True Image 2021 39184 breaks qBitTorrent 4.3.3 using Python 3.9.2

Bruce, I can only recommend that you open a support case direct with Acronis to report this latest issue with ATI 2021 #39184 then be prepared to fight the support first line who work from scripts before getting the issue escalated to someone who will understand the issue being reported!

My guess is that the Protection feature of 39184 has deemed qtorrent and or python as malicious.  To get around that you will probably have to Exclude those apps folder from the Protection feature scanning.  If either of these apps has been quarantined you would need to undo that action as well.

Enchantech wrote:

My guess is that the Protection feature of 39184 has deemed qtorrent and or python as malicious.  To get around that you will probably have to Exclude those apps folder from the Protection feature scanning.  If either of these apps has been quarantined you would need to undo that action as well.

Thank you for the response!

Protection is turned off permanently,  Detected Issue: No Issue, Quarantine: No Items, Protection Exclusions: No Items.

I tried turning it on so I could exclude those folders, but it didn't help.  qBitTorrent still refuses to see Python as installed.

I then turned Protection back off permanently.  No change.

Bruce, in my experience of this latest build, turning off Protection permanently does NOT stop Acronis Active Protection from still being active and preventing access to various files!!

I saw this most recently when trying to modify a script .tib.tis file on my PC with protection turned off permanently which was denied until I forced AAP to stop using a powershell script!

All this is contrary to the statements from Acronis that the new Protection can be turned off!!

Steve Smith wrote:

Bruce, in my experience of this latest build, turning off Protection permanently does NOT stop Acronis Active Protection from still being active and preventing access to various files!!

I saw this most recently when trying to modify a script .tib.tis file on my PC with protection turned off permanently which was denied until I forced AAP to stop using a powershell script!

All this is contrary to the statements from Acronis that the new Protection can be turned off!!

Very interesting.  But I can't think of a easy way to prove that the protection is the cause of my symptom.   I tried adding a few of the folders (including the entire c: drive) to the exclusion list and it had no effect, with protection on or off.  Thanks.

Bruce.

Open the True Image application and click on the Protection tab on the left side.

On the Protection screen click on Settings button at the bottom right of the UI.

Click to select the Active Protection tab and scroll down the screen to the bottom.  You will find a Manage exceptions button.  Is this where you added the qBitTorrent and Phython URL's?

Web filtering is what prevents malicious or potentially malicious web sites.  Because qBitTorrent is a peer to peer application, meaning it connects to many different servers/IP addresses some of those have been flagged as hosting malicious content even though what you have downloaded in the past may be safe.

Be advised that if adding URL's in True Image does result in fixing your issue, you are potentially opening the door to malware threats.

Enchantech wrote:

Open the True Image application and click on the Protection tab on the left side.

On the Protection screen click on Settings button at the bottom right of the UI.

Click to select the Active Protection tab and scroll down the screen to the bottom.  You will find a Manage exceptions button.  Is this where you added the qBitTorrent and Phython URL's?

Web filtering is what prevents malicious or potentially malicious web sites.  Because qBitTorrent is a peer to peer application, meaning it connects to many different servers/IP addresses some of those have been flagged as hosting malicious content even though what you have downloaded in the past may be safe.

Be advised that if adding URL's in True Image does result in fixing your issue, you are potentially opening the door to malware threats.

No.  I didn't touch the web URL filtering.  I added those folders using Settings -> Advanced -> Protection Exclusions.  It didn't help.

I already have an anti-malware solution I completely trust so I'm not at all interested in whatever Acronis offers.  I'm only interested in disabling all the non-backup features.

Bruce.

Bruce, are you using any specific search plug-ins with Qbittorrent?

I have installed both applications and am not seeing any issues suggesting that Python is not installed but I don't have any search plug-ins installed and have no idea what to try in that respect as it has been a very long time since I last used any torrent app?

Steve Smith wrote:

Bruce, are you using any specific search plug-ins with Qbittorrent?

