61 replies to this topic

[Lin Yu]

Blueskys

DerekS is absolutely right. The issue seems to be closely connected to the Tamper Protection feature of Norton Internet Security. I am also using NIS 2009 and this link will show you the proper steps to enable/disable NIS Tamper Protection feature:

http://service1.syma...f5?OpenDocument

Please do not forget to turn it back on, when you're done, even though it allows you to disable it for just 15 minutes or 1 hour.

Visitor

Are you sure the procedure on your link is for NIS 2009? I think the steps you indicated via your posted link refers to some prior year's NIS.

Now, the problem seems to have been narrowed down to an issue between NORTON's and LAVASOFT's products, but only in the VISTA operating system environment. In fact, as I have said before, my XP laptop flies with the exact same NIS 2009 and Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition.

So, should we consider the issue constrained to NORTON/AD-AWARE/VISTA?

Please comment.

Edited by Lin Yu, 26 August 2009 - 08:02 PM.

[blueskys]

I disabled Norton and Ad-Aware AE still froze up on me. I sure hope they come up with a fix real soon. Is there any other FREE programs compared to Ad-Aware that anyone recommends until they get this problem fixed?

[Lin Yu]

I disabled Norton and Ad-Aware AE still froze up on me. I sure hope they come up with a fix real soon. Is there any other FREE programs compared to Ad-Aware that anyone recommends until they get this problem fixed?

Blueskys

It surprises me that you could not get a successful scan, as I and Derek did.

I just repeated the procedure in my VISTA laptop, after having turned off Norton's Tamper Protection feature, and started with a Smart Scan and it terminated successfully. No objects were found.

Then I closed the Ad-Aware window (unfortunately there is no other way, that I know, to exit the program after the scan is complete), waited a few seconds and opened the program again, to perform a Full Scan. It also performed normally to finish. No problems were encountered.

I closed the program again and, to be sure, reopened it one more time and started a new full scan. And, to witness, no problems were encountered. Remember that, without the Tamper Protection turned off, the scan process never stops running, as suggested by the activity of the Ad-Aware icon in the task tray. When the program freezes, this icon never stops moving, signaling that a scan is somehow in progress, even if it appears to never end…

With that feature of NIS disabled, when the scan ends, the icon in the task tray also stops moving. This seems to suggest that Ad-Aware works fine whenever Tamper Protection is turned off.

Now, a few questions still stand:

Why does this issue NOT replicate itself in the Windows XP operating environment? NIS 2009 and Ad-Aware AE are still there… Does this mean VISTA has something to do with it?

And are Lavasoft and/or Symantec and/or Microsoft really going to deliver a patch for this problem? And when?

Before finishing, I would still like to ask you this, if I may:

Is it possible for you to describe in detail all the steps you performed and approximately at what point did your system freeze?
For how long did you turn-off Tamper Protection? The default setting is 15 minutes, but you can select 1 hour or even 5 hours or more. Then, of course, you can go there at any time and turn it back on. I selected 5 hours, just in case, since my Full Scan typically takes up to 90 minutes.

And, after selecting your chosen period of time, did you make sure to click on the APPLY button and then on the OK button?
Please confirm, because if you did the exact same things I did and we still arrive at different outcomes, then something else may be at play and the issue may be even more complicated than what appears to be the case…

Best regards.

[blueskys]

Hi Lin Yu,

After following the link that you gave me Lin Yu, I did get a successful scan, as Derek and you did.

I just turned off Norton's Tamper Protection feature, and started with a Smart Scan and the scan completed in full. It found 43 objects , level 3.

Then I closed the Ad-Aware window waited a few seconds and opened the program again, to perform a Full Scan. It also performed normally to finish. No problems were encountered.

I then closed the program again and tried another quick scan, it also performed normally to finish.

The reason it didn't work before, I was turning off Norton's firewall and auto protect, of which the Ad-Aware program still would freeze up. But by turning off only the Norton's Tamper Protection Feature, the program is working fine.

Thanks again for providing me with the link for Norton Internet Security to work around this problem until someone comes up with a fix for this problem between Norton and Ad-Aware.

Sincerely,
Blueskys

[bdis4l]

I have been experiencing the same problem. If you reboot in safe-mode, Ad-Aware will run fine.

I have been using Ad-Aware on my Vista laptop with Norton 360 with no problems for about a year. The other day I updated Ad-Aware, ran a full scan, and at around 3700 files or so, it freezes. When I stopped the scan, closed and reopened Ad-Aware, it appeared as if a scan was still running but showed no objects scanned. Rebooting the system does take Ad-Aware back to the default screen when it is opened. I tried a smart scan, deleted all temporary files. defragged my system, re-installed Ad-Aware but it still freezes when I run a scan. I also ran a Norton 360 scan and found no viruses or spyware. I disabled Norton, Ad-Aware, and Ad-Watch and ran Spyware Doctor to see if it would find something that might be causing the problem--It found nothing. I shut down Spyware Doctor and went back to Norton and Ad-Aware but my problem still exists. Is this a known bug with the latest update? Any ideas on how to fix?

[visitor]

Visitor Are you sure the procedure on your link is for NIS 2009? I think the steps you indicated via your posted link refers to some prior year's NIS.

No, I don't have Norton so could not confirm - the page I posted did not specify which version of NIS, but I wanted to post it so the Norton users could try it. Thanks for finding the right link

So, should we consider the issue constrained to NORTON/AD-AWARE/VISTA? Please comment.

By reading these posts, it seems that way to me - although not everyone who has posted has mentioned their OS.

[Lin Yu]

No, I don't have Norton so could not confirm - the page I posted did not specify which version of NIS, but I wanted to post it so the Norton users could try it.

