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AVG 2013 virus scanner false positive on SETI@home 7 for Windows
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![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 30 Nov 01 Posts: 65 Credit: 1,640,576 RAC: 46 ![]() ![]() |
hi. I use the paid avg, but this should work for you. Step 1, add an exeception to the bonic data directory from all scans. Step 2 you will need to add an exeception in the identy protection module for each seti application & version there of, ie setiathome v 7.0, astropulse version 6.0, astropulse verrsion 6.01, setiathome cuda <varous versions> etc. Each version of each program will need its own exeception. look further down the thread for my exeperiences on this topic. After I reinstalled Bonic & added the execeptions, everything returned to normal. Good luck. Rae A city destroyed by an earthquake is an opportunity to Rebuild, redeign & make it a better place to be. Better, stronger, faster like the 6 Million Dollar Man |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 27 May 07 Posts: 3720 Credit: 9,385,827 RAC: 0 ![]() |
Sorry to say but I am encountering the problem on Windows 7 (32-bit) with a Free version of AVG. Can you post (copy/paste) the exact directory/files in the list of exceptions (excluded from scan)? Because if you did this with posted: C:\Program Data\BOINC\projects\setiathome.berkeley.edu C:\Users\YourUsername\Program Data\BOINC\projects\setiathome.berkeley.edu ... nothing useful will happen. (\Program Data\ have to be \ProgramData\ , 'YourUsername' have to be replaced, etc. So your BOINC Data dir is for certain different ) Â ![]() ![]() Â |
![]() Send message Joined: 10 Apr 06 Posts: 2 Credit: 4,592,422 RAC: 0 ![]() |
Dear Eric, I wrote to you some days ago about getting an AVG Heuristic virus report on 7.00. I followed your instruction and set AVG to ignore the folder containing the Seti@Home file. Now I get nothing but computational errors on all the 7.00 tasks running on my system. I told Boinc to update Seti@Home yesterday. It downloaded many new tasks. Today all those tasks had terminated with "computation error." Could AVG and this problem be related? Thanks. Sincerely, Ramon |
Eric Korpela ![]() Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 1382 Credit: 54,506,847 RAC: 60 ![]() ![]() |
Hi Ramon, Haven't had a chance to deal with my PMs recently. I'll look into it. Thanks, Eric @SETIEric@qoto.org (Mastodon) ![]() |
LOUIS M.EASTON Send message Joined: 17 Mar 12 Posts: 1 Credit: 826,519 RAC: 0 ![]() |
DR.KORPELA,MY COMPUTER IS STILL HAVING TROUBLE RUNNING SETI@HOME PROGRAMS.LOUIS M.EASTON. |
Grant (SSSF) Send message Joined: 19 Aug 99 Posts: 13886 Credit: 208,696,464 RAC: 304 ![]() ![]() |
If you have a problem then ask for help in the help forums. BTW- all caps indicates shouting- not very polite. It's also difficult to read. Grant Darwin NT |
Claggy Send message Joined: 5 Jul 99 Posts: 4654 Credit: 47,537,079 RAC: 4 ![]() |
DR.KORPELA,MY COMPUTER IS STILL HAVING TROUBLE RUNNING SETI@HOME PROGRAMS.LOUIS M.EASTON. All your results completed O.K, what is the nature of your computer's problems? All tasks for computer 6568745 Claggy |
rob smith ![]() ![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 7 Mar 03 Posts: 22674 Credit: 416,307,556 RAC: 380 ![]() ![]() |
Stop shouting. Eric works hard, very hard, and does so Monday to Friday. So either move your question into the "number crunching" part of the forum, or wait for Eric to respond. Bob Smith Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society) Somewhere in the (un)known Universe? |
Mark Sager Send message Joined: 15 Jul 12 Posts: 3 Credit: 1,474,786 RAC: 0 ![]() |
i just got the avg error on one of my boxes, then i added the execeptions rule to avg for boinc, and then restarted the boinc client. and it error out all projects. im trying a clean install now. Are we sure the virus scanner is false? |
![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 27 May 07 Posts: 3720 Credit: 9,385,827 RAC: 0 ![]() |
Are we sure the virus scanner is false? Yes Check (click) the links in these posts: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=71784&postid=1373741#1373741 http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=71784&postid=1374180#1374180 Also this (Detection ratio: 0/47 for setiathome_7.00_windows_intelx86.exe): https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/eb48e373ef5d59bc018ef687388cae5e824bc1dc09b1549eb95ddae5efbcbac0/analysis/ If you want - send your copy of setiathome_7.00_windows_intelx86.exe (or any other file you have doubt about): https://www.virustotal.com/en/ Â ![]() ![]() Â |
Mark Sager Send message Joined: 15 Jul 12 Posts: 3 Credit: 1,474,786 RAC: 0 ![]() |
i did a clean install and now all seems to be ok. But now i have like 8 error while computings and about 20 abandoned tasks for this fathersday task. so i hope it dont make people too mad about recrunching some of my tasks. |
kittyman ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51511 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004 ![]() ![]() |
I happen to be using Trend Micro Titanium on my daily driver, and it has never thrown me any warnings about any Seti program or file. "Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once." ![]() |
![]() Send message Joined: 9 Jun 99 Posts: 15184 Credit: 4,362,181 RAC: 3 ![]() |
