The Motherload Of A Tech Issue

[Ehey]

I'm just gonna dump what I put in the official support ticket.  I'm posting here in hopes that someone here has a solution quicker than official support does.  No beef with official support, but this issue has completely knocked out steam for me and that's kind of where all my games are.  Cheers. It's a doozy.

 

So after taking a break for a while I reinstalled the game through steam, the platform I have previously used for this game for several years. The download was fine, I launched the client and logged in to acquire the updates. It immediately opened two instances of itself and attempted to download the update. It would crash at varying amounts of completion and restart. I was unable to close these tabs through task manager, forcing me to do a hard reset on my computer.

Upon rebooting, Steam now detects that the game is running at all times, and cannot close, or launch it. There is no sign of the application running in the task manager. Multiple reboots have confirmed and reproduced this issue. Steam continues to detect it is running when it is not, even from a fresh start.

 

I would also like to add the concerning development that in an attempt to resolve the issue I have uninstalled Steam (which consequently deleted all of the game files for all steam-based games with out mentioning that it would do so, but I don't expect you to do anything about that, it is simply a detail for relevance). Initially I was figuring perhaps this was a steam issue, and perhaps it still is, but the following events lead me to believe it is something at the very least your department should know about.

Upon uninstalling the entirety of my steam library and purging the folder I noticed there were some files remaining. A handful. I attempted to delete the folder. Lo and behold I cannot delete the files because they are being used by the Evolution engine. The Evolution engine? The one that isn't running in the task manager? The one that CAN'T be running because I uninstalled steam and logically by proxy the files that were needed to run the Evolution engine? There are three very concerning issues with this discovery:

1.) The Evolution engine is being executed and run with out my input on a fresh boot of my computer.

2.) The Evolution engine is running with no files showing it is doing so in the Task Manager and seemingly no way to close it.

3.) The Evolution engine is running with out the files it presumably needs to run, and is locking down files that I cannot delete because it is using them. This prevents me from either completely removing Steam or functionally reinstalling it, leaving me in a limbo with a rogue program running with out leaving any residual trace of it running.

Edited February 4, 2016 by Ehey

[taiiat]

i guarantee you Digital Extremes isn't the cause.

 

 

anyways, the fastest method to (almost assuredly) alleviate this would be to connect your relevant drive to another computer, delete the files that would normally be in constant use;

then on your own computer booted again, try to identify what was causing the problem then. it sounds like something malicious had done something to some of the local files for Warframe. it's hard to say if whatever it is/was would still be around, but it would be expected yes, and that you have some weeding out to do on your system.

[Hollowfied_Knight]

Why don't you try downloading warframe from warframe.com then locating where all the files are,

 even try running the game if it works than uninstall it and install it through steam again and see if that solved your issue this is just a suggestion may not work.

[Rauxon]

Another quick one to try is to boot into 'safe mode' and see if you can delete them there - and/or try deleting them from a cmd window run with administrative privileges.  Each of those will get around a different possible cause.

 

Also, if you're running a relatively recent windows 8/10, they have a 'quick start' mode which means that the system does not actually power down completely, and instead hibernates for a quick restart.  This will be resolved by the reboot into safe mode as well.

[Ehey]

i guarantee you Digital Extremes isn't the cause.

 

 

anyways, the fastest method to (almost assuredly) alleviate this would be to connect your relevant drive to another computer, delete the files that would normally be in constant use;

then on your own computer booted again, try to identify what was causing the problem then. it sounds like something malicious had done something to some of the local files for Warframe. it's hard to say if whatever it is/was would still be around, but it would be expected yes, and that you have some weeding out to do on your system.

 

To be fair, my knowledge of how malicious code works is reasonably far from a high leve, but it seems incredibly strange at best for that to be the case.  To put it in a brief chronology I will summarize.  Beginning with a fresh install of Windows several months ago, I played Warframe via Steam for a while.  I stopped playing and uninstalled it.  Never in that time did I experience this issue.  Time passed as I played other games on steam.  There were no issues.  Again I got the Warframe urges and installed, played, and then later uninstalled.  No issues.  Now the current time has arrived and I downloaded Warframe via steam and immediately got this issue.  

 

So something malicious that I apparently acquired in between playing.  Something malicious that was only triggered by Warframe?  Furthermore, typically if something malicious is running it would show some trace of a process in task manager, would it not?

