need help. PLEASE!!!!

I received the following message from PunkBuster, but am unable to test it since when I use "Run As" on BF it starts to load and then goes back to the desktop.

03/09/2005 15:30:23 - "Stuart Dunsmore"
Note #4: However, the reason you are getting kicked is because of a program blocking PB, or in this case, more likely the power user not allowing PB full access. You should try to run the exe as an admin user to see if that is truely the issue.

***My Story So Far***

Reinstalled XP SP2 (latest updates) and Battlefield 1942, but nothing else extra was added to the system. Logged in as a Power User who has those 5 local policies, there is no anti-virus program, and no ad/spyware programs.

Connected to a PB enabled game and was able to play for a good 10 minutes, until PB updated to the most recent update. I was then kicked from the server because of "Blocked O/S privileges: 4fd".

Ran PBweb.exe as my administrator account and it verified that all the latest updates were downloaded and installed. Attempted to play on a PB enabled game as my Power User and I am kicked 5 seconds into the game.

There is a definite issue with my setup and I am surprised that there aren't more people having this issue. Appears that I won't be playing BF anytime soon.

 

Please desist from unsubstantiated accusations. We do not want to precipitate a slanging match in this thread.

Any further inflammatory remarks from either side will be removed. Pilli

 

This is incorrect. PG stops invasive methods (such as process modification), whereas Punkbuster are using such methods as a form of anti-cracker protection. They've admitted themselves it's an extreme reaction, and programs like PG and SSM have unintentionally demonstrated how easily such methods can be defeated anyway, so unfortunately all it's doing is inconveniencing legitimate users as crackers won't have any problems at all with it. Afterall, crackers were cracking Punkbuster programs before any of them ever knew about ProcessGuard.

 

very true ^

another way to report problems with PunkBuster with a trouble ticket #:

https://ssl.evenbalance.com/troubleticket/index.php?game=cod

 

Well it appears PB are just ignoreing people with this issue and resoponding with a automatic response:

Please temporarily disable other security type programs you have running such as anti-virus, process guard, SDProtector, etc. to find out which of them is blocking PB's access to resources on your computer. You either need to run PB without the blocking program(s) or play on non-PB servers.

Seeing as thats what everyone is saying that PB is saying.

And I have not hear a word now since i made my first post.

This sucks!!!!!

Not only that but it apperars they made punkspusted close all the topics related to this as well as a few other forums.

 

Apparently PB have chosen to place PG on some kind of 2banned" list and that having ti installed on your pc COULD mean you are a cheater trying to disguise your actions.

So even having it installed is reason enough not to be allowed to play. This was told to me at punksbusted by some ppl who have been very helpful.

And yes i have followed ALL other options inc running game from admin user and right click "run as" etc etc

I Havent tried uninstalling it yet as im waiting to see if they backout their latest update or put their heads in the sand and try to ride it out

 

Once again, it has nothing particular to do with Process Guard. It has to do something with any program which limits access of PB software to the system files. And there is obviously a limitless number of such programs. Any Anti-Virus, Firewall, Anti-spy or Process Monitoring software can cause the problem, as it seems to me. I don't think that it's the Software-name-specific black list or something. E.g. i have problems, seems like due to the McAffee Antivirus. And the symptoms are just the same. Well, I got the standard reply from the Evenbalance "ticket", just word to word the same as somebody posted here a bit above in the thread. Then I added some more notes on the ticket page, and only then I got a manual, as it seems to me, answer. Here's the history:

1 (the intial ticket itself):
"Blocked O/S privileges, 4fd, Return to Castle Wolfenstein; slso Enemy Territory.

W2k+Novel, McAffee VShield Virus Scan (I have no Admin rights to disable it and I will not. Yes, I have sufficient rights granted to my account by the admin to play with the previous versions of PB).
Now that is simply unbearable!!! There is no other way than not to play the game! And I'm not the only one! At least in my place/organisation we are 5 people affected by your last version of PB. You are really killing the games!!!

If it's a temporary measure (citation of your emails found in various forums), then just remove it, damn! It's much better to have still this dozen of cheaters on servers (who were obviously all the time there, playing with your older versions, and we could live with it somehow), than immediately lose a half of the gaming society in one week!!!! Do it now, before it's too late!"

2. Their automatic answer:

"Hello,

Please temporarily disable other security type programs you have running such as anti-virus, process guard, SDProtector, etc. to find out which of them is blocking PB's access to resources on your computer. You either need to run PB without the blocking program(s) or play on non-PB servers.

If you do have access an admin account, you can right click on the application you want to run and select "Run As". This will allow you to give admin access to that program and should allow you to play with a limited user."

3. My second appeal (with citations from their answer):

">EB:You either need to run PB without the blocking program(s)

I cannot disable the programs, I simply don't have and will not have rights to do that. It's not my private computer.

>EB: or play on non-PB servers.

Yeah, thank you so much, no I can't play on my favourite servers, but have to find those few crappy ones without PB and players on them. And for that I have payed my money having bought the game (quite a lot for me). Nice...

