Google Chrome has fixed a bug that allowed antivirus programs on Windows 10 to close newly created files.
Uploading the error means that antivirus programs running on Windows no longer block new files generated by the Chrome web browser, such as bookmarks.
Antivirus programs briefly lock new files
As a security precaution, antivirus programs often temporarily shut down newly generated files on a system until they can be scanned and excluded from malicious activity.
Particularly on Windows 10 machines, this would cause problems for the Google Chrome web browser when it would use “ImportantFileWriter” to export certain files.
“Anti-virus programs and other scanners can briefly close new files, which can lead to frequent problems with saving bookmarks and other files that the ImportantFileWriter,“Explained Bruce Dawson, a Google engineer.
This meant that Windows 10 users would have trouble saving bookmarks, for example because the web browser had trouble creating the corresponding file.
As first reported by Windows latest a recent improvement made by the Chromium project makes the Chrome browser run smoothly on Windows 10 even when antivirus programs are enabled.
Solve attempts to create files multiple times
The solution published on Chromium’s Google Source code base fixes this error by performing ReplaceFile method multiple times to overcome (and close) the possible racial state controlled by an antivirus program from a file that Chrome is simultaneously accessing.
The code change also has a machine learning aspect, which means that Chromium will eventually teach itself to adjust the number of attempts required to circumvent such racial conditions.
Source: Chromium Gerrit
“This change also adds instrumentation to record how many rehearsals are needed for future tuning,” Dawson said.
The engineer also says that this error only affects Windows systems, therefore the solution made important_filewriter.cc was specific to Windows OS, as shown in the screenshot above (line 45).
As the solution has been merged into the repository since December 30, 2020, it is expected that the next version of Google Chrome will be included with it.
Chrome users should keep an eye on all the upcoming issues and make sure they update their web browsers immediately.