ExifTool glitch cured after PROPERLY excluding IMatch from anti-virus scans

[ColinIM]

I'm posting this note mainly to confirm that (based on my own evidence here) it is worthwhile excluding the IMatch executable from our anti-virus program's routine or 'live' scanning'.

(I'm running IMatch v2017.13.2 on Windows 7, 64-bit.)

I'm embarrassed to admit that when I upgraded my IMatch installation from 32-bit to 64-bit many weeks ago, I had failed to change the entry in my anti-virus program which excludes the IMatch Executable from its 'live / active' scanning!

My AV program had never complained that I'd asked it to exclude the old (and now absent) IMatch executable under:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\photools.com"

I have now changed the AV program's exclude entry to:
"C:\Program Files\photools.com\imatch6\IMatch2017x64.exe".

For some reason I had 'escaped' the consequences of this glitch until the most recent IMatch update to v2017.13.2, but during the past few days I had been suffering multiple metadata writeback errors. The failed writebacks were occurring (apparently) randomly on .NEFs, .TIFs, and .JPGs of varying file-sizes and in no particular folder on my usual, roomy and healthy  (spinning) hard drive.

The ExifTool Output panel showed variations on this message ...

Error opening (path+filename+extension) for writing

The 'culprit' files would show the little yellow 'exclamation' shield on their thumbnail, and there were matching entries in the IMATCH6 LOG file. (I've attached a non-debug-level IMATCH6 LOG file which includes some of those ExifTool-generated warnings.)

I felt sure that my files were not actually corrupt - even though it is common to see minor ExifTool warnings on some (most? All?) Nikon .NEF files - because I could return to these files at a later time and re-try the metadata writeback, and sometimes one or more of them would have their metadata written back successfully.

Anyway ... after reading the 'nudge' in this post from Mario today about excluding the IMatch exe in our anti-virus programs (although the theme of that post was not 100% related to my problem and although the thread had been resurrected from November last year) ... I checked my own AV program's settings ... then discovered my 32-bit IMatch / 64-bit IMatch mistake ... then corrected it, and voila (after closing & re-opening IMatch just 'to be sure') ... I've had no more Writeback errors (so far)!!

When I first re-opened my database a few of my thumnails were still showing the yellow 'exclamation' shield, yet IMatch was reporting "zero" files with pending metadata updates, so (logically) I ran a quick Database Diagnostics and was satisfied to see this 'warning' / fixed in the im5diag.txt LOG file:

Warning: 8 files marked as pending for write-back which have no data to write-back. Fixed.

That's it.

Sorry if this was too much TL;DR, but perhaps it'll help someone avoid a similar goof to mine      and perhaps it'll help persuade someone (such as myself ... who for many years was deeply sceptical about the need to make any 'exclusions' in our AV programs!) that it is a good idea to exclude the IMatch executable!!!

Colin P.

[Mario]

Thanks for sharing your experience. Anti-virus software sometimes does make things worse. Windows Defender (the built-in anti-virus in Windows) is usually OK but 3rd party AV may sometimes consider IMatch a virus because it launches external processes (ExifTool, FFMeg (video), Chromium (App Panels). The problem is that AV usually don't tell users that they have blocked something or interfered in other ways...

[ColinIM]

.... The problem is that AV usually don't tell users that they have blocked something or interfered in other ways...

Yes, that is a 'bitter sweet' truth about almost all AV programs!  Sometimes I think the threshold for their 'warnings' could be set a bit lower, although it's never good to be annoyed by 'false positives' I suppose.

I've been using "F-Prot" AV for years and years ... ( http://www.cyren.com/f-prot-antivirus-for-windows-home-use ) ... and except for some rare but reassuringly trapped 'spam' email messages that it catches in my Thunderbird emails, it tells me nothing about its scanning activity - which sort of suits me nicely!

I'm actually intrigued to be reminded (as I was today) that it is being so 'quietly busy' in the background on my behalf!!!