Welcome wise friend! We hope this will help you sort out any problem you may be having with Prey. Now, before proceeding, we ask that you first make sure that your computer is connected to the Internet, and secondly, to make sure that you’re running the latest version of Prey. If you’re certain both of these are fine, then let’s proceed.
Diagnosing problems
Check your installed version of Prey
In order to see which is your current installed version of Prey, you can run Prey in check mode and look for the first line that comes out. You should see something like this:
— CHECK MODE ENABLED.
### PREY 0.3.72 spreads its wings!
[...]
In this case, the installed version is 0.3.72, which means you should update to the latest version since there’s a new one out! If you don’t see any “CHECK MODE” message (or if you cannot find the check.bat file in your installation), then you should download and reinstall Prey, because you’re using an outdated version.
Running Prey in check mode
Check mode allows you to easily diagnose most of the problems you may have running Prey or getting the reports. In order to run Prey in check mode, you need to do the following:
In Windows (XP, Vista or 7)
Open My Computer and browse to the path you selected to install Prey to (by default, it’s simply C:\Prey). Now look for the platform folder and then open the windows folder within it. You should see a couple of files and in between them one named check (check.bat). Double click on it and you’re done.
If you get a message similar to “The system cannot find the path specified”, then you can run Prey in check mode by opening a DOS prompt (Winkey + R and “cmd”), and typing:
cd c:\prey (your Prey installpath)
platform\windows\bin\bash.exe prey.sh --check
On Mac and Linux
Open up a terminal (in Mac you can find it under Applications > Utilities) and type in the following:
sudo /usr/share/prey/prey.sh --check
After pressing enter, you should be asked for a password. Then you should see Prey’s check mode results.
Checking Prey’s log file
Prey keeps a small log file with holds detailed information about its last execution. In Windows you can find this file, called prey.log, in the root of your Prey installation path. It’s simply a text file so by double clicking on it, you should see its contents on Notepad or a similar text editor. In Linux and Mac, you can find this file in /var/log/prey.log.
Common issues
I marked the device as missing but haven’t received any reports. What’s wrong?
Because of the way Prey works. There are two possible cases, that Prey is not being run at all, or something is blocking the device from connecting to the Internet.
On a sidenote, you must remember that activation on Android phones is not done via the Control Panel, but rather by sending an SMS message which is configured on your Android phone.
Prey is not being run at all
In Windows computers, some antivirus are a bit paranoid as to what programs can and cannot run. If you have installed an antivirus software such as Norton, McAffe, Kaspersky, AVG or Avast, it may be possible that it identified Prey as a false positive, and thus is disabling it from being run. This has happened before.
On Mac and Linux computers, it may be possible (although quite improbable) that the cron service isn’t running, or that the crontab entry for the root user somehow got removed (probably by some other program by error).
How to check
You can easily check this by finding and looking at Prey’s log file and see if there’s anything written on it. If the file is empty it means that Prey has, in fact, been disabled.
How to fix
In Windows
If this is your case, then you need to add an exception to your antivirus, stating that the cron.exe executable from Prey (located in the platform\windows folder on your Prey installation path) is not a malicious program, and therefore it should be allowed to run.
Now, some antivirus softwares besides detecting false positives they simply remove the files in question. If this is your case (meaning there’s no longer a cron.exe file in \platform\windows on your Prey installation path), you should reinstall Prey after adding the exception.
In Mac or Linux
Open up a terminal and run:
sudo /etc/init.d/cron start
That should do it.
Firewall is blocking Prey from connecting to the Internet
If you’re certain Prey is being run, then it may be possible that a firewall is blocking outbound requests which are needed for checking your device’s state, and later for sending the reports.
How to check
To see if Prey can connect to the Internet, run Prey in check mode and then watch the output of the first lines. You should see something like this:
[...]
– Looking for connection…
– Trying alternate method…
– Looking for connection…
– Trying alternate method…
– Couldn’t find a way to connect to an open wifi network!
If this is your case, it means that Prey is unable to make any kind of connection. On some some cases, the output may look like this:
– CHECK MODE ENABLED.
[...]
– Looking for connection…
– Got network connection!>> Verifying Prey installation…
[...]
>> Verifying API and Device keys…
!! Couldn’t get a response. Please check your firewall settings so that Curl can connect to http://control.preyproject.com over port 80 (HTTP).
This means that Prey has a connection to the Internet but was unable to connect to the Control Panel.
How to fix
In both cases, we need to tell our firewall that we don’t want to block Prey from making a connection.
In Windows
You must add a rule to Windows’ firewall or whichever one you’re using, that allows curl.exe (or curl64.exe if your Windows is 64 bit) to pass through. Both of these files are located in platform\windows on your Prey installation path. For more information on how to accomplish this, you can read this guide that explains the process step by step.
In Mac
If you’re using LittleSnitch, open the configuration pane and allow curl to make connections over port 80 to control.preyproject.com.
In Linux
Make sure IPTables doesn’t block curl from making connections. If you’re using a distribution such as Ubuntu, Fedora or openSUSE, you can open a graphical configuration utility such as Firestarter which will help you accomplish this.
I’m running Mac OS 10.4, can I install Prey?
Of course you can! You’ll need to do it by hand though, since the installer works only from 10.5 up. Please follow these steps:
- Download the Prey for Mac Zip file from http://preyproject.com/releases.
- Unzip it and move it to /usr/share/prey
- Create a Control Panel account and add a new device to your account. Get both your API key (from your Profile page) and the Device Key for the one just created.
- Edit the config file located in /usr/share/prey, and insert both of them (look for the api_key and device_key entries).
- Run Prey as root so the cron job is set up: sudo /usr/share/prey/prey.sh
- That’s it! Your device should now appear as OK.