>EB: temporarily disable other security type programs

How long this temporarily will last? If you are going to develop a new protection method/system/new_approach from scrap (and it looks like that from the info in forums), then it's going to be take quite a long time... And also, what about the question that I asked initially: "why not temporarily rolling back to older version of PB" Do not you guys out there see how the gamers are outraged? Many people (like me) simply are not allowed to make the changes you recommended in order to play. A lot of others will simply not understand why it happens to them! They will be frustrated and will quit trying to get into the game!!!"

4. Their answer:

"I'm sorry, we are looking into ways to allow limited users to play on PB servers, but our latest improvements seem to require an admin user to operate. And that is the only working solution we have right now."

The last one is apparently the manual answer, at last.

So it looks like they are atm quite far away from the correct solution of the problem, however the are not going to revert to the older PB version or soften the kick requirements. For me this means a) not playing anymore on my favourite servers b) Switching off the PB on our own clan server (maybe for good).

The situation sucks some serious ass...

 

Well I do not see how unless DiamondCS were to compromise the integrity of Process Guard and dumb in down in such a way that Punkbuster or anything like can by pass it;s protection at will and I seriously doubt that would happen. However if it did that would be one update you could not force on me, I would rather be cheated in a online game by some zit faced hacker than jeopardize the security of my system by disabling or retarding its protection.

If you think about it you already make a lot of concessions in your security just to gain the ability to connect to a game server which makes it one of if the not the most vulnerable positions security wise that you put yourself in. It does not take much for a “evil admin” to hack in to your system while you are on their server, and by removing PG and other protection like it just makes it that much easier.

If you have ever been on a game server and all of a sudden your game slows down, your ping to the server skyrockets, hard drives start spinning, CD/DVD drive fire up. Next, you get the feeling like someone is browsing your drives and perhaps downloading or copying stuff from them which in turn hogs your bandwidth thus raises your ping and eats up system recourses thus slowing your game to a crawl. Then it is a good bet you probably have fallen victim to an evil admin who just violated your system.

I know have had this happen to me on several occasions, and had to immediately shut down my game and take my cable modem off line for a couple minutes and it stops. So there is no way I am going to make it easier for them by shutting down more of my security measures, instead I will just not play.

 

I will however leave my one comment as it is important and refrain from any further discussion regarding posts, as the mod has wished.

Fact. This thread is posted on a couple of cheater forums and cheaters are encouraged to post here. People should consider some of the content in this thread as not quite being as it's represented.
I don't work for EB as I stated and it takes more than one liners to respond to some things said here. I'm just an admin active in that community. I stream my servers to PsB.
PsB is not under orders to close threads by EB. They are independant of EB. Quite simply it is outside of their mandate. They stated that fact and have posted where people should go. Is everyone clear on that now?

Wayne.
Please excuse that one less than detailed single line statement. Of course PG stops process modification it's one of the things it does. I understand that. My understanding is that it opperates at kernal level, hense my comment. Sorry if it mislead by being less than very accurate.
I wasn't intending to address the obvious so left my statement a little lacking.

This does not deter from the fact that your program is going to face further challenges along this line in the future and was my real main point. PB just happens to be the most widespread product of it's type, so it seems to be the one that has come up first, or second as was pointed out. It certainly won't be the last if you have a look at where all AC software is moving, including VAC. Counter what some people think. Online cheating is an issue game companies are very concerned with now. They weren't a few years ago but almost all have seen the effect to their bottom line and now are changing policy. There is more to come not less.

Anticheat software is designed to change, adapt and therefore is bound to bump into products like yours or yours into it. However, I think you got my point on the other comments I made. I'm sure EB will modify their approach as they have done in the past. You may find it in your interest that you also modify PG to accomodate for these types of programs in a co-opperative manner so your product cannot be abused for cheating. That's up to you.

Counter to the impression this thread leaves, there are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people playing without serious issue with pb. A software package such as yours would only benefit from co-opperation. So would EB for that matter. So it could be a win-win for both sides. Keep that in mind as my recommendation.

You say you are not a online game player if I remember correctly. It might be in your interest to study the situation somewhat and read up on the limitations and the problems involved. Yes pb does at times inconvenience players. So does any adaptive anticheat program out there. Tell me of one that doesn't and is any good? But because of cheat writers and cheat users, we all pay a price in this imperfect world. I'm sure we all can apply this inconvenience to other things in our lives because of dishonest people out there.

Wayne. You point out that you are less than impressed with the method PB employs. That's fine, it's your opinion. In the interest of all, I suggest and did before, to be a little more concrete in suggesting to EB what alternatives you have in mind that are effective, low resource usage accross cpu, memory, bandwidth and is dynamic while live. FPS games are very sensitive to the above.
I'm quite aware that we have an untrusted client situation in gaming and pb will always be attacked no matter what is employed. It is one reason it is dynamic. It's rate of evolution is not really the point of focus by me.

