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?

I have the exact same problem on two of my computers running Vista Home Premium. This occured after the SP2 Vista update. There is a programming error in Ad Ware that need correcting. The latest program update does not addrss this flaw. I delected Ad Ware as clicking "Stop Scan" onl results in the popup window dying. The program keeps running and you cannot get out of the dead Scan window. Useless. I will stay with SpyBot until this gets some attention by LavaSoft.

@fisherka - please try scanning with Ad-Aware while Norton is disabled.

@MartyS - I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to describe. If you state what the programming error is it can be corrected. Also, separate issues should be discussed in separate topics.

Thanks,

GoddersUK

GoddersUK: Thanks for the information. I disabled the Norton 360 Smart Firewall and the Antivirus and rescanned with Ad-Aware AE. No difference, problem still exists.

I have the same problem with the scan freezing and unable to stop the program running unless I reboot. I have also disabled Norton 360 and the problem still exists. The Norton log shows unauthorised access by aawservice.exe logged

Try allowing AAWService.exe and AAWTray.exe in both the Norton 360 av and firewall. It might be similar to the conflict with Symantec Endpoint - in that case, when Ad-aware scanned the Symantec files, Endpoint went into defense mode and stopped the perceived threat. I'm not familiar with Norton, but also make sure when it's "disabled" it's not just closing the tray icon - with AVG, right-click exit via the tray icon only gets rid of the tray icon; disabling must be done via the GUI.

Thanks. I will give that a try once I figure out how to do it. Does anyone know how to do this?

My wife and I have the same problem, Adaware AE freezes during scan, it didn't seem to happen before the last web update, I have been using Adaware for years and nothing like this has ever happened, I have been using Norton 360 and Vista for a few years now, although I just upgraded Norton 360 to V.3, I had V.2. Maybe Lavasoft will come up with a hotfix or something similar.

I have uninstalled Norton 360 due to other problems and was able to run scans with Ad-Aware without problem.The problem has only occured on my computer since Norton 360 updated to version 3.5.2.10

Thanks Derek. I will uninstall Norton 360 and see if that takes care of the problem. Will let you know. Thanks

I am having the same trouble. I am running Norton Internet Security 2009 and Vista on my Desktop and Laptop. Have had no problems until the latest updates with Ad-aware within the past week. I updated Adaware to date on my Desktop and it freezes during the scan, same trouble that all of you are having. Now on my laptop, I haven't updated since 8/12/09 and it runs perfectly fine. So the problem exists somewhere between 8/13/09 and 8/23/09. I sure hope they find a fix real soon. I also tried uninstalling Adaware and reinstalling the program. Tried disabling Norton, etc., but nothing works.

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

http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?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

Please add me as one more person with the very same problem. I am also using Norton Internet Security and the AdAware problem only started with the most recent AdAware update. Thank you.

I have the same problem, exactly as described by Fisherka, the first poster in this thread and wish to add a couple of details that may ( or may not ) be helpful:

-- I did start experiencing this problem on 8/24/09
-- I use NIS 2009 and I have Windows Home Premium installed in one laptop and Windows XP in another
-- On the laptop running under XP, I haven't updated Ad-Aware for several days and I have NO PROBLEM whatsoever
-- On the laptop with Vista installed I downloaded Lavasoft's latest updates on 8/24/09 and the problem just started

I intend to go ahead and get the newest updates for the XP machine and proceed with the scan. I will report the results.

If anyone finds any way out of this, please advise. Thanks.

Lin Yu

I can now report that a scan was performed on my XP machine after the most recent updates were applied, and the scan proceeded to end with the message: "Scan was completed successfully. No malicious objects were detected."

What gives?

May be someone could shed some light or provide a way to a possible solution.

Thank you.

I have been having the same problem for the last two days. I uninstalled Ad-Aware and reinstalled it but the problem still exist. Lavasoft is going to have to find a fix for it.

I have followed HOTELLJACK advice as below and disabled Norton 360 Tamper Protection feature and the scan runs with no problem. Enable the Tamper Protection feature and the scan fails

Derek, I am running Norton Internet Security 2009, do you know what I would have to disable to run a scan with Ad-Aware? Also Is there any other program out there for Free that is as nice as the Ad-Aware. Currently I am running Norton Internet Secuirty, Malware Bytes . Thanks.

Sorry I am not able to help with Norton 2009 as I have never used it. I am sure other members will be able to help

DerekS

Enabling or disabling Norton Internet Security or Norton Personal Firewall

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.symantec.com/SUPPORT/share...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.

