malbilling

[pardon if asked/answered - this info not readily available] Anyway, I have a Windows 8.1 system stuck on 2.2.1.1043; this is a legacy licensed lifetime install. When I manually tell it to check for updates, it says I'm fine. Reading a few pages of this forum, looking over the User Guide, scanning Malwarebytes' site for information - all have been fruitless finding out why the upgrade is not taking place. I also have a Windows 10 legacy license lifetime install that DID automatically upgrade to 3.0+ on a different physical machine. Though both Windows systems (not surprisingly) have had multiple reinstalls of Windows and Malwarebytes over the years, the Windows 8.,1 system is probably an older reinstall. So, anyway, the Title is the question.

I understand and "normally" would do just that, however I already cleaned out and reinstalled my Malwarebytes installation in response to replies from support for a different problem so figured THIS thread noting exactly the same NEW problem was more appropriate than Yet Another Thread with an almost total repeat. =========== BTW - as an enduser and NOT a support person, it makes MUCH more sense to post in existing threads than new ones. Why? Because endusers come here to find solutions and, if they're like me (and they probably are), they naively scan Subjects to find something that matches their problems and then read some of those threads to see if a resolution has been found. If there are N very-similar threads THEIR task is made MUCH more difficult. Anyway, from the enduser POV it is MUCH better to have all similar problems co-located. [i'll follow your request(s), of course, but THIS problem has now been resolved for me by disabling a piece of your software]

Other than the obvious lack of a multitude of entries in the logs from mbamchameleon, the total startup time (arbitrarily "measured" to the point that the "Action Center" flag appears in the systray...) was much quicker. Checking the logs again JUST NOW shows absolutely nothing interesting. As noted above by hapless it's less-than-ideal to be running Malwarebytes without self-protection but since the self-protection aspect of Malwarebytes appears to be its own Denial of Service implementation I think I'll just wait til the next more-debugged version comes out before re-enabling it.

As others have noted - same thing with me - all entries in the logs that are either very quickly generated or are abnormal are "sourced" from mbamchameleon - for (couple) example: Information 6/30/2014 5:55:50 AM mbamchameleon 61440 (4096) with the text: Failed to verify the digital signature for \Device\HarddiskVolume2\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\MRT.EXE This log entry repeats with different program names in the above text - numerous ones. and: Information 6/30/2014 5:43:30 AM mbamchameleon 61703 (4352) with the text: Mbamchameleon Failed to obtain file name information - C000000D This latter log entry repeats very very quickly. ================ I am about to reboot with self-protection turned off. Will get back here with an addendum on the appearance of the log files. Note that I have posted about a different problem with the most recent Malwarebytes that was "resolved" by a complete removal and reinstall - I certainly hope ANOTHER complete clean and reinstall is not necessary to "fix" this new problem.

It's not clear what you are saying here. Setup allowed unchecking "Trial Version" but when that is done yet there are no IDs or Keys in the registry the install - or something - breaks. That should not happen. Instead setup itself should note that the ID and Keys don't exist and ask for those keys or, more easily, simply install a Trial version anyway and outright tell the user to activate the install via the normal user interface with the ID and Key the user purportedly has. But then again, Malwarebytes never should have started crashing in the first place all by itself across shutdown/powerdown and powerup/reboot. Something remains broken that will need addressing eventually. As a normally-happy enduser I'm disappointed that I wasted more than 5 hours today "fixing" my Malwarebytes installation. But, in any case, that installation is "fixed" again so I'll disappear into the woodwork until the next major update breaks it... Thanks very much for your fast repsonses - as noted in my prior post these are sincerely appreciated.

