Brave doesn't start when I run it as administrator and Brave Shield doesn't work

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So, today Brave automatically updated while I was away from my PC doing my home stuff. When I got back and tried to launch Brave, it no longer launched. I can click on Brave.exe as much as I can but nothing happened. So then I went searching for the solution via my phone and found a post where someone said to run it as administrator. So I decided to check it out, I clicked on the exe, got to properties and it was already running as administrator, so I decided to turn it OFF and, what do you know, Brave launched but there is one big “BUT”. Brave Shield is not working anymore! It doesn’t work on any website, including YouTube, and it does not block ads anymore. Which scared the living crap out of me! So I decided to run Brave as administrator back again and.. well, Brave stopped working again when I decided to launch it as administrator.

So what the hell happened? Why Brave Shield no longer works and if I enable “run as administrator” in Brave.exe properties, it no longer works???

Version of my browser: 1.80.113
Chromium: 138.0.7204.49

UPDATE:

So after I posted all this I decided to reinstall Brave completely. I fully uninstalled it, including cleaning the registry to remove all old files via Uninstall Tool, in case if they were corrupted or something and reinstalled Brave all over again. And what do you know, Brave Shield now works! But still, if I set “launch as administrator” parameter in Brave.exe properties, the browser itself will still not work.

Thus I managed to solve half of the problem while the other one still remains. Sure, if it works without “run as administrator” parameter then fine, but I hope that Brave Shield will work. But in case if it doesn’t, I have uBlock Origin Lite as my backup.

I don’t know for how long I fixed the issue with Brave Shield but I hope that this won’t happen again. But anyways, I hope that Brave team will take a look in to this to deal with the problem in future.

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same issue here. I don’t have any antivirus software enabled on my PC so it’s not being blocked by anything.

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Reinstall Brave fully. This will help. At least it helped me. I don’t know for how long but it did. I hope that I don’t have to do it again, but I also hope that Brave Team will take a look in to this.

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Same here. Tried reinstalling. For some reason it launches if I manually right click on brave.exe and click “Run as administrator” instead of using the launch option in the compatibility settings. If I don’t run it as admin the built-in AdBlocker doesn’t work at all. Hopefully it gets fixed.

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Same here. Everything works fine when I use a Windows guest account I set up for my girlfriend, but the moment I log in to my own account and run it as an admin, it won’t work

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I had this exact problem earlier! What worked for me was completely uninstalling Brave with a dedicated uninstaller tool, then reinstalling it. That got Brave working again, but now I can’t launch it at all if I try to run it as an administrator.

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Looks like I’m not the only one with this problem. For now, for me personally, it remains fixed after I reinstalled Brave. But it has to be fixed, cause this is insane.

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Even after reinstalling it still doesn’t work as before.
checking the “run this program as administrator” box in the properties still fails to launch the browser
the browser opens but right clicking and running as administrator manually doesn’t load the built in adblocker so it’s just as if it’s not being run as administrator

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This is very annoying. Without the administrator perms, the adblocker doesn’t work. I’m even facing problems in certain websites such as spotify, it shows me some error like " Playback of protected content is not enabled." and even after I use the solution it still doesn’t work.

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it probably has something to do with the components not updating, you can check at brave://components/ check if you can update any of the ones that are 0.0.0.0 (idk how to fix not being able to update them tho, hoping someone else does and can help)

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Got adblocking back while running Brave as a non-admin, although I dunno if it’ll stay fixed. Here’s what I did in case it helps anyone.

Basically, a few components stopped updating, and I had to tell Windows to let Brave edit the folders…

Much thanks to the poster here who explained it in terms I could understand.

In my case, some of the AdBlock-related folders didn’t exist, but once I granted access to some other components and updated those, Brave managed to download and install the missing AdBlock components/folders after a browser restart.

Edit: Still works after a system restart at least.

