PS 27.8.0 is creating .c2paws files again when it shouldn't

This is a followon from my original post a few years ago: https://community.adobe.com/questions-712/c2paws-files-now-being-created-with-every-document-saved-why-1165120

The problem seemed to resolve itself about 24 months ago and since then, I’ve been free of this mess, but this week Photoshop updated to 27.8.0 and the .c2paws files have come back again. Every filetype I open now generates these files - tif, psd, png, jpg - you name it, they get created. 
Before the ‘AI’ bots reply and tell me it’s “content credentials” - no - it’s not. I turned this off three years ago and it’s been off ever since. I even toggled it back on and off today to see if that would cure it. It doesn’t. I’ve rebooted. I’ve re-installed PS 27.8.0 - nothing works. This is a plague on my machine now. I have hundreds of these files that have been created in the last few days without me noticing so now I’m having to once again run a cleanup script just to un-clutter all my project folders.