AVG Antivirus detects POTCO as malicious (INFO)
 

Okay guys. I posted elsewhere about this.

Currently up-to-date installs of Grisoft's AVG AntiVirus detect POTCO's Launcher1.exe as an infected file and blows it away. It then prevents it from being reinstalled, even if you shut down ALL of the AVG services.

POTCO has contacted AVG and AVG is currently working on the product.

Currently the ONLY work-around is to completely uninstall AVG.

Note: This is highly NOT RECOMMENDED!

I've tested this on my local workstation (I already have a current image of it and can easily restore it). It DOES work. After uninstalling AVG and rebooting, POTCO does begin working again.

And, in their infinite *COUGH*WISDOM*COUGH*, the people running POTCO don't seem to be planning on telling anyone about this. They're just going to sit on their hands and wait until AVG fixes the issue.

If you have friends, guild-mates, or strangers who're having problems with their POTCO installs, please pass this information on to them (well, don't tell them about uninstalling their antivirus, some people are dumb enough to do it and forget to install it again later).

I personally paid for my virus scanner, NOD32. I find it the best after trying pretty much all of them.

Don't touch mcaffee or norton is my advise.

*Crosses fingers* Plz avg, come through for me. Pirates is the only good online game I have anymore.

I dont necessarily think its the AVS, more like something in the game thats throwin the AVS into protection.

I paid for mine (AVG Pro) too.

This happens now and again. Have run into it with other AV packages as well.

And yeah, I second no McAfee or Norton.

The AV products aren't TOO bad. It's when you get the stupid "security suite" garbage that your system tells you "I am an underclocked 286 with no math coprocessor!"

It's something in the AV defs that's mis-identifying the POTCO launcher as "bad".

An updated def should fix it.

Let me clarify my response, I dont think its a specific AVS, as it sounds like quite a few different ones are having the same thing.

I use Avast and I've had no problems. I've used McAfee and Norton on previous computers, and all I can say is that those two programs were some of the worst programs I have ever installed. Can't completely remove either of them from your system, they worm their way in much like a virus or spyware would do. My Avast was free and blows both of these programs out of the water.

Just curious though, what happened to the original thread discussing this issue?

P.S. The irony of a pirate using anti-virus software named 'Avast' does not escape me. ;) Love this program though, it is beyond simple.

I was running AVG and it detected POTCO as a virus. I uninstalled it then installed Avast! antivirus. POTCO is working fine.

I'm glad that Avast helped sort out the problem for you. A good program that works without a hitch and is free? I installed avast the first day I heard about it and haven't looked back.

So if anyone is interested, here's a link for Avast
http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

Mine went beserk today, so I do believe I will be changing to Avast with the rest of you guys for now.

Ditto Here....got rid of AVG and now running Avast.

Looks like the problems started today for lots of us....weird.

Glad you were all here to help! I would have been at a total loss without this thread :) Thank You All!

When I first head about this issue I got really...really worried. lol. But it just wasn't making sense that there were some of us able to get on while others were getting the virus message - so it makes sense that it was a specific issue (AVG) that was causing this. I'm glad that you guys were able to sort out the problem with Avast. Besides, it's only fitting that we pirates use Avast. Arrr! :pirate6:

I updated my AVG yesterday, got the warning about launcher.exe as soon as i tried to log onto pirates, so I uninstalled pirates...and it wouldnt even let my re-install it. I updated AVG today(it was a very small update) and just finished re-installing pirates, and it works fine now, so AVG fixed the problem, apparently!:dancetl6:

Good to see that they were so quick to jump on the issue. I believe that I did read a post here where someone said that it would probably take a day or two to make the necessary adjustments. Nice work AVG.

Ive jumped on the Avast bandwagon myself. I like it so far, but time will tell how it likes me or my PC (been without an AV for the life of the PC)

I don't run any sort of anti-virus software. At all.

I've never had any problems. Ever.

How?

My router blocks people trying to open a connection to my machine.
I don't use Internet Explorer.
I don't use Outlook.
I don't randomly click on whatever attachments that people send me via email.
I keep up on the security patches.

That's it, really. Do that, and you'll be fine.

