[Recommended Workaround] AVG antivirus/AVAST blocks opening Evernote AND/OR opening attachments

[Javier Romero 0]

AVG has detected the IDP.HELU.PSE20 threat in Evernote and has blocked the application. Is an update of Evernote needed?

Thanks,

Javier.

[Mike P 2,626]

I'm using EN 10.2.4 (1949) and Windows 10 home version 1909

Whenever I attempt to open attachment directly by double clicking or using the three dots followed by open, the file initially opens as expected but then my antivirus software shuts down the software used to open the attachment (e.g. adobe reader, excel etc) and gives me this warning.

Googling the problem suggests this occurs for other software as well but I can't get any of the suggestions made to solve this problem. If I download the file first it is fine. There is also no problem with the legacy version. I've not seen this problem in the past during preview, beta or earlier version on V10 but it is possible that it is a change in AVG rather than EN.

I'm documenting it here so that EN appreciate there could be problems with compatability of the new EN with some common anti virus software. Has anybody else seen this or have any suggestions as to how to solve it?

 

[AdmiralP 83]

??? I'm running EN c10.2.4 (1949) on a Windows 10 Home version 2004 PC - not experiencing that problem - Word .docx files iopen IK and ODFs are cembedded...

[Mike P 2,626]

53 minutes ago, AdmiralP said:

??? I'm running EN c10.2.4 (1949) on a Windows 10 Home version 2004 PC - not experiencing that problem - Word .docx files iopen IK and ODFs are cembedded...

Do you also have AVG anti virus software?

[agsteele 2,942]

I don't have this but don't use AVG either.  Could you bear the pain of disabling/uninstalling AVG and allowing Windows Security to step in and see if that fixes things?

I use ESET anti-virus.

 

[Shane D. 1,818]

@Javier Romero Thank you for letting me know.

I'm further investigating into this issue.

What version of Windows OS are you running?

[Mike P 2,626]

@Shane D. This appears to be the same as my issue:

 

 

[AdmiralP 83]

I'm using Norton anti-virus software

Have you seen this topic ?

 

[Edjes 0]

Same problem here. Assigning powershell.exe to trusted programs doesnt work, as it is a behavior shield that stops the process.

[Shane D. 1,818]

Thanks all,

I'm working with our team to further investigate.

I've gone ahead and merged the two threads, and modified the title to better reflect the issue. (Please let me know if it seems inaccurate).

It seems from your reports that AVG may be causing a few different issues.

I'll follow-up with an update as soon as I have one.

[CentralAla 17]

It's occurring in Avast as well

[CalS 5,280]

39 minutes ago, CentralAla said:

It's occurring in Avast as well

Love the avatar!

[Javier Romero 0]

@Shane D. Windows 10 Home version 1903 build 18362.1139

Thanks!

[Javier Romero 0]

On 11/5/2020 at 7:33 PM, agsteele said:

I don't have this but don't use AVG either.  Could you bear the pain of disabling/uninstalling AVG and allowing Windows Security to step in and see if that fixes things?

I use ESET anti-virus.

 

I could, but I would not like to let Evernote determine my AV program, that is why I wanted to understand where the issue lied. I have been using Evernote for years and this just happened overnight.

[CentralAla 17]

So, this has changed now with the latest EN v10.3.7 & Avast all updated. I no longer get the Avast popup indicating that powershell has been blocked. Avast does not react at all as it did before. However, once the attachment opens (a spreadsheet), it crashes in the spreadsheet program in a few seconds & disappears from the screen. If you try it again, the spreadsheet goes into recovery mode successfully but crashes again in a few seconds. This is reproducible in v10.3.7 but does not occur in the legacy version. I am running the latest Win10 version 20H2 that was released this week.

[Mike P 2,626]

19 minutes ago, CentralAla said:

So, this has changed now with the latest EN v10.3.7 & Avast all updated. I no longer get the Avast popup indicating that powershell has been blocked. Avast does not react at all as it did before. However, once the attachment opens (a spreadsheet), it crashes in the spreadsheet program in a few seconds & disappears from the screen. If you try it again, the spreadsheet goes into recovery mode successfully but crashes again in a few seconds. This is reproducible in v10.3.7 but does not occur in the legacy version. I am running the latest Win10 version 20H2 that was released this week.

