Help! export failed

I’ve used Shotcut several times before and never had a lasting problem with exporting. Until yesterday. A warning sign from AVG antivirus came up while I was working with Shotcut and warned me about melt.exe. This was a ransomware, AVG claimed. I trusted AVG and blocked it. Another warning sign, roughly around the same time had appeared too, claiming ffmpeg.exe also was ransomware. However, after having blocked these two files, I was no longer able to export any files from Shotcut. At 0% I get a fail to export. Every time. So, my questions are; are these two files ransomware? Or are they Shotcut files and AVG mistaking them for ransomware? Either way, I need to be able to export files but obviously don’t want to put my computer at risk. I updated my Shotcut to the latest version after this to try to solve the problem. No change. I’ve restarted the computer several times and have run a virus scan, with negative result. What do I do now? Also, I have made sure to uncheck the box for parallel processing.

Here’s one of the logs:

plugin_mgr_get_object_file_plugins: error opening shared object file ‘C:\Program Files\Shotcut\lib\ladspa/AUTHORS’: “C:\Program Files\Shotcut\lib\ladspa\AUTHORS”: The specified module could not be found.

plugin_mgr_get_object_file_plugins: error opening shared object file ‘C:\Program Files\Shotcut\lib\ladspa/COPYING’: “C:\Program Files\Shotcut\lib\ladspa\COPYING”: The specified module could not be found.

plugin_mgr_get_object_file_plugins: error opening shared object file ‘C:\Program Files\Shotcut\lib\ladspa/readme.txt’: “C:\Program Files\Shotcut\lib\ladspa\readme.txt”:

[h264 @ 000001aae2443900] Reinit context to 1920x1088, pix_fmt: yuv420p

[consumer avformat] Could not open ‘C:/Users/Computer/Documents/Scarlett’s Garden/storm/storm–.mkv’

[h264 @ 000001aad6f70580] Reinit context to 1920x1088, pix_fmt: yuv420p

[h264 @ 000001aae2664040] Reinit context to 1920x1088, pix_fmt: yuv420p

[producer avformat] audio: total_streams 1 max_stream 1 total_channels 2 max_channels 2

[AVIOContext @ 000001aad6f7b8c0] Statistics: 418204 bytes read, 0 seeks

[producer avformat-novalidate] C:/Users/Computer/Documents/Scarlett’s Garden/storm/Birch Tree - 32659.mp4

missing hwaccel parameters. skipping hardware initialization

[wav @ 000001aae2a23780] parser not found for codec pcm_s16le, packets or times may be invalid.

[wav @ 000001aae2748d00] parser not found for codec pcm_s16le, packets or times may be invalid.

[producer avformat] audio: total_streams 1 max_stream 0 total_channels 2 max_channels 2

[AVIOContext @ 000001aae2a0fe40] Statistics: 299008 bytes read, 2 seeks

[h264 @ 000001aae249e740] Reinit context to 1280x720, pix_fmt: yuv420p

[h264 @ 000001aae249c2c0] Reinit context to 1280x720, pix_fmt: yuv420p

[AVIOContext @ 000001aae2a0fe40] Statistics: 65536 bytes read, 0 seeks

[producer avformat-novalidate] C:/Users/Computer/Documents/Scarlett’s Garden/storm/Tree - 2050.mp4

missing hwaccel parameters. skipping hardware initialization

[wav @ 000001aae290ed00] parser not found for codec pcm_s16le, packets or times may be invalid.

[wav @ 000001aae29c1140] parser not found for codec pcm_s16le, packets or times may be invalid.

[producer avformat] audio: total_streams 1 max_stream 0 total_channels 2 max_channels 2

[AVIOContext @ 000001aae2a0fe40] Statistics: 299008 bytes read, 2 seeks

[producer avformat-novalidate] C:/Users/Computer/Documents/Scarlett’s Garden/storm/Tree - 2050.mp4

checking VFR: pkt.duration 1

[h264 @ 000001aae249cbc0] Reinit context to 1280x720, pix_fmt: yuv420p

[in @ 000001aae22782c0] w:1920 h:1080 pixfmt:rgba tb:1/24 fr:24/1 sar:1/1 sws_param:

[hue @ 000001aae2278ec0] H_expr:(null) h_deg_expr:0 s_expr:0 b_expr:0

[scale @ 000001aae22763c0] w:1920 h:1080 flags:‘bicubic+accurate_rnd+full_chroma_int+full_chroma_inp’ interl:0

