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Game page quarantined for unknown reason [solved]

A topic by BubbleBloat created 61 days ago Views: 566 Replies: 12

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Hello !
I ran into a major problem recently when updating my last game on itch.io....

The problem :
My last game got "quarantined" by itch.io soon after I updated it (~3 days ago). The game can both be played in browser and downloaded for desktop. Soon after the last game update, it got removed from search on the itch.io store.
A screenshot of the message displayed upon clicking "download" is attached below.

Additionnal info :

Game title is "Brewing cat" (my games are for a niche audience so I wouldn't recommend playing.... Reason why I wont put a direct link here either).
I did read through other forum posts as well as this link https://itch.io/docs/creators/getting-indexed. I didn't find any specific answer about what to do for "quanrantined" pages, and I did wait 3 days before making this post (if the review of a "quarantined" page takes more time, then it's not precised in this link).
The game was made with Contruct 3 (last version). A popular and trusted 2D game engine.
The desktop versions got exported as NW.js executable. I can share the export settings I used within Construct 3 if that can help.
VirusTotal doesn't give any malware result when scanning the executable.
The game can trigger a windows defender popup upon trying to run the .exe (I added a screenshot), but it doesn't happen on all devices (tried myself on different computers)... That being said I don't know the % of devices on which it triggers the windows defender popup.
I know that my previous games can trigger a windows defender popup as well, yet their pages didn't get quarantined (games are "Feed the Dragon" and "Wyverns & Dragons" - both made with Gdevelop engine)... So I guess the windows defender popup is probably unrelated to the page being quarantined...?

Context :

The game was published the 30th of august, and the update that may have caused the issue was on 8th September (although I'm not even 100% sure the update is the cause, so far it may still be a coincidence but that would be very unlikely).
The game is free and got around 8k downloads without such problem during the first launch week until the page got flagged (~1 or 2 hours after updating the game, I don't remember exactly).
The game is not digitally signed (which partially explains the windows defender popup upon running the .exe). However I've been told it costs money to do it, so I want to be 100% sure it would solve the problem before trying this solution - or at least br sure it would prevent it from happening again in the future.
Here is a link about digitally signing apps : https://shorturl.at/4VcIz

Last thing I'd like to say it that the "quarantined" message doesn't show up for me, only for other people who go to the game page. I don't know if it's intended to be this way or not - I hope not, because it does make troubleshooting much harder. In addition to that, itch.io itself doesn't notify the page owner that the game is removed from search & browse...... Which makes everything harder and a bit frustrating. It's a bit overwhelming when you suddenly get a user comment saying that "your game is quarantined" and disappeared from the shop, cutting most of the visibility on something you spent several fulltime weeks of work on.

Screenshots :
message displayed upon clicking "download" button

Windows Defender popup (tho as said earlier it's maybe unrelated?)

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hechelion61 days ago (1 edit)

This topic has been discussed several times on the forum.

Long story short, the server automatically quarantined the game. Normally, it will be reviewed by someone on staff after a while.

If the person reviewing it confirms that there is nothing wrong (a false positive), the game will be removed from quarantine and everything will go back to normal.

What exactly triggers this? It has never been discussed publicly, to prevent bad actors from trying to take advantage. So there is not much we as developers can do except wait.

You can try to contact support and send any information that might help them, but you must contact support, as this forum is answered by the community and not by Itch support.

Edit:

Having the application signed does not guarantee anything, it can help prevent the Microsoft security window from appearing, but it does not guarantee that you will not trigger the Itch quarantine again.

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BubbleBloat61 days ago (1 edit)

And there is really no way to prevent this from happening ? For instance isn't there any way to post the game update files in advance to check whether the detection algorithm "approves" the files or not ?
As a more concrete example : On youtube I think it's possible to first keep a video private for some time so that the algorithm can check it first to make sure it can be monetized. Then only the creator makes his video public, and the algorithm check was already done so he knows there shouldn't be any problem. I'm wondering if something similar would be possible here.

I understand their detection algorithm obviously can't be disclosed, but it's kind of a problem to have the page completely cut from its visibility for creators, especially soon after launch. And that's without mentionning the creepy warning for viewers + it discloses "connected regions" of the page owner which is concerning for privacy as well.

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hechelion61 days ago

As far as I understand and what has been discussed in other posts, no, there is no way to prevent this.