I have installed both applications and am not seeing any issues suggesting that Python is not installed but I don't have any search plug-ins installed and have no idea what to try in that respect as it has been a very long time since I last used any torrent app?

It's been a long time since I originally installed qBittorrent and I'm not clear about whatever plugins I might have installed.  I seem to remember yes, but now I can't figure out how to list the plugins I might have installed.

Ah, the Search plugin has to be installed before you get the list of Search plugins.  I have no Search tab, and qBittorent says it is because the missing Python.

When you start qBitTorrent, you have a Search tab?  If not select View -> Search Engine and please tell me if Search is working for you.

All that works on TI 38560 for me but not on TI 39184.

Thanks!

Bruce.

Bruce, all I did yesterday (on my PC with ATI 2021 #39184 but turned off) was first install Python using default settings & administrator, then installed qBitTorrent again with default settings, after which I could open the Search tab but this is a blank page due to not having any search plug-ins installed.

I picked a random search plug-in and this installed fine and seemed to have worked except found no results.  This suggests that perhaps one of your installed search plug-ins may be triggering the issue here?

Thank you for doing that.  Assuming all this points to the search plugins, I'd have to assume that 39184 causes one or more of the optional plugins to fail and prevents loading of Python.  Unfortunately without the Search Tab, there's no way to list, delete, or add any plugins so I have no obvious way to confirm that.

I'll do some more googling to see if there is a way to delete optional plugins without the Search Tab.

Bruce.

Since it can't load python, I don't see how python based plugins might be the problem.

But googling I found that the optional qBittorent plugins are stored in:

AppData\Local\qBittorrent\nova3\engines

So I uninstalled qbittorrent and python, deleted that folder, and then any and all folders I could find that might be left over from either qbittorrent or python.

I reinstalled qbittorrent and as usual, when I invoked Search it told me python wasn't installed and I let it install it for me.  No change.  Still no Search tab, and invoking Search again tells me python still isn't installed.

Since I deleted where the plugins are stored, I don't see how qbittorrent plugins might the the source of the problem.  More likely there is some other subtle difference in our PCs.

Bruce.

Bruce, on my Win 10 PC the search plugin is stored in the

C:\Users\smiths\AppData\Local\qBittorrent\nova3\engines folder

Thanks.  I deleted the folder

C:\Users\smiths\AppData\Local\qBittorrent\nova3\engines

And then uninstalled qbittorrent, deleted all the qbittorrent folders I could find, uninstalled python, and reinstalled qbittorrent.  No change.  It still doesn't see Python as being installed properly under 39184.

Bruce.

Bruce, have you tried just installing Python on its own then launching either the IDLE or main application without installing qBitTorrent?  That was the approach that I took rather than letting the latter control & perform the install.

Yes, essentially.  I uninstalled everything and deleted whatever leftover I could find.  Then I installed python and it seems to work, though I can't really test it without qBitTorrent is the only program that uses it.  I then installed qBitTorrent and it all works, python and qbitforrent.  Search tab is there and all works.

Then I install 39184 and suddenly qBitTorrent can't find Python anymore.

You would need to open a support case with Acronis for assistance.

Interesting new symptom.  Installing 39184 also kills cmd.exe.  No matter how cmd.exe launched, it disappears before the command prompt window appears.

Powershell won't launch either.

Uninstalling 39184 immediately restores proper cmd.exe and powershell operation.  They also work fine with 35860 installed.

Bruce.

Bruce, there definitely seems to be something very strange about your PC to be seeing these further symptoms just from installing the #39184 build!

I have 39184 on multiple systems and am regularly using both CMD and Powershell with no issues.

Even more strange that your are not seeing these same issues with the previous #35860 build.

Have you re-downloaded the 39184 installer from your Acronis Account and verified the checksum for it, plus are installing this from an Administrator account.

Good idea!  Unfortunately nogo.  I originally downloaded it from my Acronis site using my account but hadn't yet verified it.  I installed MD5 and checked the download I've been using and it checks out as good.