Interesting. That has always been how it happens for me. See my post further up. 

[agsteele 2,942]

On 11/9/2020 at 6:33 PM, Javier Romero said:

I could, but I would not like to let Evernote determine my AV program, that is why I wanted to understand where the issue lied. I have been using Evernote for years and this just happened overnight.

It may not be Evernote. I used to use AVG and it was not unusual for a virus database update to break a program I'd been using for sometime. It was one of the reasons I switched to the program I now use. Have you raised it with AVG as an issue?

[CentralAla 17]

Yes, I have seen AV updates & definitions cause this type issue before as well. I usually update everything I can prior to troubleshooting. I use Avast & do have an active call open with them. If anything useful is provided or the situation changes, I will note it here. Thanks

[CentralAla 17]

It seems that I spoke too soon - the same issue has returned as before. This appears to occur anytime a call is made to utilize any 3rd-party program to open an attachment in Evernote whether a spreadsheet or pdf. Still haven't heard back from Avast on what they see in the logs but I suspect this is an Evernote issue as it worked fine previously. Will advise

[CentralAla 17]

I received notification from Avast Support that this has been corrected in the latest AV definitions & I can confirm that

It's working as designed now for me

[Raphael Tsavkko 4]

On 11/6/2020 at 7:11 PM, Shane D. said:

Thanks all,

I'm working with our team to further investigate.

I've gone ahead and merged the two threads, and modified the title to better reflect the issue. (Please let me know if it seems inaccurate).

It seems from your reports that AVG may be causing a few different issues.

I'll follow-up with an update as soon as I have one.

Ok, so...? I cannot edit eny excel sheet or word documento using evernote because AVG closes it. It's been a month and no solution. This new version is the worst I've ever seen!

[Mike P 2,626]

49 minutes ago, Raphael Tsavkko said:

Ok, so...? I cannot edit eny excel sheet or word documento using evernote because AVG closes it. It's been a month and no solution. This new version is the worst I've ever seen!

If you Google the error message you will find that this is a problem that effects a lot of different software not just Evernote V10. There is alot of frustration on various AVG forums that AVG have failed to sort out this problem going back over a number of months and years. I don't think it is therefore justified to blame EN entirely for the problem. In the end I uninstalled AVG and am using different antivirus software with no problems.

[Raphael Tsavkko 4]

4 minutes ago, Mike P said:

If you Google the error message you will find that this is a problem that effects a lot of different software not just Evernote V10. There is alot of frustration on various AVG forums that AVG have failed to sort out this problem going back over a number of months and years. I don't think it is therefore justified to blame EN entirely for the problem. In the end I uninstalled AVG and am using different antivirus software with no problems.

I don't have such problem with any other app, but Evernote. It started immediately after I've update to version 10 - thankfully there's the legacy version, otherwise it'd be impossible to work. The new version is just horrible. It fails to show my noes if I'm offline, it's laggy, slow... The iOS version I even uninstalled, it's so slow I gave up.

[NoteAmMann 0]

Hi there,

any news on this topic?  None of my various other software causes this problem in AVG...
Is there someone working on it or is it really necessary to install other virus detection??
Greetings, Wolfgang

[Raphael Tsavkko 4]

On 12/5/2020 at 9:23 PM, NoteAmMann said:

Hi there,

any news on this topic?  None of my various other software causes this problem in AVG...
Is there someone working on it or is it really necessary to install other virus detection??
Greetings, Wolfgang

Got a message from AVG team, they said it's not their problem.

[Mike P 2,626]

12 hours ago, Raphael Tsavkko said:

Got a message from AVG team, they said it's not their problem.

That's incredible. As I said in a post above this is a problem users of a number of different pieces of software have not just EN. Of course it's possible that it is an Electron problem - I haven't looked to see whether they are all Electron apps. Anyway I switched and my current antivitus software has no problems with EN V10.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

My Kaspersky on Windows does not interfere either.

[agsteele 2,942]

I use ESET anti-virus. No problems here either.  This is an issue with the AVG virus database. As others have noted AVAST went away and fixed the issue in their virus records which is what AVG needs to do.

If anyone wishes to use free anti-virus then my son who works in the industry tells me that the Windows Defender package is quite well regarded and built in to Windows.