Couatl64_MSFS.exe issue

[Hazza]

Hi,
Last weekend I updated GSX Pro and started a flight. Upon launch (with the FBW A320 selected) I received a message to say that COUATL had not started. I looked for the shortcut on my desktop and it had disappeared. Opening the folder I found that the MSFS file was very small (please see attached image)

I do NOT have ANY AV on this PC and multiple attempts to update it make no difference.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Cheers
Hazza

[virtuali]

I do NOT have ANY AV on this PC and multiple attempts to update it make no difference.

Your screenshot shows the .exe is only 2kb in length, which of course is wrong, and this can only caused by the antivirus. Are you *SURE* you don't have any, not even the default Windows Defender, which I'm not even sure it can be uninstalled.

If you use Windows Defender, you still might have to configure it to add the whole Addon Manager folder to the antivirus Exclusions, then run the FSDT Live Update. I'd remove the corrupted Couatl64_MSFS.exe file as well before updating.

[Hazza]

HI Umberto,
Thanks for your reply. I have set the AV to be off in both Registry and Group Policy (please see attachments). After confirming that I had actually set these I renamed the 2KB Couatl64_MSFS.exe to Couatl64_MSFS.exe.off so that Live Update can re-download it. Unfortunately I still get the 2KB file.
Just as a matter of interest, I would have thought that if AV was doing this it would have quarantined or deleted the whole file?

[Hazza]

Hi Umberto, I have also tried re-enabling Windows Security and have excluded GSX's folders.

Unfortunately the results are the same. Will I need to uninstall and reinstall do you think?

[airbumps]

Odd. Since the last update of GSX i'm also getting this message on occasion (not all the time). Manually clicking the START COUTL icon on the desktop obviously starts the program but for some reason it sometimes doesn't start automatically.

[Hazza]

My problem is slightly different to yours in that the Couatl64_MSFS.exe file is only 2KB. This is weird because Umberto believes it is an AV problem. I have both disabled and enabled AV but excluded the Addon Manager folder but the result is the same. Also I would have thought that couatl64_P3D.exe would be affected by AV as well. And Couatl64_MSFS.exe would be removed/quarantined entirely if it was the AV, not let a little 2KB portion through and cut out the rest?

The AV is Microsoft Defender and was disabled via the Registry and Group Policy settings. All was working well until a couple of weeks ago.

[reklesskarnage]

I have the exact same issue since upgrading to 2.6.3.

AV already set to exclude the Addon Manager folder. I have done a complete clean out and re-install also with the same result. Couatl64_MSFS.exe keeps saying it's only 2kb in size and when running says it's corrupt or unreadable. 

[Hazza]

So, I found my issue yesterday. It was my Arista Firewall Appliance. It has AV built into it. A Lite version and a Full version. For some reason the Lite version was detecting Couatl64_MSFS.exe as malware. I had only added update.virtualisoftware.com to the Pass List on the Full version.

Strange that it only affected Couatl64_MSFS.exe but Couatl64_P3D.exe was fine. Oh well, fixed now!

[reklesskarnage]

Awesome! I had the same issue. I too use the Arista firewall, and it was blocking it.....thank you so much!!!!

[virtuali]

You can be sure that, if you have a problem with Couatl, 99% of the times is the antivirus, that's why I always start any troubleshooting with that.