Software Updater reports a disconnected internet

[landydoc]

Since some days the Software Updater shows a message that I might be offline instead of showing a list of programms to be updated. Also the Health Check says that there is no connection to the Security Server. But I am connected to the internet so that everything else works fine. I already tried some different versions of CCleaner, portable and installed apps and I also tried it from different internet connection points and different PCs.

I am wondering if the security server realy is down and the problem might be not on my side of the connection. But I could not find any hint until now that somthing has changed or is out of service.

[nukecad]

Yes it could be a problem at the server, or anywhere between your computer and the server.

The programme you are using (in this case CCleaner) can't be sure just what the problem is and so just says that you 'might' be offline.

PS, 'Security' in Health Check is just a variant of Software Updater. I think, but am not 100% sure. that it connects to the same server to check for updates.

I'm not seeing any such connection issue to those features here, so it looks like it may be something between your computer and the server.

One thing to check though is your firewall settings - are you blocking the connection in you Firewall?
If it has only started recently then has your antivirus, or another security app you have installed, changed it's firewall settings/definitions and is now blocking the connection?

[nukecad]

Additional:

I've just recalled that there has been a recent change to the company that provides CCleaner with the software update information.
(It now covers a bigger list of more apps).

We are told that if you are using a CCleaner version older than v6.22 then the software updater will no longer work in either Health Check or from the Tools menu.

If you are using a CCleaner vesrions v6.22 or newer the information is now provided by a company called OPSWAT - so check for any blocks you may have to domains with that name.

[landydoc]

Ther were no changes since it worked last time. And I tried it from several different PSs with different internet connections, different installations, different CCleaner versions and with different antivirus apps. I also temporarily disabled the Windows Firewall. I have no more idea what more I can try to check if there is something wrong on my computers. For me it looks like this Security Server is down.

[nukecad]

Well I suppose that we may be connecting to different servers?
I'm in the UK, and believe that you are in central Europe.

You did note my additional about different CCleaner versions i take it.

Other than that then maybe your router or ISP security is blocking something that mine isn't?
One way I can think to test that is to turn on the mobile hotspot on a phone, connect your computer through that and try CCleaner on that connection.

[landydoc]

I just tried the 6.22 portable version and it seems to work. Unforunately this new version has twice more empty lines in the table than text lines which separae the listed items so that the list can not be read without scrolling and is unnecessarily log. I really do not understand the sense of such GUI developing.

[Dachstein]

I've been having the same problem for some time.

Is there a solution for this ?

[landydoc]

Unfortunately the only solution is to install the newest version because CCleaner uses a different provider for the software versions database. So if you still want to use it you must be consent to accept all new features and layouts, e.g. scrolling through a list of so many empty lines to find some information, made for persons with big fingers using touchscreens.

[Dachstein]

41 minutes ago, landydoc said:

Unfortunately the only solution is to install the newest version because CCleaner uses a different provider for the software versions database.

I´m using the latest version 6.25.

What I have to add is the information that this error only occurs when running ccleaner under a standard account without administrative priviledges.

[nukecad]

12 hours ago, Dachstein said:

....... this error only occurs when running ccleaner under a standard account without administrative priviledges.

We have seen such standard account permissions issues happen if/when you don't let CCleaner do it's first run from the installer when installing it.

Try doing a reinstall and letting CCleaner run from the installer.

You can download a new installer from here: https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/builds

Just download it and double click the downloaded file to do a reinstall, there is no need to uninstall the current one first.
(If you are going to ununstall the current one then make a note of your licence key before doing that).

[Dachstein]

44 minutes ago, nukecad said:

We have seen such standard account permissions issues happen if/when you don't let CCleaner do it's first run from the installer when installing it.

Try doing a reinstall and letting CCleaner run from the installer.
 

You can download a new installer from here: https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner/builds

Just download it and double click the downloaded file to do a reinstall, there is no need to uninstall the current one first.
(If you are going to ununstall the current one then make a note of your licence key before doing that).

Unfortunately no change. Still the same behaviour.

[Dachstein]

I have now uninstalled and reinstalled ccleaner. Still the same behavior.

What's also strange is the fact that the GUI looks different under a standard user than under an admin account.

Please have a look at the screenshots.

 

 

[nukecad]

Now that is interesting - Is that the same install of CCleaner in each screenshot?

Do you have CCleaner installed twice on the same machine, one for each user installed in different places?

Although it says v6.25.11131 at the top that second one is actually the UI from an older version, it's the UI from sometime before v6.24.
(An old version might show the wrong number at the top if there is also a newer version installed on the machine).

Which could also easily explain why it's not connecting, an older CCleaner version would be trying to connect to the old software update server instead of the new one.

