pSX crashing... and deleting

[xordar]

I've used pSX for a while and it has always worked great for me, but recently when I was about to use it, the .exe was missing from the directory. everything else was there; just that one file was gone. So I downloaded it again and extracted the .exe into the same directory. When I tried to run it though, it started up for just a moment, then crashed. Then the file disappeared from the directory before my eyes as though it had deleted itself somehow.
I'm using version 1.13 on a windows xp. As I said, it has been working fine for me until recently when this problem randomly occurred.

Thanks for any help you can give,
Jordan

[Truth Unknown]

Please check your Computer Security Logs (Anti-virus, Anti-spyware, and the like) to see if its being deleted by them.

[xordar]

didn't see anything like that...
btw, I am able to run pSX now and even play games on it for several minutes, but it cuts out and does the same old delete thing at random while I'm using it.

[Truth Unknown]

As far as I know, pSX is not programed to delete it's self.

It is appears that you either:
have a Virus that hates pSX (or running applications) but this is hard to really tell;
or Anti-virus or Anti-spyware software is false positiving or detecting a virus or bot that has infected the pSX (pSX is virus free on the official website);
or your operating system or storage media is unstable;
or you are on a public pc or school/work pc and a Administrator or Administration Software is deleting pSX.

I would advise to look over these points carefully, this is a very unique case and the current release has been present for a long time and this is the first of such an issue. Then again it maybe some form of a complex bug that really deletes the executable.

[Gamesoul Master]

I would normally agree that anti-virus could be detecting a problem and deleting it (even as a false-positive), since that's one of the few ways that something specific could be automatically deleted like that on the computer. However, the fact that it sometimes takes it a while to do it seems odd.

The possibility of it actually getting infected sounds reasonable. Do you even have any anti-virus software on the computer, and if so, what do you have? If you have anti-virus, have you run a full system scan anytime recently?

Is pSX the only program that has done this at all? Are you an administrator on the computer?

Two things you can do. First, take a picture of your processes list (just drag it enough to show the whole thing, or if it's *really* long, just take two pictures), and upload that picture somewhere so we can take a look at it. Second thing to do... upload your psx.ini file. If it's indeed some really complex bug occuring, there's a good chance some part of it would be reflected in the stored settings (via corruption of some sort).

[xordar]

Thanks for your time and effort to help me with this.
My anti-virus software is Trend Micro PC-cillin 2007. I run scans about once a week and nothing has been detected for a while.
pSX is the only program that has done this. I am the administrator and the only account on this computer.
As a matter of fact, I have been through the running processes with Windows Defender, but in any case I will post it.
Actually, though I have mostly been simply replacing the psxfin.exe, I re-downloaded the whole thing with no change. I tired version 1.12 and so far I have not encountered any problems, but I can't know for sure if it's good yet.

Thanks again for your time and help,
Jordan

[xordar]

Here ya go. (I hope this works...)

Edit: nope >.<
lemme try this again.

[no longer necessary; removed]


edit 2: there we go.

[xordar]

oh yeah, version 1.12 failed me too.

[xordar]

Ok, so I tried running pSX while my anti-virus software was turned off, and it worked for a while, but when I got impatient of waiting (I had my internet cable unplugged to be safe) and started it up again, it failed.
Unfortunately, I can't say that pSX lasted any longer than usual, so I'm not sure there's any correlation, but I will look again into the possibility that Trend Micro is to blame. I just can't understand why I never had any problems before. I've been using TM for longer than pSX.

p.s. When I turned TM back on, I plugged the internet back in. Maybe there's a correlation there as well??

[xordar]

I had Trend Micro scan psxfin.exe directly and it didn't detect any viruses. I checked the quarantined files and it wasn't there.
Wait.. what's this?
Ok, I found a log that says it detected spyware in psxfin.exe and that it quarantined it (multiple times actually). I don't see it in the quarantine list though. That's weird.
In any case, give me two seconds and I'll tell TM to ignore pSX and I'll let you know if that works. Thanks for your help and sorry it ended with such a simple solution that I probably should've figured out myself a long time ago.

[xordar]

I think I got it. thanks.

[Gamesoul Master]

Yup. I have no idea why TM would be detecting anything with pSX, but it's very obviously a false-positive. Glad to hear you ended up figuring it out though...

Oh, and for future reference, please try to avoid posting so many posts in a row. This forum doesn't auto-merge, so we try to encourage people to simply edit their posts when they're the last poster and want to add more information.