Antivirus warnings

Longshot’s Windows programs (the launcher, the builder, and the game it builds) are new and not code-signed yet: the signing certificate is still being applied for. Windows Defender and browsers judge unsigned programs nobody has seen before by guesswork, so they often flag Longshot, most often as Trojan:Win32/Wacatac.H!ml or Wacatac.B!ml. The !ml at the end means Defender’s machine learning guessed: it is not a known virus.

That doesn’t mean you should trust any file with Longshot’s name. First check that yours is genuine, then let it through.

1. Check that your download is genuine

Only download Longshot from its two release pages on git.magicbean.dev:

The download page and its links send you to the first of these.

A copy from anywhere else may not be ours. To check a file you downloaded, compare its SHA-256 with the one the release lists in its SHA256SUMS file. In PowerShell, in the folder you downloaded it to:

Get-FileHash .\LongshotLauncher-*-windows-x64-setup.exe

The Hash it prints must be the same as the file’s line in SHA256SUMS. You only need to do this for the launcher: it checks the signature of every release’s SHA256SUMS, and every file it downloads against it, by itself.

2. Let it through on Windows

Where the warning appears decides what to do.

The browser blocks the download

Chrome: open your downloads (Ctrl+J), find the file, and choose Keep (Chrome may call it Download suspicious file).
Edge: open your downloads (Ctrl+J), point at the file, choose … then Keep, then Show more and Keep anyway.
Firefox: open your downloads (Ctrl+Shift+Y), right-click the file and choose Allow download.

“Windows protected your PC” when you start it

This is SmartScreen. Choose More info, then Run anyway.

Defender removed a file

This shows as a Defender notification, as the launcher saying “Your antivirus removed part of the build tools”, or as a file that is suddenly missing (longshot.exe, or the launcher itself). Put it back, then stop it happening again:

Open Windows Security (search for it in the Start menu), then Virus & threat protection.
Choose Protection history. Open the most recent entry that names Longshot or one of its folders (usually a Wacatac detection), choose Actions, then Restore. Do this for each Longshot entry.
Back on Virus & threat protection, under Virus & threat protection settings, choose Manage settings.
Scroll to Exclusions, choose Add or remove exclusions, then Add an exclusion → Folder, and add these two folders, one at a time:
- %LOCALAPPDATA%\LongshotBuilder: the builder and its tools.
- Your game folder: %USERPROFILE%\Games\Longshot unless you chose another.
You can type the %...% paths straight into the folder picker’s address bar.
In the launcher, press Repair. It downloads the removed files again and checks them.

Or do steps 3 and 4 in one go, in PowerShell started with Run as administrator:

Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\LongshotBuilder"
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath "$env:USERPROFILE\Games\Longshot"

Another antivirus (Avast, AVG, Norton, Bitdefender, Kaspersky, …)

The steps are the same, with that program’s names for them: restore the files from its quarantine (sometimes called the “vault” or “chest”), then add %LOCALAPPDATA%\LongshotBuilder and your game folder as exceptions (or “exclusions”). Then press Repair in the launcher.

3. Help get it fixed

Every report of a false positive teaches Microsoft that Longshot is safe, for everyone. Send the flagged file to Microsoft’s file submission: choose Home customer, then Incorrectly detected as malware/malicious, and give the detection name (such as Wacatac.H!ml).

Still stuck?

Search the reports or ask on Discord. To report a new problem, include the file’s name and version, where you downloaded it from, and the exact detection name. Never send game files or keys.