The program runs itself. No annoying pop up messages, it doesn't mess with the game play (unless it updates, then of course you'll lag for just a few seconds there), but it's basically just install, set up and go. And it has 7 providers - IMs, net shield, specific Outlook protection, basic net protection, P2P monitoring, just to name a few. I haven't tinkered with it since setting it up, no need to once you apply your personal settings.

Good luck with it Angel. :)
And I see that Bilge likes to live dangerously. lol. Glad that's working out for you, but I am far too paranoid to go commando out there, so to speak!

ok so :

#1: if i uninstall Pirates and reinstall it will i lose everything i did so far?

#2 : if i pay for AVG can i somehow turn it off, the back on AFTER reinstalling Pirates???

HELP!?

pleeeeeeeeeeeease???

As far as I know, everything for POTCO is stored on the servers, or however you would say that. Our characters are not saved internally on our own computers, otherwise we wouldn't be able to access our pirates from other computers. So deleting the game won't affect your characters as far as I can tell, however, I would wait for someone us to back me up on this one... just in case. lol

Kat is correct. Everyone's pirate is saved on Disney's database, so uninstalling/reinstalling will not affect any progress in game you have made up until now.

You can turn AVG on and off without paying for it, but due to the current issues the minute you turn it back on the problem will start all over until it is fixed on thier side.

ok...well that tells me something..so thanks guys! i was just wondering about turning off AVG to reinstall Pirates, because i thought someone said earlier on the thread here that they did it and had no more issues....hmm. might be worth doing anyway just to see...

but thanks again!:pirate6:

I got the SHeur.BHDX error last night too.

Today I did an update of my AVG database, then went to AVG's "Virus Vault," restored Launcher1.exe from it. That should do it. No need to reinstall.

Then just to be sure I went to the folder Launcher1.exe is in and specifically had AVG scan it, and it comes up clean now.

Piratesq you are my new hero!!!!

lol..just tried it and it worked FABULOUSLY. Took me a few minute to figure it out where it was in the vault and how to rescan it butit WORKS!!!! HUGGGS!!!!!
lol...yeah i'm a bit excited...i fixed all by myself! (well with your help that is...lol.) :laughks2:

i SO owe you....:buds:

Although I believe you've resolved your problem, this question remained unanswered for this and any other future situations that may arise.

Your pirates are stored on POTCOs servers. Go to any computer, install POTCO, login, and you have your pirates. Nothing other than the game files, screenshots taken, and probably some 'cache' files are on your local computer. So, if you DO have to uninstall/reinstall, you lose absolutely nothing other than the time you took to do it. ;) I havent tried it, but your screenshots would probably remain intact as well, as the uninstall wouldnt know to delete them.

Zeppers lvl 40 - All mastered but lvl 21 cannons
Groggy McJones lvl 26 - All weapons quest/tp quest finished - avoiding story quest
http://pirates.teamofx.us

Well AVG seems to be back to letting us Pirates run amuk. At least their response time is better that POTCO :) LOL

(as an old salt, i was totally used to the way avg worked...nothing wrong with avast as far as i could tell, but we old dogs are hard on learning new tricks...hehehehe)

thanks for the info...
 

yeah it really sucks that POTCO isn't saying anything... my fiance had to find out what happened by looking in our AVG logs to find out what had happened to the pirates.exe on our computer and then went to the AVG website to get more info because POTCO isn't posting anything about it... i am really bummed that i can't play the game anymore until the problem gets fixed... this is the first time i have ever played any game like this and even though it was sometimes frustrating, i have been enjoying playing it... and because of this problem, i don't have it to play anymore... so i am crossing my fingers that AVG can come up for a fix for this soon... and someone needs to tell the POTCO people that it isn't nice of them to just keep us in the dark..

Arr! Glad to be of help! :pirate6:

ok Piratesq i got one more question..

i just tried logging into pirates and it did it again...so i just had to go through the whole process again..which i don't have a big problem with but thing is it's still on my virus vault list and i don't know how to take it off completely. i'm thinking it being in the vault still is the reason i had to do this all over again. am i right? and if so how do i get it off there completely to stop having to go thru that whole thing everytime i want to play the game? i don't have the AVG firewall that i can see...so i don't think that's my problem. (yeah that was actually more than one question wasn't it..lol. oops...hee hee...):mybadki6:

Heya! Well did you actually update your virus definitions first? Let me give a step-by-step.

