Disclaimer: This post intends to raise awareness of a problem that has been arising for many Call of Duty players and to help others to avoid an issue while a potential fix is found. Before reading this, I am in no way, shape, or form trying to bash, promote, or degrade any company, person, or software. I am in no way, shape, or form trying to cause any discontent within the community.
My Equipment with Razer, which I love:
1.) Keyboard: Razer Blackwidow (Amazing definitely do recommend)
2.) Mouse: Razer Basilisk Ultimate (Also amazing and definitely recommend)
Software from Razer:
1.) Razer Synapse 3
2.) Razer Cortex
Recently, playing the Call of Duty Modern Warfare II release, I was hit with a permanent ban for "modification of game files" and "unauthorized software." Several RGB controller applications, including several preloaded PC programs, are being flagged as “unauthorized software” by the MW2 RICOCHET anti-cheat. These applications include Razer Synapse 3, Corsair iCue, MSI Afterburner, and Logitech G-Hub.
"As a developer, my personal theory is that the frequent crashes (and accompanying errors about corrupted files) are being incorrectly flagged by the RICOCHET anti-cheat software as intentional manipulations made by players. I can imagine the logic that would need to be implemented to avoid false positives like this, and given the number of game crashes, I suspect they have issues with RICOCHET that they’re unwilling to review. I have offered to allow Activision developers to connect remotely to my PC to debug this issue, but as of this post, I have received no response. For completeness, users have also suspected that RICOCHET may be incorrectly detecting RGB control software, GPU software like MSI Afterburner or NVIDIA GeForce Experience, or programs like Discord. Again, with no communication from Activision, we’re left completely in the dark." - Written in a Blog Post by Mike Swanson, a technologist, the owner of Juicy Bits, and a former Microsoft employee of 12 years.
"With Razer Synapse, if you are playing a game and change the profile while in-game, Synapse has to download the profile from the cloud. This could make Richocet think you're injecting into the game."
From Activision's Terms of Service, they retain the consent to monitor your device while running:
"G. Consent to Monitor. WHILE RUNNING, THE PRODUCT (INCLUDING SOFTWARE, KERNEL LEVEL DRIVER, OR OTHER TECHNICAL MECHANISM) MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER, OR CONSOLE FOR UNAUTHORIZED PROGRAMS OR PROCESSES RUNNING EITHER CONCURRENTLY WITH SOFTWARE OR OUT OF PROCESS. AN "UNAUTHORIZED PROGRAM" AS USED HEREIN SHALL BE DEFINED AS ANY SOFTWARE PROHIBITED BY SECTION 3.A. ABOVE.
DURING THIS PROCESS, CERTAIN IDENTIFYING INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR DEVICE, SOFTWARE, OR PROCESSES MAY BE COMMUNICATED BACK TO ACTIVISION TO ASSESS WHETHER ANY UNAUTHORIZED PROGRAMS ARE RUNNING. IN THE EVENT THAT THE PRODUCT DETECTS THE SIGNATURES OF UNAUTHORIZED ACTIVITY OR PROGRAMS,
(a) THE PRODUCT MAY COMMUNICATE INFORMATION BACK TO ACTIVISION ABOUT THE UNAUTHORIZED ACTIVITY, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR ACCOUNT NAME, DETAILS ABOUT THE UNAUTHORIZED ACTIVITY DETECTED, AND THE TIME AND DATE; AND/OR
(b) ACTIVISION MAY EXERCISE ANY OR ALL OF ITS RIGHTS UNDER THIS AGREEMENT, WITH OR WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE TO THE USER. INFORMATION UNRELATED TO THE FOREGOING PROCESS FOR DETECTING UNAUTHORIZED PROGRAMS WILL NOT BE COMMUNICATED TO ACTIVISION AS PART OF THIS MONITORING. BY ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT, YOU ARE HEREBY AUTHORIZING ACTIVISION TO ACCESS YOUR DEVICE FOR THESE PURPOSES." - (moderators, I only left this in caps lock because that is how it was typed originally as a quote. I am trying to abide by the rules of the forum.)
The issue is that there is no list provided by Activision about which programs may cause false flags or which programs they disagree with and will ban you for. There is no transparency here at all. However, the surveys created and filled out by users such as myself with the same issues regarding what software was running concurrently with the game, Razer Synapse 3; Razer Cortex was identified numerous times.
"We work incredibly closely with all of our publishing and developing partners to continuously ensure the best quality gameplay experience without compromising security integrity for all players, sometimes software registers false-positive responses, and this is an ongoing collaboration to make sure our latest software is whitelisted with the latest version of anti-cheat." This is a reported response by someone who supposedly reached out to Razer in the past, and they reportedly received it by email. I have now reached out to Razer myself to identify what may be causing the issue, as that would assist in passing this information along to Activision and possibly finding a fix for this in the future. I suggest that anyone who plays Modern Warfare II or Warzone 2.0 uninstall their Razer Synapse programs while playing.
With these things said, I have been a customer of Call of Duty since 2007 and have loved their content and games ever since. I loved their new release, but I think there is a legitimate problem with Ricochet Anticheat flagging software such as Razer Synapse 3 for players who play legitimately and run these programs simultaneously. While I play, I utilize Razer Synapse 3 for my RGB/Mouse Control/Sensitivity Controller. As a content creator, I utilize OBS Broadcaster to record my video and Voicemod for microphone control/noise suppression. Both of which were running in the background while I played. The only identified programs I had in common with the thousands of others reporting these false bans were the Razer Synapse 3 and the built-in NVIDIA overlay program. Both are very solid and easy-to-use programs, but possibly falsely flagged. So I am reaching out to support and posting here trying to gather information and understand how this mistake occurred so that I could better explain to Activision what has occurred and possibly assist them in getting to a fix that would assist players both future and present.
Thank you for reading!