[Dachstein]

Yes. It´s the same install in each screenshot. CCleaner is installed only once (c:\program files\ccleaner). Nowhere else.

I have two notebooks which are affected in the same way. One running Win 11 Pro 23H2, the other one Win 10 Pro 22H2. Current patchlevel.

 

[nukecad]

Have you double checked that? It certainly looks like two installs.

(One way to check if here are indeed 2 installs would be to uninstall your CCleaner again and then see if the other user can still run it).

Other than that I'm at a loss to explain why you would see two different UI versions on the same machine, one old and one up to date.

Although -  Have you or anyone else been tweaking the registry? Say the registry entries in HKEY_CURRENT_USER?
We know that some users do play with various registry tweaks that get posted on the forum.

If you are actually seeing 2 different UIs from one install depending on which user you are, and haven't been tweaking the registry, then that would definitely appear to be a bug which needs to be fixed.

[Dachstein]

Yes. I have double checked that. I´m the admin of both notebooks, and I´m the one and only user using these notebooks.

There is definitively no other Ccleaner installation on both notebooks, and I never ever tweaked the registry.

[hazelnut]

Are they both installed in the same language?

Are you using a VPN?

System time okay on both machines?

Local account?

 

 

[Dachstein]

Both are installed in the same language. I´m not using VPN and the system time is OK on both machines.

I´m using local accounts on both machines.

[JamesRM]

The way CCleaner is programmed, it isn't meant to be run by non-privileged users if installed to the system, even if many of the things it does are restricted to the user running it, as the program insists on writing to its installation folder. UAC was introduced with Vista and that behavior was already discouraged back then, %ProgramData% exists for that purpose, it's read/write for standard users as well and meant to store machine-wide application data; and there's %LocalAppData% and %AppData% for user data as well.

I don't know for sure off the top of my head, but I think write access to the Local Machine Registry key also required elevation, and CCleaner uses a key there to store configuration (if that were the case, same deal, Shepherd config wouldn't be written there unless CCleaner were run elevated).

If installed in the default location and ran elevated at least once, standard users would be able to run it because a couple of files would have been written to the installation folder already. Although the usual case for the portable version is for it to be in a folder where anyone can write to, the same would happen if the user running CCleaner portable were unprivileged and couldn't write to the folder.

Edited Thursday at 10:23 by JamesRM
Typo.

[hazelnut]

Both machines are Win Home or Pro?

[Dachstein]

Both machines are Win Pro

[hazelnut]

Are both Wi-Fi ?

Same network driver?

[Dachstein]

Both are Wi-Fi.

SInce the hardware is different the network driver is different.

[Dachstein]

29 minutes ago, JamesRM said:

The way CCleaner is programmed, it isn't meant to be run by non-privileged users if installed to the system, even if many of the things it does are restricted to the user running it, as the program insists on writing to its installation folder. UAC was introduced with Vista and that behavior was already discouraged back then, %ProgramData% exists for that purpose, it's read/write for standard users as well and meant to store machine-wide application data; and there's %LocalAppData% and %AppData% for local user data as well.

I don't know for sure off the top of my head, but I think write access to the Local Machine Registry key also required elevation, and CCleaner uses a key there to store configuration (if that were the case, same deal, Shepherd config wouldn't be written there unless CCleaner were run elevated).

If installed in the default location and ran elevated at least once, standard users would be able to run it because a couple of files would already have been written to the installation folder already. Although the usual case for the portable version is for it to be in a folder where anyone can write to, the same would happen if the user running CCleaner portable were unprivileged and couldn't write to the folder.

I fully understand that for some things a priviledged account is needed.

But I don´t understand why I see the old Gui when using a standard user and the new Gui when using the admin account.

[JamesRM]

29 minutes ago, Dachstein said:

But I don´t understand why I see the old Gui when using a standard user and the new Gui when using the admin account.

Hard to know without having the source code or monitoring the system using Process Monitor or similar tracers, perhaps it's not of any significance here but some values at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Piriform\CCleaner" determine what and how it is displayed in the GUI, it should be readable from a non-elevated process, so no problem taking them into account if they exist, but who knows. There could be an earlier test in the code that fails when not elevated and causes the UI not to use them, or an improper check of some return values, ... I don't think they tested CCleaner much running non-elevated, it even defaults to skipping UAC using a scheduled task.

I understand the Software Updater works as expected when CCleaner is run elevated, and CCleaner itself can access the net otherwise (for example, going to Upgrade you see dialogs with details), right? I haven't looked into how the Software Updater works, but that part of the program uses a 3rd party SDK (those "libwa..." libraries and "wa_3rd_party_host" executables).

Perhaps they fix it in a future release, it would be great.