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I fixed it, for now at least, by reinstalling Brave completely. I uninstalled it via Uninstall Tool, which removes all of it’s files not just from discs but also from registry and every information gets cleaned. And then I launched the installation tool, waited until it downloaded Brave all over again and installed it. And only then it fixed the issues with Brave Shield. But I still can’t launch Brave as administrator because browser itself will not start.

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For those having issues with Shields and permissions:

So not sure if earlier link might resolve, but official thing is https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/38609#issuecomment-2195847971 or the reply directly under it if you want to check it out.

Long story short, occasionally some people are getting folders marked as administrator only during updates. When you launch Brave regularly, it’s not under admin. This difference keeps it so some of the folders/components aren’t able to be accessed. Launching as admin can temporarily resolve, but the devs say never to do this as it can make the problem worse.

The “fix” is to go in and manually adjust the folder permissions.

In terms of saying it won’t open when run as administrator, not sure what to tell you.

Well, except Brave devs say to never do it.

image
image980×313 21 KB

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/38609#issuecomment-2753625854

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Thanks all for reporting. I’ve passed this along to the team. A few basic troubleshooting questions to begin:

  • Do you have any extensions installed? If yes, does disabling them resolve the issue?
  • Have you tried creating a new browser profile to test?
  • Are you syncing data across devices?
  • What are your current Shield settings? (brave://settings/shields)
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For me, Brave never EVER worked properly without starting as admin.
I have Brave on multiple Windows computers (always installed for users with admin rights) and installation was always done without explicit ‘run as administrator’ and yet lots of components under brave://components completely fail to update when Brave is started without admin.
Shields and general ad-blocking never works if Brave doesn’t have admin rights when running. Up until now, starting as admin never posed a problem. Now I can’t even use the browser after yesterday’s update. Something HAD to change that triggers it.
I am using sync: bookmarks, extensions, settings, theme, passwords.
I am using some extensions, disabling them makes no difference.

On an unrelated note: Drag&drop files into the browser also never worked without starting Brave as admin.

Also: May I ask why components break when they fail to update? Wouldn’t it be better if they kept their last state after a failed update?

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@Tallyrald I already answered that in the reply just a little above where you posted. Brave doesn't start when I run it as administrator and Brave Shield doesn't work - #13 by Saoiray

It’s not that they break because they fail to update. It’s that they fail to update because they are broken, or at least they can’t be accessed.

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Ah, yes, you’re absolutely right, sorry about that. Seems like Friday afternoon got to me a bit…

So if I understand correctly: It seems the whole thing comes down to some kind of weird behaviour that resets certain folders’ owner entity / accessibility list? Is Brave essentially bricking itself?

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Not entirely sure if it’s Brave, the OS, or something else. It’s a strange issue that only affects a small number of users. At one point it was thought to be a Chromium problem, but I’ve never fully understood what’s behind it.

Interestingly, it mostly seems to happen on Windows. It’s rare to see it occur on Mac, Linux, Android, or anywhere else. That suggests it might be some oddity with how Windows handles permissions on folders during updates.

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So it’s a good thing then that I doesn’t run as administrator. Cool! Then I don’t have to worry about it. Thanks for the info. You literally took a giant boulder out of my shoulders. Now I will rest in piece, knowing that it is not a problem.

But I hope that Brave Shield will keep working and that I will never need to reinstall it all over again.

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For the extensions, yes I have few installed. Those been uBlock Origin Lite, that is turned off for now and that serves as a backup, in case if Brave Shield doesn’t block ads. And it doesn’t block ads on X aka Twitter and Facebook. Which is where I use uBlock Origin Lite.

And also I have Touch VPN extension. Cause I’m not rich to pay for standard Brave VPN. So when I need a VPN, I’m using this free Touch VPN. But I doubt that they caused the problem because, I reinstalled Brave fully and Brave Shield started to work again. So it’s not those two extensions that are causing the problem.

For the profile, no I did not tried to create new profile. Heck, I didn’t even found a option to create any profile at all. Just a selection of the avatar and the color of it’s icon and that’s it.

As for the syncing data, no I don’t do that either. Using Brave only on my PC.

And finally for the Shield, I use standard settings.

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