Shit like this is why I’m done with public trackers.
This shit is why I never used the arr stack. Never automate incoming data. It fetches what I intend it to fetch.
What do you use instead?
Settings -> Indexers -> Pick one -> Fail Downloads -> Select “Executables” and “Potentially dangerous”
You still have to remove the malware from your torrent client, but at least sonarr will give up importing it and try a different torrent.
Wait, wtf, this isn’t on by default??
Dealing with the executableshas been such a pain in the ass, thank you so much for pointing this out.
The author getting pissed every step of the way is really funny, great write-up!
I blacklist just about anything executable from downloading in Qbit but it stills feels a little clunky, I wish the ARRs would inspect the torrents and immediately ignore the .exe ones before they even hit Qbit, I feel like it should be a default option to help the Newbies out.
I was also flabbergasted when I observed this. No idea why this is not default, but you can configure
"Fail downloads" = "Executables", "Potentially dangerous"in the Sonarr Indexer options to prevent these downloads. Enable advanced settings first.I actually saw this last night while I was looking for another setting. Why would I ever want sonarr to download an executable, and why would they think I’d want it that way by default? It made me wonder if I was missing something.
“Why do I need to download 7zip? That’s too hard. Everything should be a self-extracting exe!”
A few moments later…
Good find, thanks! Kind of annoyed I can’t set those values in Prowlarr to automatically propagate to all the *arrs, but still good to have the option once Prowlarr indexers are sync’d to other apps.
I think this isnt a thing with prowlarr, is it?
It is, I’ve seen it. People upload .exe files pretending to be an episode day before it’s release. Prowlarr will find those and start downloading.
Also frustrating that sonarr won’t allow you to NOT auto search for an episode before it’s released. It auto downloads WAY more garbage than early releases in my experience. In fact I’m not sure I’ve seen it actually download something successfully before it’s official release.
But searches online show sonarr devs pushing back against it for some unknown reason.
I believe the v5 sonarr beta has this feature. So it’ll be on the main branch soon enough.
Are people running the arr stack in windows?
I did have mine up and running in windows some years ago before I switched my daily driver, yes.
Some clients can download with RSS from searches, and people can just download manually.
The indexer option is a thing in prowlarr?
If so, I havent seen it.Oh, sorry, I misunderstood. I haven’t check if that option is in prowlarr yet.
I use Prowlarr, but had to configure it in Sonarr. I don’t see any option for it in Prowlarr
I remember spotting this when the Mario Galaxy film came out. The top seed was a 2GB exe.
I hope we come full circle and we get “Avril Lavine - Girlfriend.mp3.exe”
There was a GTA6.exe that appeared on the torrent sites around the time of the first gameplay video leaks, I’m sure it got a few people.
I hope we get “Full Circle - No Doubt.mp3.exe” :)
No doubt. :D
When this happened to me it always seemed to be episodes that hadn’t actually aired yet. I ended up installing swurapp (automatically unmonitors episodes until they’ve aired, to stop them being grabbed) and haven’t had it happen since.
The problem is your roommate, your parent, or 3am you double clicking it in the downloads folder. (do NOT execute execute the skid malware)>
Yeah, like any of those scrubs has access to any folders of any importance.
Cool to see someone pull this kind of malware apart. Interesting read.
I don’t know why you are annoyed by this.
You use an automatic tool. It’s bound to fail or make a mistake once in a while.
The “uploader” likely knew this, so they had some fun. It’s not like what you are doing is legal or anything. “Le me go complain on my blog about someone messing with how I do my illegal activites”.
It’s reasonable to be annoyed by this.
I’ve built automatic tools within client software that handle file types and basic security better than this, < 5 years into my career as an inexperienced dev.
It’s crazy that not only is executable downloading not blocked by default for a media downloader, but as fast as I can tell it’s not even doing magic bytes based format detection…?
I don’t know why you are annoyed by this.
I don’t read it as annoyance. It’s a rundown of them tracking down who is doing it and what it actually is. They’re just flagging for it.
As annoying as this is, I agree. It’s a case of automate better or add a confirmation layer to the download decision.
The reason I don’t auto-DL anything yet is cos I’m too lazy to spend hours making sure it’s setup correctly.
This seems like a one off for them, but for me whenever tracking ongoing TV series I would regularly get malicious files as they appear before the real ones, and get found and downloaded by sonarr.
These days I only automate from private trackers, and enable a public tracker for an interactive search only if something can’t be found on the private trackers.
My problem is that it’s hard to stay in good standing with private trackers while using the *arr suite. I leave everything seeded for weeks, but I never get close to 1.00 ratio on any of the files. It’s not a connectivity issue AFAICT because I do have SOME people connected and downloading from me, but by the time the torrent reaches that point where there’s hundreds/thousands of seeders, I’m still running at a big deficit.
Oh on private trackers it’s hard to keep a genuine ratio like that. Instead they typically assign points for time you spend seeding, and you use those points to “buy” upload credit that counts for your ratio.
Many private trackers have a requirement to log in every X months so occasionally I just go log in to each and spend all the points.
The private trackers, I am looking at going back to te high seas but the cost of some of the trackers and usenet sites are high, then a debrid and I am kijd kf back where I was.
Are there dcent free private trackers?
Most good trackers can be used completely free of charge. But you have to work your way up to them, proving yourself as worthy on a lower tier tracker.
There are plenty of guides on this. Most recommend starting with an open interview on RED or MAM, then using the invite forums once you qualify.
You can also watch for open sign-ups. TL opens its doors a few times per year (and usually during December), and it’s at least as good as the public trackers. Sometimes these have invite forums, but usually not. TL does not.
You will, however, want to spend money on a VPN with port forwarding. This should run ~$30/year.
MaM tightened their invite forum requirements quite a bit. They ‘found out’ that a ton of users were just there to use it as a springboard.
I have been using seedpool for a while after the othrr tracker i used shutdown. I like them mostly because i dont need to worry about ratio. As long as you seed everything you download you’re good.
Edit: it’s apparently not allow to give invites to people who ask
I’m not asking for a invite
I’d never do such a thing either!
I know that qBit has an “excluded file name” option so just add *.exe to it.
Yeah they had this enabled without knowing it
qBittorrent marked it “finished” two seconds after adding it with total_downloaded: 0, so nothing actually landed on disk. No idea why. Don’t care. Thanks qBit.
Think .exe is the default value but you can add more
.bat, .vbs, .ps1: “it’s showtime”
Add .js, .url, .com, and .lnk to that list too.
And .scr
I have been using cleanuparr to automate this. I have exes blocked in the download client and then cleanuparr sees they aren’t being downloaded and removes them and triggers another search.
Rargb included a .exe which if you changed to .txt was just a message saying don’t reupload. It was to prevent indexers or something with basic “don’t download .exe” rules. So that is probably why it is not fail by default in Sonarr for everyone? I don’t know for sure but it is something.
What torrent sites are affected?
Technically, all* could be. They’re just indexing the torrents that are out there.
*all = the ones that would list TV shows, etc. of course
Lime and eztv were the culprits for me, I removed them from automatic search in *arr
I’ve been hit by this a few times recently too. No ill effects other than needing to clear it from the queue thankfully.
