[CCleaner process duration]

Without saying that you are wrong:

You keep asserting that the time you are seeing CCleaner take to run is due to CCleaner 'phoning home'.

But you haven't said why you think that is happening, other than a vague statement that:

Quote

What I discovered is that CCleaner asks to contact home even if all Internet-related settings are unchecked.

Where/how did you "discover" that?

It isn't what my testing shows, my testing shows the the time taken is the same even when CCleaner cannot even connect to the internet to  'phone home'.
So I have to conclude that the 8 seconds or so that we are seeing is just the normal time taken to run an analyze/clean from a command prompt.
8 seconds or so to Analyze all of the possible locations where junk may be on your drive seems pretty quick to me.

I'm also struggling a bit to understand why you think that CCleaner would run and complete 'instantly' without taking the time needed to analyze/clean whatever junk there may be to clean?
If I called any app that finished instantly I'd assume that the call had faulted and the app had not run at all. (Wrong command syntax, wrong path called, etc).
And of course if you have error reporting turned off in you script/batch then you wouldn't get an error message that it had faulted.

[CCleaner does not delete some selected files with duplicate finder]

That seems to have covered everything.
Except for if the files are already in use by some application, and I think you'd know if they were.

It seems odd that Duplicate Finder can find them but can't delete them. Almost as if it was a permissions issue but you say you have ruled that out.

I thought that it would be something to do with the way the external drives are connected and being seen by Windows?
Although I do note that you say it sometimes happens with internal drives as well.

So I think that whatever is causing this is probably with the files themselves, especially as you say it's the same if you copy those files to a different location (different machine?) and Duplicate finder still wouldn't delete them.

You could try emailing support on support@CCleaner.com

TBH though I'd probably just make a list, Duplicate Finder has a 'Save to Text file' to save the results after you have scanned, and then manually delete the ones that Duplicate Finder won't handle.
CCleaner has already done the hard work of finding them for you.

[Outlook 365 all accounts logged out after running CCleaner]

Sorry. From your first post I thought it was just gmail that was being logged out, not Outlook itself.
I'd still uncheck 'Session' in the browsers that you use if you want to remain logged into webistes you access through the browser.

'Network Passwords' under 'Windows Explorer' are your Wifi connection logins rather than application logins.
From the documentation: https://support.piriform.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047807132-Windows-Explorer-cleaning-rules#what-are-cleaning-rules--0-2

Quote

Network Passwords - When you connect to a wireless network using Windows Explorer, you can choose to save the network password. Selecting this option will erase these saved passwords, which will leave you unable to connect to these wireless networks again until the password has been entered again.

OneDrive and Skype cleaning can be found under 'Applications' on the Applications tab along with Office versions (Outlook is part of Office), so you may want to take a look at those.

[CCleaner process duration]

Interesting.

I tried your command from an elevated command prompt and can see the delay if you use the '/wait' parameter to pause command window processing until CCleaner terminates.
(Without the '/wait' it comes back straight away of course).

Now here is where it gets interesting in my own testing of your command line.

• Firewall on, connected to the net - I see the delay.
• Firewall on, disconnect from the net - I still see the delay.
• Turn the Firewall off - still disconnected from the net - I still see the delay.
• Firewall still off, reconnect to the net - I still see the delay.

Firewall on or off, connected or disconnected from the net, it all makes no difference to me.
If I use the '/wait' parameter then I always have to wait the 8 seconds or so for CCleaner to do it's thing.

So to me it looks like CCleaner simply always takes 8 seconds or so (at least) to run from a command window.

Have you confirmed that turning off your firewall means that the delay does not happen for you?

EDIT - Just for interest I took my CCleaner back to v5.62 and ran the same test.
Still a delay in all the above configurations but only 6 seconds or so, as you might expect because CCleaner now has more things to analyze/clean

 

[Outlook 365 all accounts logged out after running CCleaner]

I don't have Outlook, is there a section for it on the Applications tab under Applications (along with the entries for Office, etc.).

If so then try unticking that.

If not then try unticking 'Session' for your browser(s).
Session is the information for that browser about what websites you are logged into, what browser tabs you have open, etc. when you exit the browser.
The browser uses that information to open the tabs and log you in again next time you open the browser, so if you clear the information then it can't do that.

