How to fix Google blocking backups?

I uploaded the file to this cloud server:

https://drive.filen.io/d/7217089c-3cd0-43b1-9ba0-fe46504f7685#XBQ68RMoPBd7Pk48XVwdq4abbB8Z2yVp

I downloaded it 3 times using Brave, Chrome, and Edge. Interestingly Edge said the file violated their safe browsing rules, but I bypassed those and downloaded it anyway.

Hi,

It really does sound like you are dealing with a virus here. I would recommend you so a virus scan as soon as possible and/or restore your site to a point in time before you started experiencing this issue. If you do this you will need to start with a blank WP install which will mean deleting your current site so I would recommend you test your backup on a test domain or on a clone.

Well, thanks for that analysis. If you are correct it raises a couple of issues for me:

1. My website is fairly static and hasn’t been updated in quite a while. I’m not sure when this problem first started, but whenever it was I don’t think I have a backup from before that time.
2. I have keyed in all the pages of my site, and made all the images, so I’m quite sure I didn’t do anything to infect the site. Of course I have no idea what might be in any of the plugins.
3. I know how to scan for viruses in Windows, but I have no idea how to scan a WordPress site. And would you believe I don’t actually know where my sites’s WordPress content is located.
4. The fact that I have received quite a few of the Google warning messages and requested a review for each one of them, but never had any reply from Google about any of them suggests to me the problem may be being triggered by the fact that the backup files are compressed, or that Google is checking them by un-compressing them and not recognizing what they contain. It seems to me that if Google found something in the backups that they thought was a virus they would tell that to me. But they have never done that.
5. If there is a virus somewhere in the backups, why has no one who accesses the site reported a problem? I scan my PC fairly regularly with a number of different AV programs, and it is always clean.

The bottom line is I sincerely appreciate the time and effort you’ve taken to investigate this issue, but it’s totally unclear to me what I should do about it now, of if I should do anything at all.

Typically Google, or firewalls, and AV software will not block your webserver from uploading to Google. For me there was a very annoying SSL cURL error, that would timeout every upload before it would complete. Fixing this bug, resolves the problem for me.

Not sure if this is the place to post this, but there is a bug in the UpdatedraftPlus wordpress plugin in the Google/IO/Curl.php file around line 76 where the code reads :
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSLVERSION, 1);

this should be :
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSLVERSION, CURL_SSLVERSION_TLSv1_0);

take a look at this curl options

Cheers!

GAK! Talk about TMI! That’s more info than I really want to know.

If it’s a bug in Updraft’s backup routine itself why don’t the authors just fix it? If that’s what it really is I’ve got to believe more people than me are having this same problem.

@jcorrea920 might have point, I checked your SSL certificate and got this: https://snipboard.io/3dRgkM.jpg

This is the site I used: https://www.sslchecker.com/sslchecker

The backup completes and uploads to Google Drive so its not a bug. Google Drive does not unzip the backup (this would require Google Drive to download the file as this cannot be done on the drive itself). We have hundreds of thousand of users using UpdraftPlus with Google Drive all of whom upload zipped files so that is not the issue. I regularly use Google Drive to backup/migrate backups in exactly the way you have and do not experience this issue.

Have you been updating your plugins?

I also ran your site through a basic malware scanner and it returned this

406 Not Acceptable
This error code is used by some web hostings for websites locked for distributing malware. Please try to open the website in a browser. This code can also mean that SiteCheck sent the Accept / Accept-Language / Accept-Encoding headers that your web server cannot handle. Please check your web server configuration.

So it might be worth checking this with your hosting.

The fact that you mentioned this “I downloaded it 3 times using Brave, Chrome, and Edge. Interestingly Edge said the file violated their safe browsing rules, but I bypassed those and downloaded it anyway”

strongly suggests that something is amiss with either your site or you files. I will do everything I can to work through this with you but I can say it is 100% not the compression (we would get a lot of complaints if it was)

Thanks for taking the time to review my situation. I read and understand your message and I will relay the basic facts to my web host. I don’t contact them very often, but when I do I have always received good feedback and help. I’ll post their response here when I get it.

There are still a few things about this whole issue that I don’t understand:

1. My entire website, of which the WordPress blog is just a part, is not very active in terms of updates. When I started getting the warning messages from Google (months ago) I was surprised because nothing in the site had changed for some time. Obviously something did change somewhere, but I have no idea what it might have been.
2. I’ve been using Updraft to back up my site for a long time – years actually. I keep it, along with all of the other add-ons, up to date.
3. For each of Google’s warning messages I have responded with a request to “verify” the results, but I have never heard anything back from Google. This makes me think the problem they report is being triggered by some very obscure situation that is actually not a problem at all.

I’ll make a new post with whatever my web host comes up with.

Google searches

Not my problem – this is the message I get form Google:

Your file may violate Google Drive’s Terms of Service

“backup_2023-04-10-2145_3D_Printing_61bb4e365654-plugins.zip” contains content that may violate Google Drive’s Malware and Similar Malicious Content policy. Some features related to this file may have been restricted. If you think this is an error and would like the Trust & Safety team to review this file, request a review below.

Restricted file

backup_2023-04-10-2145_3D_Printing_61bb4e365654-plugins.zi

OK – my latest theory: since Google is not looking at the contents of the ZIP files, the only thing they can base their judgement on is the names of the files Updraft uploads. So – is there a way to change or control the names of the uploaded files? I haven’t checked that yet, but I will.

Edit: well, if there is a way to change the names of the uploaded files I can’t find it.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by gorgon80.

@jcorrea920 -that user has a different issue, the backups are not uploading to GoogleDrive whereas here the files are uploaded and then flagged by Google.

Have you been keeping your plugin and themes up to date?

Again, our naming format is always in the same format for every user

It will always be something like: backup_2023-10-31-0738_Your _site_4210917e7e92-plugins.zip

2023-10-31-07-38 is the date and time so 31st Oct 2023 at 7:38 am

Your_site will be the name of your site

4210917e7e92 is the process ID

and Plugins is the folder.

You cannot change the name of your folders within the plugin. The folder names are automatically generated by the plugin.

Yes, all my site’s plug-ins are up to date – I’ve got auto-update enabled.

I posted a message to my web host but have not heard anything back yet.

As I expected my web host reported no problems with my site:

Our scan for malicious PHP shells using our internal tool has finished and did not identify any potentially malicious files.

So unless I hear something back from Google I’m going to simply disregard their messages about not complying with their terms of use. I anyone has any better ideas I’m happy to hear them.

Even after the latest Updraft software update this same problem is still happening.