Well my game clearly doesn't care. "1 files failed to validate and will be reacquired." which is the classic Steam issue that translates to "Everything was fine."

In the folder you mention is anything missing despite Steam validating?

./ui_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./dubbing_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./editorpreviews_f_oldman.pbo
./soft_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./language_f_oldman.pbo
./editorpreviews_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./data_f_oldman.pbo
./music_f_oldman_music.pbo.a3.bisign
./static_f_oldman.pbo
./languagemissions_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./languagemissions_f_oldman.pbo
./sounds_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./music_f_oldman.pbo
./props_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./functions_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./ui_f_oldman.pbo
./modules_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./characters_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./functions_f_oldman.pbo
./missions_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./missions_f_oldman.pbo
./soft_f_oldman.pbo
./language_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./supplies_f_oldman.pbo
./static_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./modules_f_oldman.pbo
./supplies_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./characters_f_oldman.pbo
./data_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./structures_f_oldman.pbo
./music_f_oldman_music.pbo
./music_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./sounds_f_oldman.pbo
./structures_f_oldman.pbo.a3.bisign
./dubbing_f_oldman.pbo
./props_f_oldman.pbo

I ran validation a second time this time it said all 2xxxx files validated successfully but now it's validating again for what looks like a game update and new shaders.

I'll preface this next bit by the fact this has been an issue for over a year, I've validated and uninstalled and reinstalled several times. So either this game content update that just installed included a fix or there is some gremlin BS going on. Which is a fancy way of saying...

After the 3rd validation I launched the game. To my amazement no old man nag. However now upon trying to load a save "Cannot load the saved game. Incompatible versions."

I started a new game and tried to save and reload and now it works...so I'm definitely suspicious of the update to the game and shaders today. Looks like all my previous saves will be lost but I couldn't use them anyhow. I'll take it though, I just want to play the game.

Please upload log files.

The RPT files referred to here: https://feedback.bistudio.com/w/ft_a3_howto/gamecrash/

Save game files generally don't work across game updates because we do changes to the data in them. You can try editing your save file with https://save.arma3.io/, but its not guaranteed to work.

Well let me clarify. I lost my campaign saves long long ago. As I said this problem has persisted for at least 2 years and I've reinstalled the game and done the Steam verify files many times. This nuked all my campaign saves. As for the saves I tried the other day they were for Scenario maps since all I can do is play short scenarios since I couldn't load saves.

So your saying I can expect to lose all my save data for any and all small patches and updates? That is some serious B S. Given this recent patch/update seems to have finally fixed save load I'll go ahead and set Arma 3 to immutable on my file system...

I can't gather the logs as I do not use the launcher. It has in the past never worked under Proton. If there is a cli or secondary method to make it compile the files you need let me know.