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.

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

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

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


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

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

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.

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.

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 :-/

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

http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?showtopic=26878

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.

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/mylavasoft/support/blo...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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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?

Ad-Aware Scan Freeze

Now even 2008 stopped working after an update from Lavasoft.

We're waiting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've had the same problem. I uninstalled, re-installed and tried the 2008 edition. All just frozen. Does the program leave any files behind after uninstallation that could be corrupting previous editions. Pleeeease help.

Possibly, you should try uninstalling with Revo on its highest setting.

I downloaded the newest Ad-Aware 2010. And guess what, it still is freezing up. So I will continue to go into Norton and turn off the Tamper Protection. I was hoping that the newest version of Ad-Aware would correct the problem. Has anyone tried contacting Norton to see what they have to say about it?

Yeah Lavasoft's official word is that they 'are working with Norton to fix it'.

http://lavasoft.com/mylavasoft/support/blo...are-scan-freeze

AAW2010 + NIS 2010 = Result: Freeze.

Still no solution.


Richard

I have been an enthusiastic user of Lavasoft's Ad-Aware free version software for many years and have recommended it to a lot of my friends. Never had a problem.

But with this recent conflict between Ad-Aware that started with the AE edition, which remains in the 2010 edition, I start to get a sad feeling like I'll have to part with an old good friend...

Somebody (may have been Visitor or Casey, I'm not sure) has provided an explanation to someone who asked about the fact that, in recent months, Ad-Aware seems to report, almost every time, "Scan was completed successfully. No malicious objects were detected". And the explanation was along the line that there was no need to be concerned, this would be due to some kind of new method or approach to the detection process on the part of Lavasoft's.

It still may very well be. But I just encountered a situation that I find a little hard to understand: In two different computers, running on two different operating systems, this issue took place:

Lavasoft reports a successful scan, with no malicious objects encountered; and NIS 2010 reports a complete scan, with seven (7) "items that require attention" on one computer, and three (3) "items that require attention" on the other.

To be sure, they were all "tracking cookies" and they likely have different degrees of privacy invasion. But still, I would like to be notified by Ad-Aware that they were there... And then I would decide whatever to do with them. On the contrary, giving me a false sense of "cleanliness" seems to me like, at least, a little less than acceptable.

As I stated above, if it weren't for this recent annoyance of having to disable the Norton Product Temper Protection, in Windows Vista, in order to get a successful scan with Ad-Aware, these other small annoyances could more easily be tolerated, one of the reasons being, it's free...

Everything considered, I think I made up my mind. I am going to disable or even completely uninstall Ad-Aware.

And here is where I need and kindly ask if someone could please show me exactly how to just "turn off" or "disable" this application. Or, in the alternative, how to cleanly uninstall it. In fact, I have experienced serious problems in the past, whenever I tried to uninstall the Ad-Aware software. To witness, on two occasions I had to finally resort to a full and complete restoration of a previous system backup which, of course, only resolved the problems created by my attempts at getting rid of Ad-Aware, but was no help on actually getting rid of it...

Many thanks in advance for any help anyone could provide on this regard. It will be greatly appreciated.

P.S. -- Does anyone know whether this "Revo" application is relatively simple and safe to use by the average user? Anything in particular to be aware of in advance?

Thanks again!

Hi,



This is probably because Ad-Aware will only report threats that are TAI 3 or higher. I'm guessing that Norton will report anything which it gives it's equivalent of TAI 1. Now, tracking cookies are given TAI 3 by default in Ad-Aware, so either Ad-Aware belived they weren't tracking cookies or it didn't detect the cookies (maybe they were on your system after the scan or what browser do you use?).



Unfortunately, whilst this problem affectes Ad-Aware - it's not Lavasoft's problem as such so they can't fix it. They're relying on a competitor to fix the problem (see why this might take a while? lol). It does also affect other programs too.



You can completely disable Ad-Aware by right clicking the tray icon and then clicking Exit. If you want to perform a clean uninstall then I do recommend Revo - it's very good at deleting left over files and registry entries.



Yes, it is we recommend it a lot here in the forums and everyone seems to get on well with it. You just click the program you want to unistall, then hit uninstall choose the level of thoroughness (I recommend highest) and just delete the left overs.

I hope that helps,
Casey

Thanks for the help I disabled the Norton Tamper Protection and everthing is OK now.

I will continue monitoring this thread to know when Ad-Aware will have solved the problem.