[auto_scaler_0 @ 000001aae22797c0] w:iw h:ih flags:‘bicubic+accurate_rnd+full_chroma_int+full_chroma_inp’ interl:0

[hue @ 000001aae2278ec0] auto-inserting filter ‘auto_scaler_0’ between the filter ‘in’ and the filter ‘hue’

[auto_scaler_0 @ 000001aae22797c0] w:1920 h:1080 fmt:rgba sar:1/1 → w:1920 h:1080 fmt:yuva444p sar:1/1 flags:0x46004

[scale @ 000001aae22763c0] w:1920 h:1080 fmt:yuva444p sar:1/1 → w:1920 h:1080 fmt:rgba sar:1/1 flags:0x46004

[pad @ 000001aae2279cc0] w:1920 h:1080 → w:1920 h:1080 x:0 y:0 color:0x000000FF

Failed with exit code 1

This melt.exe is Shotcut’s rendering program that you probably blocked with your anti-virus program.
Exports will no long be possible on your computer until you whitelist it with your anti-virus programs.
2021-09-25_02-07-44

Shotcut offers checksums for you to verify the integrity of the download. You can find this on the downloads page.
firefox_2021-09-25_02-09-29

There were once a day when you needed anti-virus, about 10 years ago. Just my personal opinion here.

Thanks. What are checksums? I went to the download page and opened one of these files up. It was just a list: What do I do with this information?

9f6fcdda341620c082ae2bece7db8ac8 shotcut-linux-x86_64-210321.AppImage
de8749ef22bd5740498e3a024d81aece shotcut-linux-x86_64-210321.txz
a6a3f838ad32684be5232ac7ace2dee8 shotcut-macos-signed-210321.dmg
6e5381bef6816d62503eed6cc9db9d15 shotcut-macos-unsigned-210321.dmg
27507f04c3586778de77a60ac4becfeb shotcut-src-210321.txz
db37b0312de41c2cb71caf2bfdf097e7 shotcut-win64-210321.exe
3dcf50d4865798d16a04b332acbe8bbc shotcut-win64-210321.zip

Here is a great post on another site explaining checksums.

I have 7-Zip installed, and it comes with a checksum tool accessible via windows file explorer.

I get the checksum information from for 21.08.29 from Github’s link for this version.

This tells me the file is genuine.

Thanks. Wow. I did it. However, this only tells me about the downloaded .exe file on my desktop. It doesn’t mention anything specific about the melt.exe file. Is there any way of finding the checksum for the melt file? To make sure it hasn’t got corrcupted.

The checksum is for main installation exe file, which installs all the necessary files and creates sub folders on your hard drive. Sort of like getting a package from Amazon as the tracking number is unique for just that package.

As far as melt.exe for the version you are using (21.03.21)
I just simply ran that one file through 7-Zip.
7zG_2021-09-25_04-04-23
You should get the same number.

Example (text file)
checksum exampe.txt (92 Bytes)
notepad_2021-09-25_04-16-06
Generates this checksum.
7zG_2021-09-25_04-15-27

If I was to change anything in that file and save it again, it would get a different checksum. It’s letting you that nobody has messed with this file.

You confirmed in your screenshot that your version of Shotcut is genuine and true as it was uploaded for people to download it.

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Thank you for your help! I will put the melt.exe in the safe folder.

ffmpeg is a program that is used by a large number of video editors - I think it is used by melt.exe. This is to say, you need to verify that it is valid and mark it safe as well.

But something to ponder: ffmpeg is SO common that it is very odd to me that AVG would mark it as ransomware. If the ffmpeg file is not corrupted, I would begin checking to make sure that AVG isn’t corrupted.

As others have mentioned, melt.exe and ffmpeg.exe provided by Shotcut are not ransomware and are required by Shotcut to work properly. You should whitelist them in your antivirus program to avoid problems with Shotcut.

Anti- software does not go by filename because that is too easy to trick. And there are many different builds of open source software including our own build of ffmpeg exe and DLLs. They way these anti-malware software work is a little mysterious involving finger-printing, heuristics, usage reporting, etc. So, it does not help that software that frequently updates is a moving target for them. I have found that some of them are quick to block or quarantine something simply new or unknown. However, I rarely have that problem with simply using Microsoft Defender. Maybe it helps that I also submit the build to the Microsoft Store, which may feed into the Defender database.

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Ah, makes sense. I had not thought about the way the ffmpeg was being customized for use with Shotcut.

Thanks to all of you for taking the time to answer. I took the two files out of quarantine a few days ago and I have no problem exporting video files anymore.

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