After 5 years of brilliant service from Avast, I’ve just experienced my first problem in the form of a very annoying false positive. I’ve had false positives in the past, which I have been able to resolve by simply adding an exception, however the exceptions don’t seem to be working this time.
I play a very popular game called Battlefield 3 (BF3) by Electronic Arts, which uses an anti-cheating program in tandem with BF3, called PunkBuster. PunkBuster is a program that allows “Real-time scanning of memory by PB Client on players’ computers searching for known hacks/cheats”. I believe this function is conflicting with Avast’s simultaneous scanning of my computer, and is labeling it as a virus, much like it would if there were two AV programs installed on the same computer.
PunkBuster, however, is not a virus, nor is it malware. PunkBuster’s website is here http://www.evenbalance.com/index.php
Now, as I explained earlier, when I received the false positive warning that the offending programs had been moved to the virus chest (thereby rendering my video game unplayable until I restored the files), I attempted to create some exceptions for PunkBuster, as well as BF3. I did this by going to:
Real-Time Shields > File System Shield > Expert Settings > Exclusions, and adding the following exclusions to the list
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\PnkBstrB.xtr
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\PnkBstrB.ex0
C:\Users\myname\AppData\Local\PunkBuster\BF3\pb\PnkBstrA.exe
C:\Users\myname\AppData\Local\PunkBuster\BF3\pb\PnkBstrB.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts*
C:\Program Files (x86)\Battlelog Web Plugins*
However, even after adding these exclusions the virus warning continued to appear, and kick me out of the game. I called technical support via phone, and was told to disable my shields while playing the game, yet I’m not comfortable doing this as I surf the internet simultaneously on my other monitor.
Please tell me what files you need from me to properly look into this issue and get it resolved.
Thank you,
Stoutlagger