Today I've been installing and uninstalling, and rebooting Windows a lot due to me writing a FAQ on how to add the BOINC Data directory as an exclusion to various antivirus products, both free and paid versions that I got trials for. Early in the morning I started off with making a Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit SP1 virtual machine in Virtual Box. Initial VM was 100GB, and it was allowed to use up to 6GB RAM. The only Windows Update I had allowed through was the English language pack (163MB). Packages I tested were: Adaware Antivirus, Avast Free 2013, AVG Free 2013, Bitdefender Security, Comodo Antivirus, ClamWin, Eset NOD32 2013, Micrososft Security Essentials, Panda Cloud, Kapersky Pure 3.0, Norton 360 2013, McAffee 2013, Rising antivirus, Trend Micro 6.0 and Zone Alarm 2012. Glad too that I use a VM, because upon uninstallation of Zone Alarm, Norton, McAffee, Comodo AND Trend Micro did Windows hang, and after a hard reboot of the VM had I lost the Windows boot loader, or worse. Zone Alarm was the worst, here I had to reinstall the VM, as even Windows recovery system couldn't fix Windows. DO NOT USE ZONE ALARM! Bitdefender is the slowest installer of all, it took me 1.5 hours of installing. The initial installer goes through a scan of your system, then it downloads the package and definitions, then it does the install and then it scans again. Even on a 100Mbit connection that Virtual Box can use, the download speeds didn't get above 5KB/sec. !! Uninstalling goes a lot quicker, though! Upon uninstalling Trend Micro I noticed that my system was crawling at a snail's pace. Checking Processes, I found the VM was using the full 6GB of memory, meaning that in total I was using 7.43GB of my 8GB RAM. And thus swapping a lot to page file! None of the AVs before that had done this. Comodo has gone quickly from a nice, quick, free package to a bloatware package. Not only does it install 6 different packages onto your system, when you go uninstall it, you have to do the other 5 by hand, and only after we done the initial reboot. And then you have to wait and see if your Windows loads after each reboot. Norton has a special uninstaller that it needs to download first, then it'll uninstall parts of the AV, while in the mean time installing other crap that you then have to uninstall separately and reboot for. I feel pity for the people that must run this piece of crap. At the end of each install & update cycle, I scanned my BOINC Data directory with all of these AVs, and none of them found anything wrong with anything in the directory. Not with Seti, not with Einstein, not with any of the 50 project directories in there. After uninstalling all Avs, I found that each and every one of them had left crap behind in the Programdata, Program Files and Program Files (x86) directories. Up to 15GB worth of crap. The Windows VM that had started at 100GB, had grown to 117GB at the end of the install/uninstall cycle. |
Alinator Send message Joined: 19 Apr 05 Posts: 4178 Credit: 4,647,982 RAC: 0 ![]() |
LOL... I guess they figured that if sloppy programming, packaging, and excessive bloat was good enough for Microsoft, it's good enough for them! I imagine this exercise was enough to satisfy all your masochistic needs for the rest of the year! :-D |
![]() Send message Joined: 2 Sep 06 Posts: 8964 Credit: 12,678,685 RAC: 0 ![]() |
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![]() Send message Joined: 26 Apr 00 Posts: 3 Credit: 6,619,218 RAC: 0 ![]() |
Have done everything I know and have been told to do about this problem, but it keeps deleting my seti project. I have verified that the exception has been added to avg, etc etc etc. I have (5) old extremes that have been running seti for the last couple of years but no longer they have been redirected to MilkyWay until I hear that AVG and Seti are fixed. |
Boda Send message Joined: 16 Jun 00 Posts: 1 Credit: 2,931,973 RAC: 4 ![]() |
My AVG2013 does issue an alert against boincmgr.exe and blocks its use unless an exception is created. It was the Identity Protection module of AVG2013 that assessed boincmgr.exe as being suspicious which leads to the question of what behaviour is that of version 7 that leads to these problems with different AV programs? |
Eric Korpela ![]() Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 1382 Credit: 54,506,847 RAC: 60 ![]() ![]() |
For SETI@home 7, we compress the executables and DLLs to save on download bandwidth. AVG and a (very) few other virus scanners consider this technique, which I've been using since 1989, to be "suspicious activity". Since they have a larger customer base than SETI@home does, they don't seem inclined to change their opinion. I doubt that compression is the issue with the BOINC executable, though. I'm guessing that AVG doesn't like programs that can start and stop system services. Although since it's the identity protection component, it could just be an aversion to numbers. BOINC uploads and downloads a lot of files with numbers in them, and the last 4 digits of your social security number or the last four digits of your credit card number are bound to be in one of them. And BOINC asks you to enter a your password at times. It might be that AVG thinks the BOINC manager is scamming you. @SETIEric@qoto.org (Mastodon) ![]() |
Peter C. Watt Send message Joined: 2 Jul 99 Posts: 5 Credit: 4,955,922 RAC: 8 ![]() |
AVG reported suspicious files when I first downloaded Version 7 a few weeks ago, but BOINC ran OK until last night. Last night, AVG not only flagged the program but disabled it. The BOINC Manager, running SETI@Home and Milkyway@Home is now "not connected to a client". When I try to activate it, Boinc advises something such as to "go into the Control Panel and turn on the Servlet for BOINC". However, the Control Panel in my Windows Vista Home Premium operating system doesn't seem to have those settings. The BOINC Manager is completely blank in all its screens. How do I reactivate the BOINC program and the projects that I had going? I tried Windows System Restore back to a few hours before the problem, but that didn't fix it. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. -PW |
Bob Giel Send message Joined: 11 Jan 04 Posts: 76 Credit: 5,419,128 RAC: 0 ![]() |
Go into AVG and create an exception for the BOINC directories. ![]() |
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