Now for those not using PG, writing in this thread and commenting on their issue. I made a very valid point that does cover at least one reason you may have problems with blocked priv. This is not speculation and you should seriously consider this. PB has accidently exposed infected or damaged systems. It's not designed to report what the problem is, so of course it can't tell you what infection or damage you have except with a code number usually.
Again, because I'm exposed to a large number of players as an admin and play myself, I do get far more feedback than the average player. I have to watch and read many forums to manage my servers effectively. A very significant amount of work as compared to a player that just jumps online for a game or two. Game admins are 24/7 so we tend to be a little more observant. You guys tend to forget or are ignorant to what goes on behind the scene to allow you a place to play. Pay to play is an option the admin community is trying to avoid.

I'm also just as sure there are combinations of things unrelated to infection that raise this blocked priv problem. The ticket reporting system EB has, is the approach to use. This is a small minority and EB are working with selected users from this group to discover the issues. This does take time, but already I notice an update that helped a few. Who cares if you get a canned response. You got acknowledged and logged. If they want to test with you, they will contact you. Your problem is not so unique it requires everyone to have a one on one with EB.

I'm also not nieve about why some people are complaining and I don't mean in this thread or directed at anyone here. The simple fact is that some of the private blocking methods of cheats have been exposed by this as well as catching cheats themselves. Some have not and that is obvious as well.
Cheaters by nature are liars. They will jump on any bandwagon they feel gives them an advantage. It's especially true for those with private cheats, that they can no longer use. They feel they can pose as legit in an issue and cause or make something seem a wider problem than it is. This situation is no different than things in the past. Just a variation on an old theme seen before. Never leave this out of the equation when reading forums.

For those that don't like my two posts. Sorry, I feel as entitled as you to give my side of this story and add some balance for people to consider.

 

Hi GameServerGuy.

I gotta say i dont agree with U at all on this matter, it was PB makers that decided to blacklist a lof of folk from playin their fav online games, they were the ones that hit the majority just to block a small minority of players who cheat.

I have played quake since quakeworld & even way back then there were cheats, U get them in every game, a small number who think it is funny to join a server with a aimbot/wallhack (some of which STILL aint detected by Ur beloved PB) & think it funny that they can win by cheating.

I still play q3 everynight & have been lucky not to have had this problem, a lot of friends have.I have also been a game admin & admin in clans & clan forums & there is no way U do that 24/7, in fact im my vast online experience it hard just to get a hold of a lot of admins at the best of times.

Evenbalance is actually putting people at risk when they tell them to disable security apps, most average users would prolly think that means Antivirus & firewall as well, they then go online & get attacked or whatever, at the end of the day it EB's fault as that is the advice they were giving out.

I have always been a big fan of PB as it keeps the worst idiots outa most decent servers, but this time EB went to far & tarred legitimate users with the same brush U use to tar the cheats.

Just remember it gamers that help pay for EB, if they ignore their users or accuse them of wrong doing with no proof, then they wont be in be about much longer.

Just my 2c

 

I’m hopeful this is but a temporary measure until an alternate solution can be had. Until then, I refuse to comply with irresponsible recommendations to remove security applications running on my machine for the sake of a game. Believe it or not, you AAO 'admin' folk are answerable to a higher authority - the customer. And this one, you just lost.

Meanwhile, the cheats still run their undetectable hacks on your servers and laugh all day.

Old Buzzard

 

Well said BourgePD

Why should DCS change or weaken their product just to suit EB, EB cant even keep the really obvious cheats off properly (look on the net & U will see that there are plenty of tricks to hide bots & hacks from PB, i have seen servers runnin very tight PB rules still let on someone that was using a combo aim/wallhack bot, it ended up everyone else having to leave cause of that idiot.

PG is a security app for Ur pc to keep it safe & give U more control over it & to black certain attacks, PB is just a crappy online protection soft that doesnt even do a good job. Not exactly a hard coice is it?

 

I think it sucks. Why isn´t it enough to disable protection in Processguard while playing? Or why isn´t it enough to allow the game to do what it needs to find cheats?
Why do I have to uninstall Processguard?
The funny thing is PG didn´t report any blocking at all when I got kicked (nor after). PG didn´t block punkbuster in any way.
Punkbuster (or Call of Duty:UO) had all rights to do whatever it needed to look for cheats (I checked allow everything in PG). But I guess PB finds that PG is on the computer and decides to cut me off. That approach seems a bit lazy to me :/

Unnecesary to say really; Yes I have Admin rights on my Windows XP Pro.

 

Unfortunately PG is a banned tool on your pc.

Ive run through EVERY step to get my pc working. Inc stopping and exiting PG and ALL security apps bar ZA. No Luck

Uninstalled processguard. Game works

Im not happy but I just brought the game. Ill do this for a bit and be careful where i go on my pc for a while

 

As this in no longer a direct user support problem for ProcessGuard I have decided to close the thread.

Thanks to all those that participated. Pilli