothing to do with it) but doing so via root will also change the permissions of config files that were touched via migrations.

When I forget to change all the permissions back to the web user I'll receive an exception "config isn't writable" - after changing all permissions and re-save something all those strange folders appear until I delete from and delete the cache.
Not sure if this is really an "issue" or if you should spend your time to fix it unless it's trivial to do so.