Control Panel issues
Cannot log in
There are two ways of creating a Control Panel account with Prey. The first one is to sign up through the web site at preyproject.com, and the second one is to do so through the installation process, in case you don’t have a previous account.
In both cases, it is always necessary to activate your account by clicking on the link we send to the email address entered on registration. If the account is not activated, it won’t be possible to log into the Control Panel and manage your device or watch new reports when they arrive.
How to fix
To activate your account, please check your inbox and look for an email titled “Activate your account” sent by “Prey Control Panel” (look for it in the SPAM folder if you can’t find it). Open it and click on the link.
If you can’t find the activation email on your inbox, you can simply go to the forgotten password page and put your email address. You will receive an email with a link to reset your password. This will activate your account in case you hadn’t previously done so.
My device doesn’t seem to be synchronized with my Control Panel account
When installing, Prey saves two keys locally on your device’s: your user (API) and your device key. Using these when sending requests allows the Control Panel to know which device to assign the requests it receives to.
How to check
When running Prey in check mode, you should see the following output:
– CHECK MODE ENABLED.
[...]
>> Verifying API and Device keys…** API key is valid. Your user account is correctly set up.
** Device key is valid. Good. Current status is ok.
How to fix
If you get any response stating that your API or Device keys are invalid, you should reinstall Prey. On Windows computers, you can just re setup your Control Panel configuration under “Setup Report Method”.
The Control Panel says my device is “unverified”
If the Control Panel states that your device is unverified, it means it hasn’t received any requests from the device yet. This could mean that Prey isn’t running on your device or that it is unable to make a connection to the Control Panel. You should remember it takes some minutes for Prey to make its first request, so it’s normal that a newly created device is on unverified state.
How to check
Run Prey in check mode and check for the output. If everything is fine, you should see something like this:
On Windows
– CHECK MODE ENABLED.
[...]
>> Verifying Prey installation…– Checking if cron.exe is running…
– Found!
– Checking for start up registry entry…
– Registry entry found. Prey is being run on each user log in.
[...]
On Mac and Linux
– CHECK MODE ENABLED.
[...]
>> Verifying Prey installation…– Checking if cron daemon is running…
– Cron daemon found.
– Checking for crontab entry…
– Found!
Suddenly reports stopped arriving
If the device is on missing state, it may be possible that the thief has disconnected from the Internet, closed the computer’s lid off (so it went to suspend mode) or simply shut down the computer.
Now, if you’re certain the computer is powered up and connected (e.g. you’re just trying out Prey), then probably something happened that either stopped Prey from working or cut off its network access. Possible causes are antivirus updates or a new firewall has been installed.
I restarted my computer, and never got a report again
This shouldn’t happen on Mac and Linux computers. Now, if you’re using Windows, probably a third program such as an antirivus or anti-spyware is removing entries from the Registry, and thus blocked Prey from being run when a user logs in. Please check and then reinstall.
Standalone issues
I’m not receiving any emails!
It almost surely has something to do with the mail server (SMTP) settings.
How to fix
Try using the user name without the @domain.com, or, in case that’s how its set, do it the other way. If none of that works we recommend you try with other target mailbox or a different mail server (you’ll see that it’ll eventually work).
Now, if you’re a Linux user there’s a chance you don’t have the neccesary dependencies for the mail sender Prey uses. Its the Perl libraries IO::Socket::SSL and NET::SSLeay, which unless you installed Prey manually should be already installed.
Module issues
My PC isn’t missing but Prey says it is/locked it/sounded the alarm!
If you’re running Prey version 0.4 or higher, you must know that if enabled, action modules are run regardless of the device’s state. This means that you probably enabled the Lock, Alert or Alarm module and saved the changes, thinking that it wouldn’t set off any actions as your device isn’t marked as missing.
Well, now you know (for sure) that they do.
How to fix this? Just log into your Control Panel account, disable those modules, and save the changes. Next time Prey checks its state it will stay quiet.
Geo module doesn’t work
First of all, make sure it is enabled for your device!
Now, in order to work, the Geo module needs to detect which access points are close to your computer. Then it sends a request to a location service which may not give a location on each and every request. So there are a number of reasons why you may not see a map on every report:
- Your computer’s wifi card isn’t correctly configured
- The latest Windows updates are not installed. At least SP2 is necessary. Make sure the Windows Wireless LAN API is installed.
- In Windows, the WLAN service may be down. You can turn it on on the Windows Services panel (look for the Wireless Lan Service in Vista and up or Wireless Zero Conf in 2000/XP).
- No nearby Wifi hotspots were detected. It does happen sometimes.
- The geolocation service didn’t respond with correct lat/lng coordinates.
The Geo module only works sometimes
Just as we explained previously, the geo module may not work 100% of the times, since:
- Maybe in that run, Prey didn’t detect any nearby Wifi hotspots (remember the thief could be in a remote location).
- The geolocation service sometimes gets a bit confused and doesn’t return a correct response for the Geo module’s request.
I’m not getting any pictures from the Webcam module
This may happen for a number of reasons:
- Your computer’s webcam isn’t correctly configured, in which case we recommend testing it with other applications and see if it does work. If it doesn’t please reinstall your webcam drivers.
- If your webcam is correctly set up, then probably some other program is grabbing it and blocking Prey from having access. Try closing whatever program may be the problem (Skype, Google Talk, web browser, etc) and then try again.
Webcam images are too dark
We’ve noticed some webcams take a bit longer to open the lens and take the picture. In this case it’s not a driver problem, but simply a lighting problem. You can try:
- Try getting closer to a light source and see if it gets better.
- Increasing the brightness on the screen and see if it helps.
Alarm doesn’t sound
- Make sure your speakers are connected and the sound isn’t muted!
- If you’re using Linux, make sure the mpg123 package is installed..
