[Solved]Opera 36 suddenly "requesting access to a Protected item"

[windbags]

windbags last edited by

I've just recovered from a serious system glitch, which entailed rebuilding RAID arrays from backups etc (no more than a week old).
All seemed well, including Opera 36 (I'm on Vista 32 bit).

2nd day, re-opening Opera as normal, I suddenly get loads of messages that :
"An application is requesting access to a Protected item", multiple times, wanting a password for each of that I have no idea about.

It identifies the program as "C:\Program Files\Opera\36.0.2130.80\opera.exe", and none of my tabs that opened fine yesterday will open up.
It would be helpful if the message says what the area is, but it doesn't.
I'm not aware I've got any Protected items.

Any ideas what area it could be trying to access that I can can change permissions for/make unprotected? As Opera is now dysfunctional, I'm having to look at this forum (finding nothing about that topic) and posting this via Chrome!

[windbags]

windbags last edited by

Rather than put up with Chrome, I've regressed to Opera 12.18.
It is working fine with no issues, if that gives any clues as to the situation...

[blackbird71]

blackbird71 last edited by

It sounds a lot like Opera's user files might be located in a folder or subfolder that has become or is protected and requires admin access. For a typical installation, those files should be located down a path under a user name's ApplicationData subfolder or similar, depending on the OS. If they instead got placed or installed into a protected folder or that folder's access was somehow changed (UAC, etc) to protected, then admin permission may be required every time the main Opera executable tries to access a user's personal file. If Opera was installed as a portable, then make sure the folder in which it's placed your user files is accessible with whatever permission goes with the account you're using.

[windbags]

windbags last edited by

Has no-one else had this issue?

[windbags]

windbags last edited by

Sorry, Blackbird71, your post didn't come up for me before I nudged; thanks for your reply.
Understand what you say, but how could that change from one boot-up/sleep to the resume the next day?
Opera is not installed as portable.
Looking at C:\Users(me)\AppData\Local\Opera Software (I assume this one as dated Feb 2016, Folder \Opera is June 2010, so guess is the 12.18 version), the Security is for system and User=me as "full" control, but the editing boxes greyed out, ditto for "System" & "Administrators". It was partially read-only, but removing that recursively has made no difference.
Anywhere else I should/could look?
My Opera 36 shows as up to date, so no updates to install. (36.0.2130.80)
If I try a re-install, will it remember all my setups of everything like bookmarks, extensions?
Or is there a "repair" option/function anywhere?

[A Former User]

A Former User last edited by

I would try backing up your profile folder, and then completely uninstalling Opera and then searching for and deleting all folders relating to it.
Cleaning the registry of all entries relating to Opera would be a good idea too (back it up first of course!)
Then reinstall Opera from the offline installer, using the USB option. This will put all of Opera's files, including the profile folder, into Opera's program files folder.
See if that works OK, and if it does replace the profile folder with your backup, and see if it's still OK.
If it is, I would leave it like that. There is no disadvantage in having all the Opera files all in one place as long as you're not sharing Opera with another user on the machine, which I assume you're not.

[blackbird71]

blackbird71 last edited by

Because you're using Vista, I would infer you're also running a fairly old system. In that case, there's a possibility that the hardware is tossing some occasional errors or delays that cause the OS to have 'issues' when coming out of sleep/hibernation, especially if that triggers a recovery operation to a restore point. In such cases, I've seen Windows (especially an old install) do some very strange things with user account permissions in trying to bring itself back up to speed after waking. In my own case, with a 7-year old desktop system running Win7, I had to finally cease allowing the system to go into sleep mode because of recurring issues with user account corruption that sometimes showed up as peculiar permissions issues in a given user account. One area to explore is the system event logs surrounding the date or time you first experienced the problem coming out of sleep, looking especially for OS file-corruption or recovery error notifications. Of course, your situation might be completely different, but it's a thought to keep in mind.