As you noticed, Itch does not inform you if your game is quarantined, so uploading it privately first would not do you any good, because you would not know if the game was approved or not.

Also, not knowing the algorithm, we also do not know if it is influenced by users, for example, a sudden increase in downloads, maybe a group of people reported it, etc.

I understand how frustrating it is if you are a legitimate developer, but without data from Itch I cannot say if the measures are good or bad.
I assume that they do not inform you to prevent bad actors from automating processes that seek to break Itch's system and I assume that the cases of false positives will be a small number compared to the benefit they bring.

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BubbleBloat61 days ago

Page is finally back ! Thank you very much for your answers.

Really wish there was a way to prevent this, I guess I'll just have to pray that each new update goes fine now (or just not update recently released games at all).

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No Time To PlayModerator47 days ago

While the automated checks are secret like hechelion said, please make sure you follow the quality guidelines, in particular point 1: avoid publishing your page before it's ready. I suspect a lot of people get impatient, and it could be a reason why this keeps happening.

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BubbleBloat47 days ago

Maybe it was unclear, but the game was initially made for a game jam, so.......... It gets published when the deadline of the jam is reached (doesn't really have anything to do with impatience in my case).

I also recently got an answer to my ticket from the support, and apparently it could have been caused by the fact I had an other page of the same game with restricted access for private testing purposes ? I am not totally sure, tho. Either way, the sanction from the algorithm was a bit disproportionate compared to the reason it got flagged in the first place. If I can suggest an idea, having different degrees of flagging before putting a page in quarantine could be a better solution ?

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redonihunter47 days ago

There is a different degree. Being not indexed.

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Jonah Sanders Gaming48 days ago

Im going through the same issue now. I originally paid my website developer to upload my games but saw that she did a tragic job then went to fix. Soon as I did my games went to quarantine. I've sent two emails to customer support.

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redonihunter47 days ago

Connecting your account from two different computers might have triggerd this. On a glance that might look like a hacked account. Plus there was a lot of uploads on your account.

Practically no one will search your games if you are not famous elsewhere. And at that elsewhere you can distribute a direct link, no searching needed.

The quarantine is of course annoying, but it will go away.

And while Itch might help developers more, it also might protect users more. There do be hacked accounts. I saw several hundred of those this year. You do not have to pay 100 $ upfront to publish, like on Steam. This alone protects against a lot of spam and scam. But it also gives a huge budget to check against any hacking and to expedite any manual checking. Unfortunately, there is no premium service available on Itch you could pay for, so response time of support can take several weeks. They also have to deal with real scams that also got quarantined. Oh, and they probaly will not answer at all, just put your stuff out of quarantine.

If it gets indexed is the next question. You already were unhappy about the uploading, so maybe some of those project pages are not up to indexing standards https://itch.io/docs/creators/quality-guidelines

I glanced over your projects. This here is just a video. It violates categorisation as a game and is basically tag spamming. And the descriptions of all the games I glanced over read AI made, which might indicate shovelware. It is possible, that several of your games were reported for miscategorisation, tag spamming, regular spamming or other things. Which might have triggered quarantine.

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Jonah Sanders Gaming47 days ago

Itchi Io still needs to contact the developer. None of the games are classified as videos, actually they were because person I had put up made mistake but I fixed. I don't even care about indexing but if my games say Quarantine to all people I give link to it destroys my brand.

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redonihunter47 days ago

Itchi Io still needs to contact the developer.

Why? From their perspecitve, the account might be a scam or hacked. It was accessed from two different continents and suddenly all the projects got changed from the second log in. Should they just ask the account: "hey, you a scammer? please be honest".

In practical terms, there is a waiting queue for support and those manual inspections. Writing more than one mail will not hasten it.

Yeah it sucks as a publishing start, my sympathies, but I also saw hundreds of actually hacked accounts. So I approve of automatics that try to protect users. (If it even was because of this. It really is possible that someone saw your AI generated texts and the mass upload and reported them, because it looked like some shovelware or even stolen from your website.)

None of the games are classified as videos

I think there is a misunderstanding. The project I linked has a single file that ends in .mp4 yet it is classified as a game. Itch does not have a video classification. It would fall under everything else.

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No Time To PlayModerator47 days ago

So, please read the rules of this category for what to do if support takes too long. And please make your own topic next time, because I almost missed your post.

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