Author Topic: "unable to scan" message on all folders in C drive  (Read 12765 times)

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hughmckenzie

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Re: "unable to scan" message on all folders in C drive
« Reply #15 on: June 18, 2008, 02:38:34 PM »
I'm logged on as user.

Offline Lisandro

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Re: "unable to scan" message on all folders in C drive
« Reply #16 on: June 18, 2008, 03:41:54 PM »
Maybe that's the point... but I think that some of that folders you should have read access anyway...
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Offline igor

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Re: "unable to scan" message on all folders in C drive
« Reply #17 on: June 18, 2008, 06:50:19 PM »
Well... that's Vista.

What you are seeing certainly are not all the folders on your C: drive. You see only the links (and maybe only some of them, actually).

You know, when you install Vista, it creates quite a strange system of NTFS links on the system drive. They are not real folders - they are only virtual objects, "pointing" to different folders  (when you enter such a link ("folder"), you actually appear in a completely different place of the directory structure).
Some of the links are there for compatibility reasons I guess, but why create that crazy structure the Vista installer builts, that's beyond me. I guess Microsoft programmers must have been pretty drunk when they made this. Oh yes, there are even circles in this structure.
Now, some of those links take you to a different folder (so you can access files from that folder) - but simultaneously, they restrict the access rights - so you are in a different folder, but you can't see the content.

That's what you see here I think. When avast! enters "C:\ProgramData\Desktop" folder (which is just a link) during the scan, it actually gets redirected into C:\Users\Public\Desktop (the real folder). But - it's denied the rights to list the content of the folder - so it doesn't scan anything there, and reports an error (at least when running under a restricted user account). It doesn't really matter, however - when avast! arrives at C:\Users later, it scans its content normally (well, if you have the corresponding access rights, of course), so you won't miss anything.


Now, I must say there's one thing that's rather strange here - the error itself. The error should be "Access denied" (I can reproduce the behavior here)... not "Path not found"... looks like something else might be going on there as well.
But the main thing is that no files are skipped because of some error - the reported folders are just links, and the real content is scanned elsewhere (throughout the scan).


If you're willing to check something, I can build a special executable that you'd run and report the results back; if we're lucky, it may tell us why the strange error type.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2008, 06:52:54 PM by igor »

Offline Lisandro

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Re: "unable to scan" message on all folders in C drive
« Reply #18 on: June 18, 2008, 07:15:54 PM »
Why don't you create a new error message for this Microsoft weird loop?
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hughmckenzie

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Re: "unable to scan" message on all folders in C drive
« Reply #19 on: June 19, 2008, 10:52:49 AM »
Hello Igor. Yes, I'm willing to try that. I'm going to be away for a while soon it'll may heave to wait till I get back. Please let me know what you want me to do. I'm reassured by what you say about them not being "real" folders.

Offline igor

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Re: "unable to scan" message on all folders in C drive
« Reply #20 on: June 24, 2008, 02:57:18 PM »
Please try to run this executable and post the output here:
http://public.avast.com/~glucksmann/chklink.exe
(either the input it prints to the console, or just a screenshot; I put a message window at the end to pause the execution)

All it does it try to determine the target of the "C:\Documents and Settings" link, and it tries to start the file enumeration in this "folder". I'm not sure if it reveals anything, but maybe...

Thanks.

Offline igor

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Re: "unable to scan" message on all folders in C drive
« Reply #21 on: July 31, 2008, 05:52:11 PM »
Any news? ;-)

cxf.

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Re: "unable to scan" message on all folders in C drive
« Reply #22 on: August 03, 2008, 12:57:16 PM »
Hi there. I have exactly the same issue as the OP.

I have run as admin with the same result. I ran your exe and attach it along with a screenshot of the error itself.

Cheers.



Offline igor

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Re: "unable to scan" message on all folders in C drive
« Reply #23 on: August 03, 2008, 03:06:42 PM »
Interesting (though if you get the same results even when running as Admin, I doubt it's actually the same problem)... do you have the drive S: on your machine?

cxf.

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Re: "unable to scan" message on all folders in C drive
« Reply #24 on: August 03, 2008, 03:11:27 PM »
I have C: with the OS on it and most of the computer, D: mainly with movies and the DVD drive. When I say I ran as admin it was right clicking and "run as admin", not logging into an admin profile...

Offline igor

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Re: "unable to scan" message on all folders in C drive
« Reply #25 on: August 03, 2008, 08:46:17 PM »
Well, the link C:\Documents and Settings resolves to S:\Users on your machine (normally, it's C:\Users, of course). So, it's really no wonder that avast! can't enter that link...

However, I have really no idea why the link is that strange (but the path is returned by the system itself in response to the question to resolve the link - i.e. I don't think it's a bug in avast!, as it's not avast!'s code).  ???

cxf.

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Re: "unable to scan" message on all folders in C drive
« Reply #26 on: August 04, 2008, 04:41:17 AM »
Ah ok. I do remember reading something a while ago about phantom s: on vista machines... not sure.

Regardless, I hit repair on avast in Control panel, Ran as admin again and went to bed. This morning... no error message! Looks like it is all better. :)