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Antivirus and problems with Myriad/Scoop pausing periodically

Peter Jarrett — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 11:46:28 GMT

If you are running Antivirus, it's very important that you set it up well so it doesn't interfere with the regular operation of Myriad/Scoop etc.

If you do want to run Antivirus on your machines then we recommend the following:

Run AV on all machines including servers.
Disable any Scheduled Scans on any OnAir computers - otherwise when it comes to do its periodic scan it could cause audio to stutter. Instead, manually run a full scan as part of your regular maintenance procedure when you can take the computer out of service
Exclude all folders that contain Myriad/Scoop etc. files - this will reduce the load on the computer as Myriad and Scoop opens hundreds of files per hour as they checks the Audiowall, play audio, works down the log/edit scripts etc.
Exclude certain file extensions - inf, lst, ls3, cm3, wav, wma, mp3, mp2, ogg, mdb, OAC, ppk. Some AV packages don't allow exclusions (for instance some editions of AVG Free) and these MUST NOT BE USED.

If everything runs ok, but you get a regular pause once or twice a minute then you have possible forgotten to add OAC to the exclusion list.

Myriad rights to a file with a .OAC extension next to the Station Database file every 20 or 30 seconds to say that it has On Air Control. It also checks it again periodically to check that it still has it.

As the antivirus scans this file it locks it and this can cause Myriad to pause until it’s finished scanning.

In the office we have tested and support Symantec Corporate Edition 10.0 and earlier and Microsoft Forefront.

We have not tested Symantec Endpoint Protection.

We also recommend you avoid 'free' Antivirus packages as these often have limited feature sets as they obviously want you to upgrade to the paid for service.

RE: Antivirus and problems with Myriad/Scoop pausing periodically

Peter Jarrett — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 11:46:28 GMT

Internally we have been testing Microsoft Security Essentials as it's free for most users (see below) and incorporates the ability to exclude files and folders so is ideal.

We are running in it on our main test playout pcs and have never noticed any performance issues during playout - the pcs aren't top spec either as we deliberately keep them pretty low end to really push Myriad etc., and are now about 3 years old as well.

The only caveat is that you can only use it on up to 10 PCs and can't be run on computers running Windows Enterprise or Windows Server.

Other than that, we've found it to be very good.

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/default.aspx

RE: Antivirus and problems with Myriad/Scoop pausing periodically

Peter Jarrett — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 11:42:55 GMT

For users running Myriad v3.5.16 and higher you should also now exclude PPK files (these are used for the Waveform Previews in Myriad)