My theory is there is something unique about my PC.  For example Windows Updates (I'm on the latest available).  For a while I investigated the PATH environment value.  I thought it might have gotten too long for some programs because of all what I have installed, and my Windows hasn't been loaded from scratch in a long time.

I spent a bunch of time cleaning up the PATH variable, deleted left over crud from no longer installed programs.  I was looking at it because of the jaw dropping amount of of text TI adds to it.  But 39184 seems no worse in that than 35860 is in that regard.

And if the PATH was somehow messed up or too long it could certainly affect a lot of different programs, including cmd.exe.

So it's easy for me to think of 100s of ways my PC might be different than yours.  BTW I also ran a virus scan and temporally disabled the antivirus just to make sure it wasn't the source of my grief.

I haven't tried it in many years, but isn't there a cleanup program for TI?  It's helped me before.  Is that still available?

Thanks for your help!

Bruce.

Bruce, there is a link to the Acronis Cleanup tool in my signature.

Just FYI, the Acronis Cleanup Tool didn't help.

Update, still broken.  No change on the qbittorent issue I started this thread with.

I'm documenting it in case anyone else runs into it or knows how to fix it.

Issue has changed a bit.   39184 still fails and 35860 still works.  But while I was working on the weird qBittorrent problem previously described, I noticed a new symptom.  After 39184 is installed it is impossible to start a command prompt session.  Eventually I noticed that cmd.exe is actually starting but almost instantly exits with no error.  Powershell is the same except it runs closer to a half second or so.  It is impossible to get a c: prompt on this PC.  As always, uninstalling 39184 instantly fixes it.  I've not noticed any other symptoms.  Other than not being able to start a command line session, everything works, including TI.

And it doesn't matter how you launch cmd.exe.  It exits immediately 100% of the time.  Note that any previously started command prompt windows will stay open and process commands as normal.  But I can't launch a new one.

I also discovered that rebooting in Safe Mode allows me to start cmd.exe sessions even with 39184 installed.  Safe mode allows the cmd.exe and powershell.exe command prompt sessions to work normally.

So my Windows 10 operates *almost* normal under 39184 ... so long as I don't need a C: prompt.

Edit: I've also run "sfc /scannow" and "DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth" without it finding anything wrong or repairing anything.

Bruce.

Bruce, this is turning into a real mystery because I am not seeing the issues with CMD or Powershell with any of my systems running 2021 #39184, nor being reported by any other users in the 2021 forum.

If you have an Acronis System report zip file that you could share via a cloud service (Dropbox, OneDrive, etc) - then drop me a share link in a private message & I will take a look to see if I can find any clues?

Bruce, thanks for the system report zip file, just managed to access that this morning!

Cross reference to topic: Command line stopped working after update to update 4

Note: Trend security apps in common?  Trend Micro Maximum Security listed for Bruce from the msinfo32 report of Program Groups.  Trend Micro Antivirus referenced in Rick's topic.

Update:  The discovery of the interaction between Trend Micro Maximum Security and TI 39184 made me try this again.

With 39184 installed, qbittorrent still fails to find Python and the search feature remains disabled.  It works fine under 35860.

To see if TMMS is guilty here as well, I uninstalled TMMS.  Qbittorrent now works and finds Python.

Note that simply disabling TMMS is not enough.  It must be uninstalled.

So far I haven't thought of a circumvention when using the latest versions of both TMMS and TI.  They still aren't playing nice together.

Bruce.

This interaction is troubling. If ATI protection is turned off, then another protection package should be able to run. What this appears to be demonstrating is that "off" is not really off. This only lends credence to the belief that if the protection is not desired it should not be installed at all.

2 things happened since my last update.  Trend Micro issued a new version of Trend Micro Maximum Security  17.0.1274 within a few days, and a bit later Acronis posted a new True Image 2021 Update 5 32916.  With both new versions installed, the cmd.exe problem is fixed.  cmd.exe no longer gets toasted simply opening a command prompt.

They also fix the problem I had with qBitTorrent and Python.  qBitTorrent now finds Python properly installed and the search feature works.

Bruce, good to read of the new versions of Trend and ATI resolving this strange issue!