MBAM 2.0 Custom Scan is running endlessly

[julio99]

   I decided to do a Custom scan on my Win 7 X64 Acer laptop. First I run Norton IS 2014 alongside with all proper exclusions the way I have always run it. That said I have already run a scan and had no problems. This scan is going on 2 hrs. and 10 mins. and is stuck on 236,654 items scanned at Filesystem with Heuristics pending. The scan will not pause. It has detected one piece of Adware in the AppData section. It just keeps on running so I guess I am going to kill this and await some kind of answer as to why this might be happening.

[Firefox]

Will a Threat Scan finish OK, and does it detect anything?

FYI... There is no need to run a Custom (full scan) the Threat Scan is basically the same as the previous Quick Scan and will scan all known threat points. A custom (full scan) is only needed if you want to possibly locate old dormant non live infection data. Certainly no need to run it more than once - if you think you need or want to do that type of scans then your antivirus is actually better suited to flat file detections of non active potential threats as it has a database that covers a decade or more of infections. We only include live actively known threats in our database to easily combat new threats.

Threat scan ==> Quick Scan

Custom scan ==> Partial or Full Scan - depending upon what you choose to scan.

Hyper scan ==> Flash Scan (only available for registered PRO users). Personally I don't recommend using it

[julio99]

Will a Threat Scan finish OK, and does it detect anything?

FYI... There is no need to run a Custom (full scan) the Threat Scan is basically the same as the previous Quick Scan and will scan all known threat points. A custom (full scan) is only needed if you want to possibly locate old dormant non live infection data. Certainly no need to run it more than once - if you think you need or want to do that type of scans then your antivirus is actually better suited to flat file detections of non active potential threats as it has a database that covers a decade or more of infections. We only include live actively known threats in our database to easily combat new threats.

Threat scan ==> Quick Scan

Custom scan ==> Partial or Full Scan - depending upon what you choose to scan.

Hyper scan ==> Flash Scan (only available for registered PRO users). Personally I don't recommend using it

Because one of my drives is a Data drive I wanted it scanned entirely to see if anything bad had been moved over before I had the Protection running. I should have told you that even though I had MBAM Pro I never ran the Protection before because of all the back and forth of not running 2 live protections. I just said screw it and decided to finally find out for myself because there are detractors on both sides. Even though "Whoever" says that MBAM is not an antivirus and is more like anti-spyware I decided to test it live protection with Norton IS and find out for myself. I had no problems whatsoever running the Protections on both MBAM and Norton IS. That said I needed to find out if there was any malware in my Data drive and the previous scans by MBAM were very quick ones. If they didn't want you running a custom scan they should have left it out as there are plenty of people with Data drives that do know that Malware can find it's way through and will not always be picked up the first time. That being said, you were right in saying these kinds of scans do not need to be run more than once in a long while. Now that I have went through all this the moment or so after I posted this the scan did finish correctly by itself with the one piece of "Adware DomaIQ". I put it in Quarantine after the scan finished and restarted. I have just never seen a scan of any kind take so long by MBAM.So I take out of all this that the only scan that really needs to be run by this software is a "Threat Scan" ? Otherwise I should only do a Custom Type Scan with Norton IS, (My AV)? I am trying to make sure of what you were trying to say. In the end here it all ended up good as my post was premature, but as I said 2hrs.+ is a long time for an MBAM scan.

[Phone Man]

   I decided to do a Custom scan on my Win 7 X64 Acer laptop. First I run Norton IS 2014 alongside with all proper exclusions the way I have always run it. That said I have already run a scan and had no problems. This scan is going on 2 hrs. and 10 mins. and is stuck on 236,654 items scanned at Filesystem with Heuristics pending. The scan will not pause. It has detected one piece of Adware in the AppData section. It just keeps on running so I guess I am going to kill this and await some kind of answer as to why this might be happening.

Do you have Rootkits enabled on your Custom Scan?

Some of us have had the system freeze with that option.

I run Hyper and Threat scans with Rootkits enabled but not the Custom scan.

 

Jim

[Firefox]

Glad it finally finished... Some things to consider and why scans take long using MBAM v2 (especially because of the new features and engine....

 

Scan Time Variables

Scan Times vary due to many factors some of which are listed below.

