Troubleshooting security actions

Any action that was not able to reach the Prey client will show up as pending in your Control Panel - just look for the yellow alert on top of the security action list:

The action button will also display a yellow bar right next to the action name, indicating that the device has not received the instruction.

You can also review the device’s activity log: just look for any event called [security action name] requested. This should be followed by [security action name] started once the Prey client receives the instruction, and [security action name] finished successfully once the action stops executing as intended. If any of those steps is missing from the log, there’s a communication issue with the device. Please double check that the device is currently connected to the internet; VPNs can interfere with normal communication, so please make sure they’re turned off as well.

My device is connected to the internet, but actions are not executing correctly

Certain firewall configurations or proxy servers may interfere with the Prey client’s communications with our servers. Please check the following:

• Whitelist C:\Windows\Prey\ for Windows devices and /usr/local/lib/prey/current/bin/node for MacOS devices).
• Allow node access through ports 80 and 443.
• Add the following URLs to your allowed sites:
  • preyproject.com
  • solid.preyproject.com
  • panel.preyproject.com
  • control.preyproject.com
  • exceptions.preyproject.com
  • downloads.preyproject.com
  • www.googleapis.com
  • prey.io

I’ve checked my firewall configuration and the actions I execute still don’t work!

Please follow this guide to kill the process associated with the Prey client:

1. Execute taskkill /F /IM node.exe in a command prompt with administrator privileges. Wait a few minutes for the client to re-start and try again. You can check whether the process is running or not in the Task Manager (the process is called node.exe).
2. Execute sudo pkill -f prx from a Terminal window and enter your administrator password. Wait a few minutes for the client to re-start and try again. You can check whether the process is running or not in the Activity Monitor (the process is called prx).
3. Execute sudo -u prey /usr/lib/prey/current/bin/prey -D from a Terminal window and enter your administrator password. Wait a few minutes for the client to re-start and try again.

Nothing here seem to work!

There are certain situations where the client may be having issues connecting with our servers. For these cases, please try reinstalling the Prey client. You can do so by following the uninstallation process. For Windows and MacOS devices, we’ve prepared a file that can help you with this. For this solution, you will need your Setup Key, which you can find in your Prey panel, under Settings > Setups. Folllow the directions depending on your operating system.

1. Download the installation repair file and execute it with administrator privileges. This can take several minutes, so please don’t close any command prompt window that may open. If the reinstallation failed, please execute the file from a command prompt with administrator privileges, appending your Setup Key the end (eg: preyreinstaller.exe setup_key)
2. Download the installation repair file. From a terminal window, navigate to the folder where the file was downloaded and execute sudo sh InstallMac.sh setup_key. Enter your administrator password, required for sudo commands, and wait for the installation process to complete.

I’ve reinstalled and still no actions are being executed

Please contact our Support team with the following information:

• The device_key for the device you’re trying to locate (you can find this is in the address bar of your browser when in the Device view).
• If you have access to the device, please include the prey.log and Prey.conf files from the device you’re attempting to locate. To extract these files, please follow these steps:
  • You can locate the prey.log and prey.conf files in the installation folder for the Prey client (by default C:\Windows\Prey)
  • Execute the following strings in a Terminal window:
    cat /var/log/prey.log
cat /etc/prey/prey.conf
    Afterwards, copy and paste the information on a text file.

Our team will get in touch with you within 24 working hours.