Real-Time Scanning has to be turned off in order to download Excel and Word files from Drive. Why?

[dg555]

Within the last 3 days when I try to open/download an Excel or Word doc from Google Drive I receive the message "Excel (or Word) cannot open the file  because the file format or file extension is not valid....Then McAfee gives me a warning:  "We stopped something dangerous.  We caught something trying to hijack one of your apps.  Don't worry, we took care of it."  I can download/open .pdf files from Google Drive with no issues.  When I turn off Real-Time Scanning in McAfee Total Protection I can download/open the Excel and Word files without any issues.  I've been using McAfee and Google Drive together for years.  What's happened recently and how do I fix it? 

[Bharani_BD]

Hi @dg555 

We are sorry for the inconvenience caused, This is a known issue and our engineering team is working on a fix for this. We will update you as soon as we receive any information from them.

Thanks & Regards
Bharanidharan S

[dg555]

It's been 4 weeks and I'm still having the same issue.  Can you give me an update on when you expect this to be fixed?

[PatrickM]

NOTE: IN  EDIT MODE I SEE ALL THE FORMATTING I ADDED BUT WHEN I POST - IT ALL DISAPPEARS.

I have the same problem.

About 10 business days ago, a McAfee technical support representative installed a new version of LiveSafe on my laptop (for reasons I'll skip here).   Afterwards, I was no longer able open Excel files on Google Drive.  I have not seen this specific problem reported elsewhere, which is surprising given I have a generic Dell XPS laptop running Windows 10.

Additional information follows:

1. can open excel files on local drive
2. can open excel files on dropbox
3. cannot open excel files on Google Drive. 
4. Prior to the aforementioned re-install of McAfee, I had been accessing these same files for the past 12 months.  It's a corporate drive and is secure. 
5. When I move an excel file from G-Drive to my local disk,
6. I am currently getting around the problem by:
   1. Moving the excel file from G-drive to my local drive
   2. Turning off the Anti-Virus module within LiveSafe. 
7. The error message I receive when attempting to open the files reads, "Excel (or Word) cannot open the file  because the file format or file extension is not valid."
8. After receiving the error message, McAfee directs me to the following page: https://service.mcafee.com/?articleId=TS102828&page=shell&shell=article-view 
9. To REPEAT - My files are not corrupt nor a threat.  All I need to do is move them off of Google Drive and back on to my local drive.
10. This same problem affects the following file types:
    1. PDF
    2. PPT
11. This problem does not affect MS Word files

 What makes me angry is that the customer above  came back after FOUR WEEKS and asked for an update.  The McAfee moderator (Bharanidharan ) never followed up on his inquiry.  

Above Bharanidharan writes, "This a known issue and our engineering team is working on a fix for this. We will update you as soon as we receive any information from them."

Please provide a fix to this near term, or I iwlll be uninstalling LiveSafe and looking for a refund.  My use case is extremely common (i.e. opening up excel files on Drive).  There's absolutely no excuse for this kind of bug existing for any length of time.  

[LisaR]

I am having this problem - but even turning off scan doesn't work perfectly.  I can't work from my google drive.  

When will this be fixed???

[dg555]

Hello Bharani_BD.  Any update yet?  Still having the exact same issue.  

[Shredder13]

Same issue, but even with real-time scanning off and firewall off I still don't have access to my files.

For me this effects Word and Excel files, PDF and jpg open fine. I just tried powerpoint pptx and this is also blocked.

For a moment I thought I could get around it by giving the files offline access, but that doesn't seem to work any more either.

This makes google drive unusable!

Any solutions/ideas besides uninstalling McAfee?? Is there somewhere in the settings that you can exclude word/excel?

Andrew T

[Paddy2]

I reported this on 02/09/2021 when McAfee said it will be resolved shortly.  What news?

[LobbyOf]

Hi, I too have the same problem, can McAfee please respond to this thread?

[dg555]

Still having the issues opening Excel files from Google Drive.  I have uninstalled and reinstalled McAfee.  I'm running Excel 2013, Windows 10 Pro Ver: 21H1, McAfee Total Protection Ver:  16.0 Release 16.0 R40, McAfee Security Center Build:  19.10.144 Last update:  11/07/2021 Version 19.10.  I did check for updates this morning.  I have been having this issue since mid-August.