EXIFTOOL.EXE gets “locked”, from time to time.

[Bob Blaylock]

  This is under the latest version of Windows 10, and I am currently having this issue with EXIFTOOL.EXE version 11.92.

  Once in a great while, something happens which prevents me from being able to run, move, delete, rename, or do anything with EXIFTOOL.EXE, until I completely reboot my computer.

  Initially, when this occurs, I get the following when I make any attempt to run EXIFTOOL.EXE, with or without any argument.

Code Select Expand

c:\bin\exiftool.exe: extraction of C:\Users\Bob\AppData\Local\Temp\par-426f62\cache-exiftool-11.92/exiftool.exe (custom Perl interpreter) failed (errno=13)

  I usually end up following pretty much the same pattern of trying to solve the issue, it having been long enough since the last time that it occurred that by thsi time, I've forgotten how things went the last time.

  But what I usually first try is to download a fresh copy, with the intent of installing it over the copy that is already there.  At that point, I find that in spite of being in an account with administrative privilege, the system denies me any access to this file to overwrite it, move it, delete it run it, read it, or do anything with it.  I just get a flat "Access is denied." if I try to do anything with that file.

  So far, I think the only way I've ever been able to get past this is to completely reboot my computer, after which, I have normal access again, to the file.

  Any idea what is going on here?  Any less drastic way to resolve it than a complete reboot?  Any way to prevent it from happening in the first place?

  That's where I am stuck, right now.  When I finish posting this, I'm going to reboot my computer, then I expect I'll be able to replace the current instant of EXIFTOOL.EXE with the new version that I just downloaded,and be able to use it until the next time this bug occurs.

  With any luck, by the next time I encounter this bug, I'll remember that I posted this on this forum, and think to come back here and see what answer, if any, I received.

[Phil Harvey]

Please try the alternate Windows EXE version of ExifTool, and let me know if this solves the problem.

- Phil

[StarGeek]

If you have an antivirus program running, you might tell it to exclude exiftool.  There have been some problems in the past with antivirus programs blocking exiftool.

[Bob Blaylock]

Please try the alternate Windows EXE version of ExifTool, and let me know if this solves the problem.

  Perhaps, next time the problem occurs, I'll try the .EXE from that source.

  A problem is that the issue occurs so infrequently, and with no indication that is apparent to me as to what factors mighty be involved, that it would be nearly impossible to know if the problem has been solved, until the next time it occurs.

[Bob Blaylock]

If you have an antivirus program running, you might tell it to exclude exiftool.  There have been some problems in the past with antivirus programs blocking exiftool.

  Now that seems like a plausible source of this sort of issue.  Currently, other than Window's own built-in protections, I have MalwareBytes.

  I did notice a pinned thread in thsi section, about a conflict between EXIFTOOL and Windows Defender, but it is years old, and I could find no instructions that seem to apply to the current version of anything to get Windows Defender to leave it alone, and some time poking around in Windows Defender itself revealed to me no obvious way to get it to leave any particular program alone.  Is any known conflict with Windows Defender still know to cause issues?  How about MalwareBytes?

  It certainly seems very plausible that for whatever reason, something else running on my computer is seizing all access to EXIFTOOL.EXE, and denying me any access, and not letting go until I reboot.  I've never seen this happen to any other software than EXIFTOOL, and it only rarely happens even to it.  The idea that an antivirus program might be doing so, in the mistaken idea that EXIFTOOL is infected with something bad, doesn't seem entirely implausible at all, though it would make much more sense of the antivirus program doing that was more transparent about letting me know what it thought it was doing.  So far as I know, MalwareBytes doesn't ever do anything without alerting me, but I don't think I've ever seen any such alerts from Windows Defender, so I don't know what,if anything,it's ever tried to do.  Perhaps there's some log in it somewhere, where I can find reports of what it's done in the recent past.

[Bob Blaylock]

If you have an antivirus program running, you might tell it to exclude exiftool.  There have been some problems in the past with antivirus programs blocking exiftool.

  So, just now, I found places in both MalwareBytes and Windows Defender, to tell them to exclude C:\Bin\exiftool.exe.

  I guess time will tell if this has solved the issue, or if, months, I'm back here again to report that it did not.

[obetz]

  So, just now, I found places in both MalwareBytes and Windows Defender, to tell them to exclude C:\Bin\exiftool.exe.

This might be not enough for the original ExifTool Windows version, because it's packed with PAR/pp and unpacks executables to a subdirectory in %temp%. This unpacking failed according to the error message you mentioned.

My installer mentioned by Phil avoids runtime unpacking to %temp%.

Oliver

[Bob Blaylock]

This might be not enough for the original ExifTool Windows version, because it's packed with PAR/pp and unpacks executables to a subdirectory in %temp%. This unpacking failed according to the error message you mentioned.

My installer mentioned by Phil avoids runtime unpacking to %temp%.

Oliver

  Right after reading this, I switched to using your alternate version.  The explanations that I've read in this thread seem to point to a very strong possibility that your version would avoid the problem that I'd been having.  It'd been only a month, and as infrequent and random as the problem has been, it's way too early to tell for sure that this solved it, but I'm optimistic.

[obetz]

Thanks for the feedback, Bob.

[athegn]

I know its 20 days but I have this problem.

I have exiftool.exe in C:Windows I have in Malwarebytes > Allow List C:\Windows\exiftool.exe

I downloaded exiftool 12.65 from Phil Harvey's site.

In Windows 11 Run > CMD > Exiftool it gets stuck on page one after copying etc with -- More --

Any advice please?

[StarGeek]

I know its 20 days but I have this problem.

A bit more than that (*check date/time calculator site*) 3 Years, 2 Months, 3 Weeks, 6 Days

Any advice please?

The advice hasn't changed.  Make sure you have an exception in Windows defender as well as Malware Bytes and try Obetz's alternate Windows EXE version of ExifTool.

[athegn]

Thank you for your reply.

Yes sorry 20 was obviously mis-typed.

I will check what I have done.

[obetz]

Some more advice and information:

Do not install to c:\windows - it's not made for user applications, only for Windows components!

exiftool.exe from exiftool.org is a self-extracting archive unpacking to a subdirectory in %temp% and finally running there, so your Malwarebytes exception might be insufficient.

[xvalen]

In case someone comes following this search - another reason might be too long file name- it was "errno=2" in my case though  - I've had exiftool (longstringofparametersandtags).exe and it was longer than windows limit. Stripped down one tag and it worked just fine.