As @davehawley notes, completely cleaning out Opera's residue might overcome any installation corruption that somehow occurred in Opera during its shutdown or some internal issue it might have had just prior to the sleep cycle which seemed to trigger the problem. As he notes, sometimes setting up Opera as a USB installation lets a user end-run permissions issues of whatever cause, as long as one is a single user of Opera on the system.

[windbags]

windbags last edited by

Thanks both.

Where should I look for my profile folder?
I do have overall file backups if they get trashed, if I know where to look for them.

I have saved my bookmarks via the Bookmarks Impart & Export extension, but it destroys the folder arrangement and is a real pain to recreate. Is that in my profile/will it be trashed?

Anything else I need to back up?

Is there an overall Opera backup utility yet, like there used to be in the olden days of Opera 12?

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by

Where should I look for my profile folder?

You can see the path to profile folder in Menu > About Opera.

Anything else I need to back up?

The best thing to do is to backup the whole profile folder.

[windbags]

windbags last edited by

Thanks for bearing with a novice.

With that info, I now have backed up my current profile, and have a copy from two weeks ago before the problem.

Before re-installing, is it worth trying to over-write the current profile with the backup to see if that cures the issue?

[A Former User]

A Former User last edited by

Nothing to lose if you do, as long as you've still got the backups!
Don't just copy the backup to the same location as the current profile folder, as that will not necessarily overwrite all the files. Delete the current profile (or just rename it to say "Profile.old") and then copy the backup across.
That will make sure that no possibly corrupt files are still left because they weren't in the backup.
If it works, great, in fact you could just try a reinstall over the whole thing without uninstalling first, but I suspect you will have to uninstall and reinstall.

[windbags]

windbags last edited by

Thanks, @davehawley, renaming the existing suspect ones and placing the week-old backups in the same place seemed to work a treat without re-installing.

The only penalty seems to be picking up an old set of tabs to re-start from, which is virtually pain-free.
I won't be able to finally tell until I've gone through full sleep/wake cycles and/or reboots, but I'm able to post this from Opera 36, which is a great improvement.

I will try to remember to confirm no issues after those processes later.
Many thanks for your help.
:yes:

PS Why don't line feeds put line breaks in these posts right?

I keep on putting in double line feeds to get sensible para breaks, sorry about that

[A Former User]

A Former User last edited by

No problem, glad that the "simple" fix worked for once!
The line break issue is because of the stupid markdown system that this forum uses (for no good reason that I've ever been able to see).
You can force a line break by typing a double space at the end of the line, similar to what you've found with forcing new paragraphs.

[A Former User]

A Former User last edited by

Windbags, Wikipedia has the same, stupid or not. If you learned HTML, it's not stupid though: two Enters make a paragraph divide; if you want a plain linebreak, finish the preceding line with two whitespaces. Or you can simply use HTML (to an extent): there is a "Formatting" thread in the Feedback here.

[windbags]

windbags last edited by

Just back to say it was all fine after reboots etc, so looks like a complete cure.
I never said the Markdown approach was stupid, just not obvious to a novice at the posting stage (eg the double-space to get a para break). Trying that now for the first time since appraised.
Ah, doesn't work.
Let's try this instead. No, only a return seems to work (there were two spaces before the 'No')
Probably me still being dim. Nomatter, as long as the bigger para gaps don't annoy folk....

[A Former User]

A Former User last edited by

Glad Opera is now still working OK for you.
Strange about the double spaces to force a line break, it works for me.
Off topic, but I was the one who said that using markdown here is stupid. It's just not appropriate IMO for a forum like this, where people come for help and advice, and suddenly find that what they type in their posts is not what they actually get, unless they know that the forum uses markdown and they have to manually put codes in for certain things.
I just don't that that's appropriate for a public help forum, and I've never understood Opera's reasoning for using it.

[zalex108]

zalex108 last edited by

No, only a return seems to work (there were two spaces before the 'No')

Two spaces and return to Break line.

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