Okay, rebooted again and the familiar malwarebytes icon appeared in the systray - the Database Version was blank. Tried to open the user interface with literally no effect. Tried again - nothing. Tried via the Desktop icon instead and watched processes running. Saw a second mbam come and go but no user interface window opened. Sat there thinking (cursing) a bit and, finally, the standard user interface unexpectedly opened up and all was green. It appears (you guys would know) that the original mbam process was catatonic while it was accessing the database server - when THAT finished it woke back up and displayed the user interface window. ================ So - at this time it appears Malwarebytes is again starting/running correctly - the only thing I did to try to fix the broken-on-original-boot-this-morning-at-05:30 was multiple mbam-cleans and mbam-setups. It should pointedly be noted, however, that Malwarebytes was working last night when this machine was shut down and was broken when this machine was turned on and rebooted this morning at 05:30. ================ Other notes: Running mbam-clean apparently missed one (empty) "mobile" folder in C:\ProgramData - I manually removed that but it was undoubtedly unimportant w.r.t. this problem anyway. Since I do have a license for the Premium version, the last dialog page of the clean-install setup program is misleading - it allows the user to uncheck using a trial version yet when that user "Finish"es that dialog, the install apparently breaks because the mbam-clean removed the registry entries for the ID and Key (as it should) but the setup program doesn't know what to do if those registry entries aren't there (it should ask for the ID and Key at that moment OR it should tell the user to activate the install via the standard user interface window; that did not happen). Rerunning the clean and install but leaving the "Trial Version" checkbox checked allowed the setup to finish successfully. Starting up the user interface, however, showed two previously-noted errors (database/real-time protection). Activating the install at that time with a proper ID and Key apparently worked in that the licensing information dialog was correct, however returning to the dashboard showed no real-time protection still; something internal to that user interface failed to update the licensing status for that part of the window. On finish of setup there was no automatic reboot; the only process running was a user-mode "mbam". Rebooting the system resulted in the mbamscheduler and mbamservices processes running with the mbam process a subprocess of mbamservices. I shutdown and rebooted again to confirm that everything was back to where it was last night - it was. ============= It's been about 5 and a half hours now since I first wanted to use this machine today. That use was disallowed because Malwarebytes broke. I have no clue why Malwarebytes broke since it was apparently working fine last night but broken this morning. It is now running again so I guess I'm a Happy Camper again but maybe this should raise some flags with you guys - some of the points noted above, of course, absolutely MUST be fixed on your side. I actually appreciate the fast responses here from support - even though not directly resolving the issue (especially the background issue of why Malwarebytes broke in the first place), the fact that there was rapid response was encouraging that a resolution would be found. Thanks for that.

Okay, ran setup and did NOT uncheck the "trial version" checkbox on the last dialog page (the one with "Finish"). Hit "Finish" and the regular Malwarebytes user interface window opened with (1) The "database update" item on the Dashboard now showed the database had been updated rather than "unable to access update server" and (2) the top "Fix Now" part saying needing to do a scan ("never run"). Also noted a blue "Activate Now" item in the top menu. Clicked on that and was presented with a minimal dialog asking for ID and Key - entered both and was apparently successfully activated as Premium. Then went back to dashboard and clicked on Fix Now; scan started up and 300,000+ objects checked. On return to the Dashboard the "Fix Now" was there still, The last item on the dashboard, "Real-time Protection" had a red 'X' with the words "Available with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Premium". Clicked "Fix Now" - no effect. Went to the Settings and Protection dialog under Settings where "Malware Protection" etc is enabled/disabled and enabled it and the one below it. Went back to Dashboard and clicked "Fix Now" - no effect. Checking processes running see that only a user-mode "mbam" is running - no mbamscheduler nor mbamservices. Will reboot and see what happens then come back here yet again with some more words. Until I get back, however, some suggestions - the setup program itself should ask for activation or free trial, especially since the last dialog explicitly allows "turning off" free trial which apparently broke the regular user interface since there were no registry entries after mbam-clean of ID and Key. But that's a different problem. Now will see if reboot clears up the bogus error causing real-time protection to not be started up. Back soon! A-GAIN!

