“Unable to download spug.txt from image4.pubmatic.com” Fix

Quite recently there’s been a very unusual thing going on, which seems to have affected mainly torrent users, causing a stir among them and raising many questions. The issue we have in mind is that of the so called ‘spug.txt’. According to the many reports, which are all consistent in this one aspect, from people using various torrent clients, they are all faced with the following error message:

Unable to download spug.txt from image4.pubmatic.com

Now, there’s been much speculation regarding this instance and users are mainly concerned with the fact whether this is a virus or other malware-related symptom. While we cannot confirm or deny these notions for certain, we are inclined to believe that the said error is not a virus. However, we do recommend that you scan your computer anyway, just to be on the safe side. As pointed out, this error is most likely linked to torrent trackers and has affected users with different types of these, such as BitTorent and uTorrent. Many have found that simply closing the torrent client results in both the download window and that with the “Unable to download spug.txt from image4.pubmatic.com” error disappearing, thus seemingly solving the problem.

There have also been some suggestions that your computer’s resources might be exploited by some third party to mine the cryptocurrency Bitcoins. The assumption is due to the fact that some uTorrentie users have noticed that the .exe file uses too much CPU – more than it should. The Bitcoin mining process isn’t in itself necessary harmful to your computer, however, as mentioned, it does pull on your machine’s resources and in some cases this can be quite tangible. So, should this be the case, and you’re not the one mining your own coins – it’s best to get rid of this issue as soon as possible, and we will show you just how to do that in the guide below.

Either way, whichever category the “Unable to download spug.txt from image4.pubmatic.com” error ends up falling under, we have compiled a step by step guide with two solutions that will help you remove the problem. In the future, however, we recommend upgrading your computer’s security system, because as we all well know – better safe than sorry. You might want to consider including a browser extension of your antivirus program in your arsenal, for the sake of ensuring higher cyber safety as you browse the Internet and lowering your risk of getting some nasty infection.

Note: Pubmatic (the company image4.pubmatic.com belongs to, obviously) collects cookie data for advertisements – this is what is causing your issues.

Solving “Unable to download spug.txt from image4.pubmatic.com” Error:

Step 1:

Locate the folder, in which you have the executable utorrentie.exe stored. Delete it.

Step 2:

Open the Notepad and, without entering anything in it, just save the file as utorrentie.exe . Close the file. Locate it, where it’s been saved, and give it a right click with your mouse, choosing

Properties -> Security -> Advanced -> Disable Inheritance.                                      

           notepad

 

Step 3:

This is a step regarding a suspiciously high CPU usage some believe  may be due to Bitcoin mining. There is nothing to back this claim as of now, but the fix should work just as well.

Copy and paste the following into Notepad:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] “DisallowRun”=dword:00000001 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\DisallowRun] “1”=”utorrentie.exe” 

Save the file with a .reg extension and proceed to run it.

Step 4:

There doesn’t seem to be anything related to malware, but we urge you to scan your system (for free) with this tool right here. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Let us know if the above was of any help to you in the comment section below!


About the author

Violet George

Violet is an active writer with a passion for all things cyber security. She enjoys helping victims of computer virus infections remove them and successfully deal with the aftermath of the attacks. But most importantly, Violet makes it her priority to spend time educating people on privacy issues and maintaining the safety of their computers. It is her firm belief that by spreading this information, she can empower web users to effectively protect their personal data and their devices from hackers and cybercriminals.

4 Comments

  • That’s easy: Open your task manager, locate utorrentie.exe in the list, right click on it – open file location. That’s the folder you are looking for 🙂

  • You just type .reg at the end instead of a .txt. Are your file extensions revealed and if not, do you know how to do it? If they are not, what I just said may confuse you.

  • Open the program called Notepad. Create a txt file, which opens on default with Notepad.
    Open your Task Manager, right click on the process and choose Open File Location. This is how you find the location of utorrentie.exe.
    Your tone and demeanor are very irritating. This is a free website with free instructions. You are not our customer. If you expect me to answer and help you – which, again, I do for free – try to be polite next time.

  • Thank you for writing about this issue! I’ve been experiencing the same problem and was starting to think it was just me. I’ll definitely try the solutions you provided and see if they work for me. It would be great if you could provide more detailed instructions on how to configure PubMatic, as I’m not sure how to do it correctly. Hopefully, this issue will be resolved soon!

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