I figured that. But rest assured that your helpful attitude, with this as with other issues, is highly appreciated, and I'm sure I'm not alone on this opinion.


Hi Blueskys,

Happy that I could be of any small help. No thanks are necessary...

My regards to both of you
LinYu

Edited by Lin Yu, 27 August 2009 - 10:42 AM.

[don2]

I am also having same problem with Anniversary edition. I have no problem downloading updates, but scan crashes/freezes and will not permit "stop scan" . Only option is to force exit. System is Windows XP Pro SP2 with current updates, ZoneAlarm, and AVG antivirus. Crash/freeze is always when reaching file C:\....\q8\emc\log\emclog which is AVG log file. I have tried disabling AVG, but get same crash whether online or offline with nothing else running.

Suggestions appreciated.

[visitor]

I am also having same problem with Anniversary edition. I have no problem downloading updates, but scan crashes/freezes and will not permit "stop scan" . Only option is to force exit. System is Windows XP Pro SP2 with current updates, ZoneAlarm, and AVG antivirus. Crash/freeze is always when reaching file C:\....\q8\emc\log\emclog which is AVG log file. I have tried disabling AVG, but get same crash whether online or offline with nothing else running.

Suggestions appreciated.

Your problem seems to be different than the others involving Vista/Norton. I suggest 2 things:

1. make a desktop shortcut to the folder containing emc.log so you can access it again

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\avg8\emc\Log

then move emc.log to another location and see if Ad-aware stalls on the new location. Afterwards, you can move the file back to the old location.

2. AVG is not disabled if you merely right-click the tray icon and exit. To properly disable, you must open the GUI and individually disable email scanner, link scanner, resident shield, and update manager. Do this by double-clicking each in the Overview, then unchecking all the Settings boxes. You can try this, but I don't think it's AVG. I used to run scans OK with it on, and I have XP SP2 also.

[Fortuna]

well now i tried scanning again after dlding the newest launcher (sept.1) but my ad-aware still freezes up so i guess they still havent fixed it, i also have Norton internet Security 2009 btw.

[Fortuna]

If you haven't seen it, there's a similar thread:

http://www.lavasofts...showtopic=26761

The problem has been brought to Lavasoft's attention and they may need to sort this out with Norton. They recently sorted out a conflict with Kaspersky, so keep your fingers crossed

well it might have been brought to there attention, but the problem still excists today even though its the 10th of september

seriously lavasoft should get this fixed with norton soon, i havent been able to run a scan since the 20th of august, and my computer is getting slower by the day, even deleting my internet history doesnt really work, so im getting a bit worried wether or not ive been spy/mal/ad - ware infected :-/

[visitor]

Have you tried to disable Norton's anti-tampering function?

http://www.lavasofts...showtopic=26878

[preventcare]

Here th same problem. AdAware, NIS2008(updated to 2009), Vista Home Premium SP2.
Scan freezes at 6 seconds, popup with the question to sent the problemreport to Lavasoft and closes itself.

Done all the things that were said before, same result.

Waiting for an answer and not using AE is the only thing to do for the moment.

[visitor]

Here th same problem. AdAware, NIS2008(updated to 2009), Vista Home Premium SP2. Scan freezes. Done all the things that were said before, same result.

So turning off Norton's tamper-protection did not work for you? I see you also posted in the HijackThis forum, so you must suspect you're infected with malware - many prevent security programs from working.

Update:

http://lavasoft.com/...are-scan-freeze

Ad-Aware Scan Freeze
by John on September 17th, 2009.

The scan freeze issue you are experiencing could be caused by a recent update to Norton, we are currently working with Norton to resolve this issue.
Until this is resolved, please try the following before scanning with Ad-Aware:

Go into Settings in Norton and turn off the Norton Product Tamper Protection.

Ad-Aware should now be able to complete the scan.

Edited by visitor, 22 September 2009 - 02:06 AM.

[blueskys]

I still have the problem with Adaware and Norton Internet Secuirty 2009. Ad-aware will run the scan as long as I go in and turn the Tamper Protection off. Does anyone know when they are going to get this problem resolved? I thought by now Norton would have done something to fix the problem. Thanks.

[visitor]

Does anyone know when they are going to get this problem resolved? I thought by now Norton would have done something to fix the problem.

No word yet, but somebody else here recently contacted Norton customer service and got the runaround as if they had never heard of the problem. The other option would be for Lavasoft to somehow program Ad-Aware to ingore Norton's Tamper Protection, but when this problem arose, beta testing on the new version was virtually complete since that was the around the original target release date. Ad-Aware 2010 will be out on Oct 13, so we'll know soon enough if the problem persists. Maybe Norton was waiting for the new version so they wouldn't have to fix it again.

[preventcare]

I returned to AAW2008. That works fine.
Waiting for AAW 2010.

[blueskys]

Thanks Visitor for the information. Hopefully the Ad-Aware 2010 will solve the problem. We will know in a few days.

[geraldt]

Ad-Aware had worked well for me for years, but today the scan always froze in the "3,000's".

Having read all the posts, I disabled the 'Tamper Protection' in Norton 360, closed Ad-Aware, quit Ad-aware Live from the system tray, and then re-opened the program.

The scan ran perfectly!

Thank you to all who left advice above.

[jawlaw]

Enabling or disabling Norton Internet Security or Norton Personal Firewall

I have been reading all of the posts going back to August. Everyone seems to be indicating a conflict between Norton IS 2009 and AdAware. Are the developers of AdAware working on a fix for the program? Have they been in touch with the Norton techies? Unless this is fixed, AdAware will become essentially useless, which would be a shame, because I really like the product. Does anyone have any tangible, verifiable information on what, if anything, is going on?