[cache, cookie and internet history deletion]

When you first install CCleaner Custom Clean will show you this message if it needs to close a browser to clean it:

If you tick the box for "Do no not show me this message again" then it does exactly what it says and CCleaner will never show you that message again, instead if the browser is open then it will just 'Skip' the cleaning of that browser without asking you.

As Nergal says it's always been like that.

PS. Once you have ticked that box you can't undo it.
If you want to make CCleaner start showing that message again:
Uninstall/reinstall CCleaner.
Or delete the 'ccleaner.ini' which will lose all of your customised/saved settings.
(or you could manually edit the 'CCleaner.ini' file if you are an advanced user).

[CCleaner process duration]

My CCleaner Pro 5.88 process closes (dissapears from Task Manager) as soon as CCleaner is closed, so it's probably a difference in our settings.
Could be a CCleaner setting or a Windows setting.

It may just be because you are running CCleaner from a command window.
Although TBH I've just run CCleaner with /Auto from the command line it's that quick that I don't even see it in Task Manager.

One thing stands out though seeing as your query is about waiting times:
When you say you are using a  "/WAIT function" how are you implementing that?
It isn't one of the CCleaner documented command line parameters: https://support.piriform.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047885872#command-line-parameters-for-ccleaner-for-windows-0-0

PS. Just to note that v5.39 is four years old so it won't be cleaning your browsers, etc. properly. Things change especially where browsers put their junk.
eg. Both Firefox and Chrome (All/most Chromium based browsers) have recently changed how/where they store cookies, so v5.39 won't be cleaning them properly.
But that shouldn't affect the process closing, and doesn't on mine.

[Is There a Way to get back deleted photos on my phone?]

7 hours ago, yoyogamegame said:

I deleted Instagram .....

If you had removed Instagram from you phone then CCleaner will have removed all the links to photos that you had saved at Instagram.

Quote

don't get why it thought a those photos where junk

It didn't think that, but if you don't have instagram on your phone anymore then those instagram links are useless - so they are junk.

BUT that's only the links - The saved photos themselves  were not on your phone - they were/are saved at Instagram on your account.

So the photos themselves should still be there at Instagram,  to access them again you will have to put Instagram back on that phone and login to your instagram account.
Or login to your Instagram account from another device/phone.

From you screenshot you seem to have put Instagram back on the phone already?
And it seems that the 2270 images are still there, they are just not showing thumbnails.
It looks as if the links/thumbnails just need rebuilding.
What happens if you open one of those images?

 

[Degrag free space with fragmentation Schedule.]

2 hours ago, ICPilot said:

When I see all blue my assumption is for the time being the files are more together than split and fragmented?.

That's the default setting, (although you can change it and even customise the colours).
The standard reds and blues show both file status, Not-Fragmented/Fragmented, and indicates (roughly) how full each cluster is,

The 'Drive Map' tab shows you what the different coloured boxes mean.
This is the 'Original View' setting which has more saturated colours than the 'Modern View':

["Fix selected issues" button not appearing for cleaning Windows Registry]

It's just a wording change on the button, so yes the guide is a bit outdated.

Click on 'Review Selected issues' and it will ask if you want to make a backup of the changes before continuing.
Note - it only backs up the things it will be changing not the full registry.

Then you will be given another box where you can 'Fix all selected issues" or scroll through them 1-by-1.

PS. Before using the Registry Cleaner tool you should read these:

For the official Piriform advice on using CCleaners Registry Cleaner see this: https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/59952-i-get-a-registry-error-on-ccleaner-on-windows-10-i-have-scanned-5-times/?tab=comments#comment-326804

Here is Microsofts stance on using any Registry Cleaner:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/2563254/microsoft-support-policy-for-the-use-of-registry-cleaning-utilities

 

 

[SRWare Iron 'Clear browsing history' issue]

This is DaveCCleaners reply about this issue and the fix from the thread that Andavari Linked to:

Further down that thread he says that it's expected that the new CCleaner version (v5.89) will be released next week.

[Degrag free space with fragmentation Schedule.]

