Post by Oneirolith in "An error occured while updating Fleshcult (missing executable)"

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The debug logs from the old version are consistent a bug where it can't handle weird characters or underscores in the install path or windows AppData path.

If you click on the notification speech bubble on the taskbar, there's nothing from windows saying "hey, just deleted a bunch of weird exes"? (assuming Windows 10). Is "Reputation Based Protection" turned on? It's in App & Browser Control.

You're not alone, somebody on Steam's getting exe deletion too. Could I get a whole bunch of details off you and I'll see if I can find any commonalities:

Windows version
Browser you used to download it
Browser extensions
Zip program used to extract it
Anything else you can think of that might have a penchant for deleting exes

diedcute3 years ago

It doesnt say anything about deleting anything, though when I do download the zip file (from itch.io) it always prompts me that its not commonly downloaded and may be dangerous (which i go through with anyways) and then it immediately says download error.

Windows Version: 10

Browser: Chrome AND Microsoft Edge

Browser Extension: Chrome has only adblocker.

Zip: Winrar

Im not too sure what else to really put, since Im at a lost on whats not letting me play this. Kinda fustrating, as I turned off my firewall, disabled antivirus, disabled about everything tbh. Just doesnt want to stay.

Oneirolith3 years ago (2 edits)

I've made a new beta version on Steam, which I understand you've also got. It gets rid of some data compression inside the executable, which I hear antivirus programs don't like.

If you have any patience left for all this nonsense, I'd be interested to hear if the computer poltergeist eats this one. (Right click on game, properties, betas, opt into the beta called "beta")

P.S. I strongly recommend turning your firewall back on!

diedcute3 years ago

Just reinstalled while on the beta, and it just seems to continously re-download the executable, deletes itself, re-downloads executable, deletes itself, over and over again. So no dice :c I really have no idea where its going at all at this point.

diedcute3 years ago

https://i.gyazo.com/d20645a60dd17d15eb0bfa893f510a96.mp4

I made a gif showing what happens

Oneirolith3 years ago

This is a lot to ask, but if you're feeling particularly intrepid you could try bringing out the big guns: Microsoft's SysInternals page has a program called Process Monitor. It makes a huge log of which program did what while it's running.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/

If you run it (procmon.exe), it'll start up by showing a list of filters. Here's a page showing how to add a filter for file deletions.
https://mikeberggren.com/post/135351739546/procmon-delete

If add that and hit ok, then try to install Fleshcult in Steam, you might see an entry in the big list for something deleting fleshcult (and probably a ton of unrelated deletions besides). By double clicking on the entry you can find out lots of stuff about that program and what it thought it was doing.

diedcute3 years ago

This is what it gives me.

Oneirolith3 years ago

Looks like that event is just Steam deleting a temporary file that was used for the download, after copying the exe into its final location in SteamApps/common/Fleshcult/fleshcult.exe. If there's no deletion from that final location, that suggests that Steam couldn't write the file there in the first place.

To get a broader picture we could try removing the filter for deletions and replacing it with
Path Contains fleshcult.exe then Include

Install fleshcult yet again and wait for it to get deleted again, and you'll get pages and pages of events. You could save the log as a spreadsheet and send them to me. To do that, go to File -> Save... and pick Events Displayed Using Current Filter and Comma-Separated Values and hit OK. If you could email it to me at jack@fleshcult.com I'll pore over it and compare it to what happens on my computer.

Dang, it's really crazy that this is necessary. I feel gaslit and I'm not even the one that it's happening to!

diedcute3 years ago

I figured it out myself - I noticed a thing called Segurazo was acting up a lot in the logs, so I looked it up, and its apparently a very stubborn antivirus/actual virus? I honestly cant tell from how they promote themselves, but I remember trying to uninstall it in the past and apparently it didnt erase completely, making it contionously delete the file. Kinda strange it only picked your game, specifically yours. Bad luck I guess lol. Though as long as its quarantined it works flawlessly

Oneirolith3 years ago

Oh, well done! It's a shame fleshcult can't possibly live up to this much build up, but I'm glad your machine's cleaner and relieved it wasn't Windows itself. At least in your instance...

I've been assuming fleshcult was getting mistaken for malware but now I'm wondering if Segurazo mistook it for antimalware somehow?