1. Open the AVG Control Center (icon down by the clock).
2. Click the "Check for Updates" button or select Check for Updates under the Service menu at the top.
3. If it prompts you for Internet of Folder, choose Internet.
4. If you haven't gotten it yet, there should be a small update available. Select it and install it.
5. Once it completes the update, go to the Program menu and launch the Virus Vault, or select Virus Vault from the list of items and click Open.
6. Find Launcher1.exe in the list (you may need/want to sort it by Date, most recent first).
7. Right click on it and choose "Restore File(s)."
8. Close the Virus Vault and the AVG Control Center.
9. Fire up PotCO as normal!

If you didn't update the virus defs, that'll cause it to keep detecting it once you take it back out of the vault.
I still have it sitting in my vault and hasn't stop it from working, so that shouldn't be a problem.
I hope that helps!

The I'd say you're extremely lucky. Granted, your good behavior mitigates most of the serious risks, and the fact that you're probably an isolated user who doesn't have to have your machine interacting directly with others helps.

The fact of the matter is what you're doing is akin to saying "I haven't died of old age yet".

It's going to happen. EVENTUALLY. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But eventually you, or someone using your machine, will get something.

You shouldn't have to uninstall anything. And even if you do, all that will happen is that the game will take a while to reload the island maps.

All your avatar(')s(') stats are resident in the POTCO service itself.


Note: The problem currently IS fixed.

My laptop with AVG (which actually plays it more beautifully than my main machine), got on last night, updated, and I rebooted (didn't notice the original POTCO-killing behavior until a reboot). POTCO still comes up.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled piracy.

Note: I'm the one who did it. I did it merely to test whether or not uninstalling the AV program worked in getting POTCO back.

It does.

HOWEVER

I do NOT (and will never) recommend simply getting rid of your AV program simply to play a game. Simply wait the few hours/day-or-so for the updated definitions and find something else to do for an evening.

In any event, the "crisis" is over. AVG's current definitions have fixed the problem.


Yeah. This is my sole real beef about the whole issue.

Most users, when your app gets broken, don't know (or CARE) that it isn't your fault or beyond your control. YOUR app broke. "Everything else" still works!

This is why I wish they'd have at least put a small notice of the application conflict.

As has been said, the fix is out. Update your definitions, reboot, then go into the virus vault and restore the Launcher1.exe and you're golden.

I run ZoneAlarm, it came on my computer, and it doesn't do anything but alert me that POTCO is accessing the internet. It might just be that one program.

Actually, I scanned the file with more than one anti-virus product, and all positively identified the file as a Trojan virus. Considering that it started infecting other files and blasting away my media, I conclude that the launcher is in fact bugged with a virus. Programmers from companies have been known to do this stuff when they're mad at employers.

My AVG allows me to choose what I do and do not delete. I can reinstall and launch it if I want. My system went completely haywire from the program though.

Also, it's not my media card or anything like that.

yeah AVG musta fixed it...

i have my AVG on my laptop set to update every morning and when it did it today i was able to use the shortcut with no problems. So after going thru the steps Piratesq posted and then the update, it seems that the problem's been solved i guess! (yay!!!) not having any issues anymore....now if only SOME companies would fix their issues online so quickly...lol.

:laughks2:

lol, I being on vacation visiting my folks, had potco on my dads computer (he uses avg). I tried it today, and found it had quarantined the launcher. I updated AVG, opened quaratine area, right clicked to restore the launcher1.exe file, and I was back in business.

Zeppers lvl 40 - All mastered but lvl 21 cannons
Groggy McJones lvl 26 - All weapons quest/tp quest finished - avoiding story quest
http://pirates.teamofx.us

i think it AVG dectects it because when u click the pirate launch icon it tries to connect with the internet so AVG might see this as a virus tryign to spread and therefore Poof!

Off topic but on topic at the same time - noticed a thread at TTC where people are mentioning having problems with AVG and TT too.

http://www.toontowncentral.com/forum...d.php?t=187941

Thought I'd add it here in case it had anything helpful for POTCO players or if any of you who are also at TTC could help out.

Just putting it here for info as I'm clueless on the more technical stuff - that's why I have a computer guru for a husband! ;)

Good to know. So, instead of being a "POTCO" issue, this is an issue with Disney game launchers.