3 hours ago, ICPilot said:

I have noticed when I also start this process the de fragged hard drive, becomes more fragmented. Probably just let the drive defrag and not work with free space de fragmentation. I wonder why this is a feature set. What is it useful for?

That's correct - because you have specified "Defrag Freespace (allow fragmentation)" .

That is known as a consolidation  (or compaction) defrag where the purpose is to cram all of your files into the smallest number of clusters possible, to free up as many full clusters as possible.
To do that and totally fill up the least number of clusters some files have to be split across clusters, ie. deliberately fragmented to squeeze them in.
And that is what you are doing by using Defrag Freespace (allow fragmentation).
(You could also use Defrag Freespace without the "allow fragmentation" which would do the best it can to fill the clusters without fragmenting files).

It is what most people generally tend to think of as defragging, because it is what was wanted in the 'old days' when we all had much smaller drives.

But nowadays as we all tend to have much bigger drives then consolidation/compaction is not realy needed so much. There are lots of free clusters anyway.
Although there  are times when you still might want to do it.
And of course with a large drive a full drive consolidation will take a long time because the defragmenter has to look at every cluster on the drive.

So with todays lage drives many of us tend to use a 'File Defragment' to simply get each of our files into one piece each so that they load a tiny bit faster, without bothering just where they are on the disc.
It's also a lot quicker with large drives to do a file defrag than a whole disc consolidation.

By default Defraggler does a mixture of both types of defrag - but you can specify one type or the other.

A consolidation defrag is what you are currently doing by using Defrag Freespace, especially with the "(allow fragmentation)" option.

To do a file defrag instead of a consolidation defrag:

1. Open defraggler and analyse the drive.
2. Click on 'View Files' or click on the 'Files' tab.
3. Select the tickbox at the top of the list to select everything found.
4. Click on 'Defrag Checked'.

That will just defragment the files without trying to consolidate the whole drive.
So it will be much quicker and use less resources.

Like any tool that can be used in multiple ways what you get out of Defraggler depends on knowing how to use it in the best way to suit you.

I think in your place I'd probably continue with the Defrag Freespace, just so it's been done. (although I'd probably do it without the "allow fragmentation" option).
Then once that consolidation/compaction is done I'd do a file defrag to get the fragmented files back into one piece each, and then only do file defrags from then on.

 

[Important message to CCleaner for Mac users]

6 hours ago, Anyone said:

@nukecad"Worried about Tracking Files?" <<Link>>

There's a lot on that link about Windows. Windows and CCleaner on my PC work fine I'm concerned that CCleaner doesn't work as well on Mac.

Hi @Anyone The details in that article about 'Trackers' etc. are not intended as relevant to Mac users, apologies if you though it was part of my reply here.

The link is part of my signature and so turns up automatically below the 'Quote' button in every post that I make, whatever sub-forum I happen to be posting in.
(It will be added automatically to the bottom of this one too).

The linked article itself was written to address questions that are frequently asked by Windows users.
(Although in a general way it does apply to all operating systems the details are written particularly for Windows).

(PS. You can see that DaveCCleaner has a similar signature below the 'Quote' button on all of his posts - his gives links to various CCleaner products, and appears automatically under every post that he makes).

[CCleaner doesn't start as a professional version for all users.]

Thanks for your screenshot,

It shows that you do have a 'CCleaner.lic' rather than a 'CCleaner.dat'.

That tends to confirm that it's the new 'CCleaner.lic' file type which is causing this non-admin permissions problem for some users.

@MeganCCleanerhas already raised this issue with the programme developers.
Hopefully they will have an answer and fix the problem quickly.

[windows 10 PUABundler:Win32/PiriformBundler]

14 hours ago, CDeanC said:

Thanks for the rudeness of your response friend. as I was only after "why?" it was doing this.

Sorry if you though my factual reply was rude.

You asked why this had happened, I simply told you in a factual way why it had happened and what software would have done it.

[Degrag free space with fragmentation Schedule.]

As you say it's not realy necessary, but I understand why you may want to do it.

It's going to take a long time on a 6TB drive.

