How do I get rid of PACE malware on my Mac Pro?

This thing is driving me crazy. When launching FCP 7, Motion 4 or several of the Adobe CS6 programs a message will pop up stating that REQUIRED SYSTEM EXTENSIONS ARE MISSING. I'm then instructed to click "OK" to go to the PACE web site to download an installer. Until yesterday I could dismiss the messages and continue working.


Yesterday Motion crashed after working perfectly for 6 hours. During relaunch, the familiar message popped up this time but couldn't be dismissed. Motion froze and I got a spinning beach ball when trying to cancel or click OK in the window.


I've learned that PACE anti piracy software is incorporated into a lot of pro audio programs and, apparently some video and graphics software as well. I've scoured my machine for any out of date trial plugins and deleted every vestige of PACE I can find on the computer and zombie-like, it still pops up. Tonight, I tried to reinstall Motion. No difference. I didn't download or install anything yesterday to make PACE become actively aggressive.


This thing has its tentacles in deep. I found someone on another forum who (on a Windows machine) found PACE registry entries hiding among MS office entries and other unexpected places as well. I see no Console messages when running FCP or trying to launch Motion that give me any clue as to how or where it's working. Any suggestions? I have looming deadlines and a crippled system.


Thanks

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Dual quad core Xeon, 16GB RAM

Posted on Nov 9, 2013 5:11 PM

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6 replies

Nov 10, 2013 5:28 AM in response to FrenchToast

Receipts in Snow are in /private/var/db


FAF will find invisible files by default I believe, but if not it can be set to do that. And EF can be set to show invisibles also. The downside to either when trying to locate all associated files for something like this is that they will only find files according to the name they are searching for. Showing Package Contents by application might be a good option for this situation.


User uploaded file


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Nov 10, 2013 4:29 AM in response to movpic

In Windows, there's this programme called Revo Uninstaller (comes both as freeware and shareware), that really performs a full uninstall of any software you installed on your Windows box.


On OS X, you can either track such entries manually (time-consuming, and not error-proof), or use an app such as AppCleaner to do it for you, but bear in mind that software such as PACE use technologies consistent with rootkits.


Your best option would be to reinstall the application(s) PACE came with, so as to bind it to a running software again, then use AppCleaner to uninstall the same applications.


There are several threads involving this PACE thing on the forum, including this one.


You can check this post too, about uninstalling the thing.

Nov 10, 2013 4:34 AM in response to FrenchToast

My experience with AppCleaner is that it only finds the most obvious associated files and will only do a superficial uninstall, especially for something like this. And I wouldn't trust any of the app cleaners not to remove something it has no business removing. I wouldn't trust anything on "auto pilot" for this job. FAF run as root should find everything. But I think the OP should post in one of the professional areas, where someone with direct experience with this may know right off what to do.

Nov 10, 2013 5:07 AM in response to WZZZ

Thanks! I forgot to mention that most of the files associated with PACE will probably be set as hidden. You might want to make them visible first.


(In Terminal, type "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE", press Enter, enter your admin password, press Enter, then type "killall Finder", press Enter again, and wait for your Finder to restart)


After that, you may want to do as suggested here, too, but proceed with caution... 😉

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How do I get rid of PACE malware on my Mac Pro?

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