[Rauxon]

So something malicious that I apparently acquired in between playing.  Something malicious that was only triggered by Warframe?  Furthermore, typically if something malicious is running it would show some trace of a process in task manager, would it not?

 

Malicious is unlikely, it is much more likely to be just something silly.  However, if you are using UAC (or on a domain) then the default task manager will not show the processes beloning to other users.  Obviously you SHOULD be using UAC, since it is designed to help protect against lots of malware.

 

During the installation, administrative access is required, so it's possible (especially if two updates showed up) that somehow the app was launched once as you and once as the administrator.

 

Even if you run task manager as an administrator, it can only report the information that the system gives it.  More advanced malware (so not standard click through spam) uses various techniques to hide from task manager - so although it can be detected, it requires specific tools to do so.  Running an A/V scan is probably a good way to get a better feeling for whether something nasty is going on.

[taiiat]

So something malicious that I apparently acquired in between playing.  Something malicious that was only triggered by Warframe?

Furthermore, typically if something malicious is running it would show some trace of a process in task manager, would it not?

- not triggered by, but the possibility of it being infected by something else.

- simple malicious things, yes. but things that are truly dangerous, are completely invisible.

 

you should use UAC

UAC only protects against the little stuff, nothing truly dangerous.

whatever protection suite you're using is more effective than UAC.

 

UAC gets in the way of... pretty much anyone. it does nothing useful. it's 100x more annoying than a protection suite, yet does a much worse job.

you can even surpercede UAC's 'usefulness' by not clicking on random stuff on the internet and not going to obviously suspicious websites, Et Cetera.

[carnaga]

To close warframe start the command prompt as administrator:

 

1) Click Start.

2) In the Start Search box, type cmd, and then press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER.

3) If the User Account Control (UAC) dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, and then click Continue.

 

write to command prompt these lines one by one followed by ENTER.

taskkill /f /im Launcher.exe

taskkill /f /im Warframe.x64.exe

taskkill /f /im Warframe.exe

 

Warframe launcher and saved settings and log files are located:

%UserProfile%\AppData\Local\Warframe

 

Warframe executables and system files are located there where you installed it. If you installed it with steam the default location for warframe installation is:

%programfiles(x86)%\Steam\SteamApps\common\warframe

 

Sometimes to remove a file with default user account you need to use administrative rights. So to take the ownership of the folder here is simple procedure by Microsoft:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753659.aspx

 

Glad to be assistance.

[Rauxon]

Et Cetera.

 

The 'Et Cetera' is the reason this exists... Part of my job is working on IT support for a company of 800+ staff.  That Et Cetera has been stopped on quite a few occasions by not giving people local admin - which is the domain equivalent of UAC...

 

Yes, for home machines it can be a pain - but I've not had to actually disable it for anything I do for something like 5 years... 

[Ehey]

Another quick one to try is to boot into 'safe mode' and see if you can delete them there - and/or try deleting them from a cmd window run with administrative privileges.  Each of those will get around a different possible cause.

 

Also, if you're running a relatively recent windows 8/10, they have a 'quick start' mode which means that the system does not actually power down completely, and instead hibernates for a quick restart.  This will be resolved by the reboot into safe mode as well.

 

This worked. I knew modern OS's had the quick start type feature built into their hibernate mode, but I had no idea it went as deep as a full shut down.  Thanks, and thanks to everyone else. Does this mean we know what happened, or does this just mean we know how to fix it in a creepy Warhammer 40k "All hail the Machine Spirit as we anoint it with the sacred oils" type deal?

[taiiat]

-snip-

yes, it can stop very basic problems.

but so can paying attention to what you're doing.

my2cents.

 

i leave UAC on for other people's machines - because usually they need everything they can get because they don't understand not clicking on everything on their screen or w/e common sense things that people shouldn't do with their computers.

 

and then you have to fix it for them.... ugh.

 

Does this mean we know what happened

probably. if the machine never actually turned off, then Warframe was always running, but due to annoying Windows crap, you couldn't see that.

 

i can't tell you why Warframe would have been running in a state like that, where you cannot visibly see that it is running (as unless you have multiple users running, any active application should be presenting itself in the Taskbar), but my guess would be Windows sleep modes - as they are unreliable animals and cannot be trusted to always function correctly.