Assuming by 'start fresh' you mean move or delete the config/database folder under appdata, I did that and ran the 0.99g-2 you put up yesterday with -skipupdate (probably not necessary) and -relaunch and now it works, somehow? Interestingly it now also works fine without that flag and after I move my old database and config files back into place. So either that flag fixed it permanently or the whole thing resolved itself overnight.
Very strange, sounds like it may have been another issue with some third-party software interfering and holding the file open or something like that.
Edit: Out of curiosity, what does that -relaunch flag actually do?
Didn't see your edit until the thread was bumped...
Normally, when you run Paragon Chat
without the -relaunch flag, the first thing it does is look in %APPDATA%\Paragon Chat\Bin to see if there is a ParagonChat.exe these. If there is, and if that file is as new or newer than the one you ran, it simply launches that copy and immediately exits.
If it doesn't exist, or if the copy there is older than the one that is running, Paragon Chat copies itself to that location, then launches the copy. In both cases, it adds "-relaunch" to the command line when it starts the second copy to inform it that is is the relaunched copy and to skip over that check.
Why? Two reasons.
1. For systems with UAC enabled where COH is installed under Program Files, this lets Paragon Chat update itself (just the copy under the per-user AppData) without having to have Administrator rights. The copy in the COH install folder does not get updated, but it doesn't matter since that copy does nothing except launch the newer one under AppData.
2. For people using third-party launchers. These caused a bit of a headache at first. If a new version of Paragon Chat came out, there was a time lag between when I released it and when the third-party manifests got updated. During that window, things could get stuck in a loop where Paragon Chat would update itself, then Tequila or whatever would see that the new version didn't match the one listed in its manifest and replace it with the older one, over and over. Or before the self-update feature, people would download a new version only to have it replaced by the launcher and leave them scratching their heads as to why the new features were missing.
With the relaunch code, in case #2, the third-party launcher can download an somewhat older version of Paragon Chat and it doesn't hurt anything; that version will simply launch the up-to-date one located elsewhere. The copy in the COH install directory never gets updated, so the third-party launcher is happy and doesn't try to replace it.
Manually running with -relaunch bypasses that behavior and causes it to just run in place without attempting to relocate itself. Not something you would want to do normally, but potentially useful in helping troubleshoot issues where for whatever reason the copy in AppData can't be run.