Tracking Cookies, Trainz and Virus Scanners

I'm posting here a warning to those (Trainzers) that might set their virus scanners to scan for tracking cookies. Be very careful and do not allow it to also Heal/Remove automatically.

Please note that I am NOT reporting a bug in Trainz or in AVG Virus Scanner, my own lack of forethought caused this problem as I set my AVG Free Virus Scanner.

The result, though, is that it has left my TS12 (and I presume my TS2010 and TS2004) in a right mess! I presume the effect will be the same for others' Trainz versions and using other virus scanners. (I have stopped AVG checking tracking cookies now, of course).

Under these circumstances AVG found and "healed/removed" 441 tracking cookies including:

• C:\Users\Peter\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Trainz\49922
  Found Tracking cookie.Liveperson
  Healed
• C:\Users\Peter\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Trainz\cookies.sqlite:\liveperson.net.8db0737c
  Found Tracking cookie.Liveperson
  Moved to Virus Vault
• C:\Users\Peter\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Trainz\cookies.sqlite:\liveperson.net.8db0737c
  Found Tracking cookie.Liveperson
  Moved to Virus Vault

I presume these are necessary to the correct functioning of TS12. In the event that someone can give another explanation for the effect, they should feel free to post here, but this does seem the most likely explanation to me.

So, what happened was that almost all my Trainz settings were lost including all my username, password and license keys (TS12, all my 5 add-ins from CM and, I presume, my similar problems in my TRS2004 and TS2010 as well).

My TS12 folder is now over 100GB in size and so, the first time I tries to enter CM, it caused an absolutely massive rearrangement of the TS12 database which took many hours and meant that:

• No Add-in (bought) content was showing up in CM.
• All modified content is now showing as having been installed at the same time and modified a couple of minutes later.
• Almost all asset names had reverted - I had added a lot of notes on version numbers etc. for identification purposes in surveyor added to the names.
• All CM launcher settings, customer CM fields previously shown (e.g Region, Era etc.) had reverted to default and all saved searches disappeared.
• In Launcher, username, password, keys and launch options (e.g. "show database process windows") reverted/disappeared.

Now I've re-added the keys my added-in content is back, but at the cost of many hours (of forced Database "Repair").

I imagine there are more surprises when I actually enter Trainz Surveyor and Driver modes (and other applications on my PC)

So be warned - don't follow my example - be careful! Think! (as IBM used to say ;-) .

I would be nervous to go into AVG's virus vault to attempt to revert the (above) Trainz changes or revert to an earlier Trainz backup in case it makes matters worse or causes many more hours of database "repair".

Peter.

PS: Looking more carefully at the AVG warnings above, it would appear that they would not be responsible for the problem (though maybe other cookies "healed", without "trainz" in the path might). The ones given above appear to be associated with Firefox (and Trainz) which I used used before Chrome. So, advice is urgently sought as to possible reasons for this failure. I note now that the Trainz backups are for assets being added or created only and they all pre-date the Virus Scan and the appearance of the problem.

I run all browsers that I actually use (not IE) in Privacy Mode (no cookies kept, among other things) and have a HOSTS file blocking liveperson, and I've never had any problems. There could be many causes, including AVG shutting down TADDaemon prematurely or deleting assets.tdx Or, perhaps AVG has an option to delete backup files, which often have the extension .BAK or .BKU. Trainz saves a copy of the database index as a backup file called assets.bku and if that gets deleted, it might explain what happened.

So what is liveperson and what does it have to do with Trainz?

Liveperson is a large service that provides contracted help, usually 24/7 pre-sales chat help, as well as site analytics. Lots of companies use it for support, like my most trusted media seller, supermediastore.com. I don't know if they're actively used by N3V, considering the Black Pages is/was advertising the "upcoming TRS2006, they probably aren't, but regardless, I tend to doubt the erasure of their cookies had anything to do with peterwise's issues.

Edit: Liveperson is present on the order pages at Auran.com. Probably used as a page counter, if it's being actively used at all.

I you read the added PS on my post (added in later), you'll see that I now don't think that this one was the cause. It was probably part of the Firefox add-on that helped instal CDPs into Trainz. However, it is redundant as I use Chrome now.

Peter.

Yes, but check my post again. I suspect AVG got a little aggressive and removed something it shouldn't have, perhaps a backup (I believe assets.tdx is checked against assets.bku - if they are out-of-sync, a forced database repair is ordered by Trainz). This is the first thing that comes to mind. Of course, it may have been something else too. Without a logfile, I have no way of knowing what. Even with a logfile, nothing's guaranteed.

BTW, you can post the entire logfile if you want and I'll look at it, but logfiles can be huge. Better that you look over the results of your last cleaning/healing and post items that look suspicious.

Duplicate Removed.