If you stop a defragment (actually a consolidation/compaction if it's the free space) then what has already been done will remain done until you use the computer again.
So when you start defragging again it will not need to do that part of the disc again, (Well maybe a bit because defraggler will have taken a new look at what is now there).
 

TBH getting everything at the start of the disk is a bit of a holy grail, it's hardly ever going to happen although you can get close.
In 30+ years of computing I think I've seen it once where everything was at the start of the drive, until the computer started being used again.

[windows 10 PUABundler:Win32/PiriformBundler]

That will be because all of the installers listed there are very old versions. They are all from 2016.

(And they all contained the 'old style' bundler which didn't have clear 'Accept'/'Decline' buttons, so Microsoft didn't like it).

As it was Patch Tuesday yesterday you have probably just had the Windows Security Updates, including the latest version of the  'Malicious Software Removal Tool' which runs automatically.
MSRT downloads and runs the latest version each Patch Tuesday, along with the other monthly updates.

The MSRT doesn't just remove 'malicious' things though, it will also remove old versions of installers, and other old '.exe's', which are out of date and which might adversely affect the latest Windows if they were to be run now.

So it's probably (almost certainly) the MSRT that has quarantined those well out of date installers.

Have you had those old installers on your machine since 2016? or have you recently downloaded them from somewhere?

 

[Anti-Virus software keeps deleting CCleaner.exe]

Odd,

We know that a Defender scan will ocassionally remove very old/outdated CCleaner versions, but it shouldn't be touching the latest version(s).

Please let us know if the problem returns for you.

(PS. If that does happen then I would then try an uninstall and reinstall using the Slim installer. It may be that you have an odd registry entry left over somewhere and if so then doing an uninstall/reinstall should cear that).

[CCleaner doesn't start as a professional version for all users.]

@TariqThe casue of the permissions problem appears to have been found, if not the solution yet.

It seems to be a new licencing system that is perhaps not behaving as expected for non-admin user permissions.

7 hours ago, MeganCCleaner said:

I've now discovered that the "CCleaner.lic" file is created when activating a license generated via our newer licensing platform, whereas the "CCleaner.dat" file is created when activating a license generated via our original licensing platform, which may explain why this is only a recent problem. 

While that doesn't explain the permission issue, I have raised that with our development team so they can investigate further as I do not believe our intention is for it to work in the way that has been described, requiring administrative privileges for access to an activated version of the software - or in the way it resets the permission settings.

I am awaiting a response from them ......

 

[License file not readable by users]

Thanks for that info about getting your CCleaner from Piriform, I said it probably wasn't relevant but at least we can rule out other sources now.

The difference in behaviour does seem to be whether you have a '.lic' or a '.dat' file that holds the licence key.
It seems to be your having the '.lic' version that is causing your issue.
(TBH I've always had 'ccleaner.dat' and have never had a 'ccleaner.lic').

Maybe Megan can thrown some light as to why the two different filetypes now seem to exist. And why they are behaving differently like this.
(I'm only guessing but It may be something to do with the ongoing development of licences that can be used on both PC and Mac?)

[CCleaner doesn't start as a professional version for all users.]

Thanks for reporting this.

There is another user who is saying the same thing about non-admin users on their computer not being able to run CCleaner Pro, but I can't reproduce it on my machine.
All users on my machine get to open CCleaner Pro whether they are admin or not.

A Piriform Staff member is aware of the issue and is investigating.
Having a second report of this odd behaviour shows it's not just something odd with one persons computer.
On investigation we are finding a few differences between out CCleaner installations, so:-

Could I ask you to look in File Explorer at the directory C:\Program Files\CCleaner and tell me if you have a file in there called 'CCleaner.dat' or do you instead have one called 'CCleaner.lic'?
(Note that you may have to turn on 'File Name Extensions' in File Explorers 'View' tab to see the 3 letters after the dot).

It appears that which one of those files you have is determining whether CCleaner Pro will run for non-admin users or not. (But that is yet to be confirmed).

Mine looks like this, I have a 'CCleaner.dat', (ignore those '.ini' and '.log' files you may not have those, it depends on your CCleaner settings/use).

