Crispy136

I don't want users who follow my work to have to decide if they should ignore a dangerous download warning. PC security is there for a reason and ignoring defeats the purpose of having it. Either you turn it off altogether or you take notice of its messages. I've taken Nels comments onboard and have found a solution that solves the problem for my uploads.
https://www.flightsim.com/profile/269250-crispy136/content/?type=downloads_file

2 minutes ago, Nels_Anderson said:

Instead of speculating here, I suggest you do some web search on this topic and see if you can find the real reason it's happening

I don't know why it is for me to find a solution, as it only happens on Flightsim.com?  Flightsim.com is not my responsibility.  The exact same files downloaded on the same PC from another site using the same browser are not reported as malicious, ever.  If it was something I am doing then it would happen on other sites for the same files, or even for other sites for different files, but it does not.  Other people also experience the problem, so it is not an isolated event happening to one person. 

And it just happened again.  Files that successfully downloaded an hour ago now are reported as unsafe.  It's a real puzzle.

And here is the comment I mentioned about Amazon servers.  Sorry that I credited this to you when it was Adrian.

22 hours ago, Nels_Anderson said:

Not sure why you say that... This site has not changed. If this site was safe months ago it's the same today. Whatever is changing is external to the web site. It would be interesting to find out exactly what *is* changing.

I occasionally get nil file errors after I upload to Flightsim.com, so I always do a test download for any new livery to make sure the upload is valid.  When I uploaded the livery below yesterday, I downloaded it straight away and the livery was blocked as unsafe.  Hence my comment above.  When I tried the exact same livery today it downloaded it without error.   I use Chrome on WIndows 11, so it may be that one of those 2 is somehow the cause.  Chrome config is set to block unsafe downloads, and that is not something I would ever turn off.  But not sure if Chrome relies on WIndows 11 to tell it that a download is unsafe, so either could be the culprit.  It's not related to only new files, as when I initially encountered the error I also tried a number of new and old downloads, both mine and from other authors, and all MSFS files were blocked.  But FSX files downloaded without error at the same time MSFS files were being blocked.  So it may be there is something in the structure that is triggering this error.  I also upload the the same files to another site and only encounter this problem with Flightsim.com.  You mentioned in another post that Flightsim.com file are stored on Amazon AWS servers.  Could it be that there be some disassociation between those servers and whatever Chrome or Windows uses to identify an unsafe download? Then Amazon runs an update and all is working again?

Yep, its back.  Although it did disappear for a while.  The exact same files continue to download successfully from other sites, so this problem can only be cause by this site.

Looks like this problem has been resolved as MSFS downloads from Flightsim.com no longer trigger an "Unsafe download" warning.

This only started on Chrome a few days ago.  Doesn't happen when the exact same file is downloaded from other sites, so this is a Flightsim.com only issue.  Seems to be limited to MSFS files as all the FSX files I tried all downloaded without error, while all MSFS files were blocked.  Unfortunately Chrome doesn't appear to have an easy way to allow the download if it is blocked and there is no option to change it for just that download. 

In my opinion any advice to ignore downloads blocked by your browser is bad advice.  While MSFS files happen to be harmless, many users will not have the technical expertise to make that decision. And who is to say if Flightsim.com hasn't been hacked and some malicious code has been added to the download. I am not willing to take that risk, so I don't expect people who download my liveries to do that either.  As a result I pausing all uploads to Flightsim.com until the issue has been resolved.

As this is only a problem with MSFS files uploaded to Flightsim.com, it would seem that Flightsim.com need to resolve the issue.