Copysafe PDF Protection : Unable to open .ENC files

Kendo

Group : Authors
Posts : 37
Joined: 2017-01-10

Some users cannot open the .ENC files. But it is strange because out of 650 identical workstations, it is only 3-4 users who seem to have a problem.

When I check "diagnostics" from the Copysafe PDF Reader toolbar, it does report that the Copysafe service cannot be reached, even though when I check the service I see that it is indeed running.

What can I try to fix this problem?

Support

Group : Admin
Posts : 116
Joined: 2016-09-29

Thanks for this report. It does help to eliminate some of the possibles.

There is no difference between versions 3.0.5.6 and 10 that will affect this issue. The difference between those versions will only be modifications to the installer, file dates and documentation. However 3.0.5.10 is most recommended to resolve an exploit created by Windows 10 "Microsoft Print to PDF". It also stops other printer-drivers used for file conversion across all Windows versions.

The occasional failures that you have reported are usually caused by lessened user privileges to run the software and anti-virus (AV) software disabling the service or "crippling" software files. On corporate networks lessened user privileges and software limitations can sometimes be encountered that may affect the proper running of software designed to interact at system level. On some networks firewalls have been found to be problem by not allowing the software to send and/or receive DRM requests/responses to an outside network.

Disabling AV without a reboot may not stop some AV from running in the background, and will do nothing for services and files already crippled by the AV.

I have only had a few reports over the years about having to re-install Reader each time. I think that those incidents may have been experienced with a document.exe that we used to provide. I was never able to reproduce the error and can only assume that it was caused by AV crippling files/services.

About AV... while I realize that AV is needed in a corporate network, my experience tells me that they are mostly rubbish and the more popular brands are more problematic. One would think that more popular AV would be more advanced with more research and development. But our experience tells us that is not the case at all.

Although our software needs to interact at system level to function properly, it is not a threat and does not alter any files. Yet some AV will cripple anything that it doesn't know about and this is where there can be a problem. AV companies do know about our software (or should) as we have been pounding that knowledge into them since they emerged and our users have also been complaining.
Contacting AV support is next to impossible these days unless you are a licensed user, so today we rely on our users to let the AV company know about the fault. Then if they receive enough complaints they might actually fix it.

AV crippling the unknown is a dilemma. AV only works by recognizing known strings and patterns. But some AV are faking it by warning ("false positives") about things it does not know about. Why they don't know is because they do not do their homework. Take for example the fact that we are one of several hundred software developers who use a particular brand of software to package our installers. About 5 years ago that installer software developed a new compression algorithm that produced slightly smaller installers. But it took Trend Micro 2 years to stop calling those installers a virus, only after several hundred software developers threatened to sue. Nortons still uses the "reputation" (false positive) excuse for their lack of research. "Reputation" is not a virus, but it is an excuse for ignorance.

I used to provide support for Internet users for a company that was also an agent for an AV company. So when users were having computer problems after upgrading the AV that we distributed, we were aware of the bug in their latest release. But then we started getting reports of similar problems experienced after upgrading other brands of AV. How can it be that one AV company updates their software (with a bug) and all the other AV companies incorporate the same bug into their software?

Here we use Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes only.

Some AV can be set to ignore nominated applications and folders. If not, get rid of it and use another.