I will now reinstall Malwarebytes and NOT uncheck the "Trial version" checkbox on the last dialog page of the setup program and see where that gets me. As noted in the original post of this thread Malwarebytes was not running correctly after setup when I unchecked that box during setup. Back soon!

This morning I turned on my 64-bit P4 system and Malwarebytes did not start correctly (has been working fine for, probably, months). Rebooted the system to see if that would fix the problem; it did not. Opened the user interface to Malwarebytes and there were two items that were not correct - the "Unable to connect to upgrade server" as well as the last of the four items of the window (which I cannot check at this moment because Malwarebytes is currently unstalled completely in preparation for another reinstall attempt). Clicked on "Fix Now" and there was no apparent beneficial result, though watching processes with Process Explorer showed that clicking "Fix Now" starts up mbamservice and mbam - with mbam crashing and mbamservice then exiting. Found instructions on the forums for cleaning and reinstalling Malwarebytes. Downloaded "mbam-clean-2.0.2.0.exe" and "mbam-setup-2.0.2.1012.exe" from the instruction's links. Ran the clean program and Malwarebytes was successfully removed. Ran the setup program and everything apparently was installed "correctly" - at the last dialog of that setup (where the button "Finish" is displayed) I unchecked the "trail version" checkbox and hit "Finish". Malwarebytes was not correctly running on exit of that setup. Rebooted again to see if that would fix the problem; it did not. Ran the clean process once more, then accessed the forums to see what others are reporting. There are numerous new posts within, say, the last 12+ hours with symptoms similar to my own. The version I had been running (yesterday) was apparently the last "Premium" one dated May 20th, 2014 (2.0.2) see https://www.malwarebytes.org/support/releasehistory/ The version downloaded per the instructions is 2.0.2.1012 - I do not have its date and the Release History noted above does not mention it. My Premium license for Malwarebytes is grandfathered in - it was bought when the licensing was "lifetime", not subscription. However, when I ran the (re)install mentioned above, Malwarebytes never got to the point of asking for the ID or Key.

Please note that multiple users are reporting Malwarebytes crashes within the last 24 hours (or less). This suggests something w.r.t. Malwarebytes itself has changed rather than something else with their systems. I posted a small note in another thread a couple minutes ago noting my experience so far this morning.

A datapoint for all - for the last couple weeks (I think that's the time period - actually don't remember) my XP Pro system has gone apparently catatonic shortly after login. The symptom was: normal boot, login screen, login...then within a minute or three - especially if starting an app up - the system would become nonresponsive however the cursor still followed mouse input. Initially I thought this was a total system freeze and would manually reboot but after thinking about it a bit realized the cursor should have been frozen as well. Eventually, after trying way too many useless things, I just let it sit there in its frozen state. After about 10 minutes - and this was consistent - the system would come back to life. Usually the system would become catatonic again a minute or so later but sometimes not (though this could repeat MORE than twice). Within a few tens of minutes of this unfreezing the system is "stable" and behaves as expected - no more freezes. To make a long (multi-week!) story short, today I finally tried turning off Malwarebytes during the Windows startup sequence and the freezing seems to have stopped. I've tested this now across multiple reboots with the same satisfactory result. My assumption is that there is a conflict between Malwarebytes and McAfee (as supplied "free" by Cox, my ISP) as the system is coming up. Unless it was done automatically by either application, I haven't tweaked either application to notice or not notice the other. Since this is a fairly recent experience (and I do not suspect hardware failure), I'm assuming one or the other application changed in a way that is not good - I suspect it is McAfee since the process structure of that product is bizarre and complex and they have a known history of getting things wrong. But, in any case, there is an apparent conflict TODAY between Malwarebytes and McAfee on an XP Pro system that can cause an apparent freezing of the system that actually is NOT a freeze but instead a lockout of other processing until SOMETHING gets finished with whatever it is doing (like McAfee calling home or something). It appears disabling Malwarebytes on system start "fixes" the problem (note - the service "mbamservice" is NOT disabled - just the GUI bit).