[License file not readable by users]

@niks nut @MeganCCleaner There is now another user reporting this same issue with non-admin users.

https://community.ccleaner.com/topic/61905-ccleaner-doesnt-start-as-a-professional-version-for-all-users/

So my apologies nicks nut, as I can't reproduce this on my machine (yet) and don't even have any '.lic' file (as my screenshot above shows) I was wondering what was going on with what you were reporting.

I note from your attached screenshot that you do have a 'branding.dll' - which is where the licence info is stored on my machine.
Although the licence key itself is in 'CCleaner.dat' on my machine.
But you don't seem to have a 'CCleaner.bat' at all, you have a 'CCleaner.lic' instead.

Which is odd; because as Megan notes:

Quote

CCleaner now stores licensing information in a "CCleaner.dat" file - rather than in "CCleaner.lic".

 

New question - This may or may not be relevant, but did you get your CCleaner from Piriform, from the Microsoft Store, or from somehwere else?

[Automatic Updates to Software (not Ccleaner software itself)]

Yes, that's Option #2 of the three options that I gave above last week. (Did you read them).

As said that only works the one time, it isn't remembered so you have to do it everytime that you run Health Check and it finds something.

You don't actually have to click on the blue gear icon, clicking anywhere in the 'Security' box will open it.

PS. The other 3 boxes, Privacy, Space, & Speed all work in the same way, if you click one of those it will also open and let you choose things no to clean that one time.
Give them a click to see how they all work.

[Kamo blocking web site(s)]

6 hours ago, Muse2All said:

I have trouble accessing a specific web site  in all my web browsers (Firefox, Edge, Chrome) and only on PC where Kamo service is enabled and the given browser has 'Browser Protected' option on. Quitting the Kamo app does not resolve the issue. Turning off the 'Browser Protected' option for the specific browser or  more extremely disabling the Kamo service resolves the access issue.

Although it may be a false positive, if the browser protections in more than one browser are blocking it then there is probably a reason for that.
(Although it may be as simple a reason as them still using the old 'http://' rather than the more secure 'https://', or possibly a SSL that needs renewing).

Have you tried entering the URL(s) in question into VirusTotal to get a wider opinion from the major AV providers?
If you haven't used VT before then just enter the URL to be checked in the box at this link and click on the spyglass at the right of the box to scan it:
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/url

For example this is the result of a scan of this forums URL. (https://community.ccleaner.com)

The result (in that green circle) shows that it was scanned with 93 AV/AM engines and none of them regard it as malicious. (It gives details for each scanning engine below that, but I didn't clip those). Also check the date on the right for when the URL was last scanned and if it's getting old use the refresh icon above it to do a new scan.
As you can see I did a fresh scan today at 04:06:53 UTC. (because the last time someone scanned for it was 9 months ago).

[License file not readable by users]

There is no call to be insulting, and actually I've not had an alcoholic drink all year. (go on then 12 days).

Are you saying that if you log into your machine with an admin account then it runs CCleaner Pro, but if you log into the same machine with a non-admin account then it runs CCleaner Free?

As I said above my non-admin 'Guest1' account runs the same CCleaner Pro that is installed on my Admin account, (there is only one CCleaner installed on this machine), so the guest account is reading the same .dll in order to read the licence information.
Whichever account I switch to it always runs CCleaner Pro, as these screenshots show:

Just to be sure we are talking about the same thing, can I ask what Operating System you are talking about here?
(Windows, Mac, Android?)

The reason I ask that question is because you say:

Quote

CCleaner generates a license file (.lic) after registration. This must be done by the Administrator of the system.

I've been using CCleaner on Windows for years now, and it's never had a file with a '.lic' extension on my Windows machines.
In Windows the CCleaner registration information is stored in a file called 'branding.dll', if you remove or rename that .dll then the installed CCleaner reverts to the Free version.

A standard non-admin account can read that .dll file (and so run CCleaner Pro) but can't modify or delete it.
(Unless you have manually changed the file read permission, or the user account permissions?)

There is no file with a '.lic' extension in the CCleaner directory (or sub-directories) in Windows.

I can try some more testing based on whatever information you come back with, but for me CCleaner always runs CCleaner Pro regardless of if I'm logged in as an admin or a non-admin user.