Author Topic: False Positive on Game  (Read 1618 times)

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Offline PaulBenn

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False Positive on Game
« on: December 26, 2018, 08:08:36 PM »
Enviroment - Windows 10 Home, Version 1803, Laptop

During the day on Christmas Eve I was playing a game that was launched by a file DoctorWho_Pc.exe via a shortcut on my desktop. The game has been on my PC for quite a while and was reinstalled several months ago when I had a system crash, all with no problems. I launched the game several times during the day again with no problems. However, on Christmas Day, when I wanted to play the game for a short while before I went out I was told that the shortcut pointed to a file that was either missing or had been moved. I tried restoring the exe file from a backup and that failed. Restoring to a different location and then trying to copy to the original location failed with permission errors. Having tried various solutions to the permissions problem that I had googled to no avail, I uninstalled the game and tried to reinstall it and I got a write error on the exe file and it wouldn't reinstall. At this point I was at a loss as to what to try next and I contacted the developers.

This morning, before I had a reply from the developers,  I suddenly had the thought that I wonder if Avast had done something with file. When I checked the vault, there was my exe file. When I restored it I could then do a reinstall of the game which got it working again.

What I don't understand is the following:-

1. How can a file that has been on my computer for several months (and been accessed in that time) suddenly be flagged as a virus?
2. How was it that I managed to play the game for over an hour with no problem only to find that the file had been quarantined (as I now know) when I shut the machine down.
3. Why was there no warning that a file I had been using had a suspected virus and was about to be quarantined? This woul have certainly saved me a lot of grief and hard work trying to work out what the problem was with the game.
« Last Edit: December 26, 2018, 08:18:32 PM by PaulBenn »

Offline Pondus

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Re: False Positive on Game
« Reply #1 on: December 26, 2018, 08:19:58 PM »
what file was detected?
What did avast say about it ... malware name given?
Have you checked detected file here?  >>  www.virustotal.com   post link to scan result


How to report to avast  >>  https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=14433.msg1289438#msg1289438



Offline PaulBenn

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Re: False Positive on Game
« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2018, 08:38:54 PM »
I can't remember what Avast said was present - I was just glad to get the file out of the vault at the time and get my game working again.

The file that actually caused the problem was called DoctorWho_Pc.exe - part of a Dr Who game.

The VirusTotal log is here https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/6c370b59c8b67a87db4871d9713c5051a7499a2c6ea98ee9f693100c7e41deca/details

Update:- I have just gone into the GUI and looked at Notifications and the last activity there is for November with nothing for December.
« Last Edit: December 26, 2018, 09:01:33 PM by PaulBenn »

Offline PaulBenn

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Re: False Positive on Game
« Reply #3 on: December 27, 2018, 05:16:23 PM »
Having thought further about the issue, I am wondering if the file I submitted to VirusTotal was a clean copy as a result of the game reinstall that I did. Having said that, are there any logs that I can look at that would explain what happened when the application was vaulted i.e. what triggered the vaulting?