Size of disk
Disk type
Disk speed
Disk caching
CPU speed
Controller type and speed
Operating System used
Amount of files
Amount of folders
Amount of archived files such as zip, rar, sfx, etc.
Rootkit scan or not
PUM/PUP scans
Other security programs running at the same time that may potentially be monitoring all file accesses by any other process.
Drive integrity - if a drive is failing it can take a long time to ignore and bypass sectors on a disk or simply fail period and hang the scan.
Other ongoing disk I/O processes
System being infected can also affect speed of scans

Also note that changes in the MBAM database can also cause scan times to increase or decrease, so that's another factor to consider.

[daledoc1]

Hi:

 

EDIT: OOPS!  Great minds....

 

Firefox, you beat me!

 

daledoc1

[julio99]

Do you have Rootkits enabled on your Custom Scan?

Some of us have had the system freeze with that option.

I run Hyper and Threat scans with Rootkits enabled but not the Custom scan.

 

Jim

I believe I did have that enabled. When does MBAM ever scan for rootkits if that is by default disabled?

[julio99]

Glad it finally finished... Some things to consider and why scans take long using MBAM v2 (especially because of the new features and engine....

 

Scan Time Variables

Scan Times vary due to many factors some of which are listed below.

Size of disk

Disk type

Disk speed

Disk caching

CPU speed

Controller type and speed

Operating System used

Amount of files

Amount of folders

Amount of archived files such as zip, rar, sfx, etc.

Rootkit scan or not

PUM/PUP scans

Other security programs running at the same time that may potentially be monitoring all file accesses by any other process.

Drive integrity - if a drive is failing it can take a long time to ignore and bypass sectors on a disk or simply fail period and hang the scan.

Other ongoing disk I/O processes

System being infected can also affect speed of scans

Also note that changes in the MBAM database can also cause scan times to increase or decrease, so that's another factor to consider.

Yes it does help explain. Another poster also added the "Rootkit" issue with these Custom scans. As I asked him, how does MBAM ever scan for rootkits if they are by Default, disabled? or is it just an option for users to choose?

[John L. Galt]

Mu custom scan, run on my machine, took 17 hours to complete.

 

Specs:

 

• Core i7 965 EE
• 12 GB DDR 3 (triple channel, 3 * 4GB modules)
• 180 GB SATA III SSD (system drive)
• 80 GB SATA II SSD (\Users and \Program Data)
• 1 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.13 mechanical drive (data storage, including most special folders, like \downloads, \My Documents. \My Pictures, \My Music, and \My Videos)
• 1 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.13 mechanical drive (Misc Storage, such as drivers, registry settings backups, .ISOs, Pertinent downloads from M$ and other software downloads)
• 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 mechanical drive (Full system backup of the 2 SSDs).

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

 

I scanned all the HDs listed once in my custom scan just to be sure.

[Firefox]

I believe I did have that enabled. When does MBAM ever scan for rootkits if that is by default disabled?

It is disabled by default cause it could cause some issues with some computers due to encryption and such....  You can enable it on yours if you are not using encryption and see if it runs OK.  If you leave it disabled that is fine, MBAM will still scan the areas where rootkits like to hide and notify you if one is found.

[julio99]

Mu custom scan, run on my machine, took 17 hours to complete.

 

Specs:

 

• Core i7 965 EE
• 12 GB DDR 3 (triple channel, 3 * 4GB modules)
• 180 GB SATA III SSD (system drive)
• 80 GB SATA II SSD (\Users and \Program Data)
• 1 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.13 mechanical drive (data storage, including most special folders, like \downloads, \My Documents. \My Pictures, \My Music, and \My Videos)
• 1 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.13 mechanical drive (Misc Storage, such as drivers, registry settings backups, .ISOs, Pertinent downloads from M$ and other software downloads)
• 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 mechanical drive (Full system backup of the 2 SSDs).

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

 

I scanned all the HDs listed once in my custom scan just to be sure.

Mine finally finished at 2hrs.+ I just never had an MBAM scan take that long before, but this is a newly featured MBAM 2.0 so I should have taken that into consideration. Both of my drives Data and C drive don't take up 200GB plus my C drive is solid state if that means anything. That is the only time I will run the Custom unless there is some pressing reason. Thank you my friend.

[John L. Galt]

Glad you got it resolved and that it was not anything major.

 

Also, as mentioned in another post, MBAM does get faster after the initial scan, particularly with the Threat and Hyper scans.

[julio99]

It is disabled by default cause it could cause some issues with some computers due to encryption and such....  You can enable it on yours if you are not using encryption and see if it runs OK.  If you leave it disabled that is fine, MBAM will still scan the areas where rootkits like to hide and notify you if one is found.

 

It is disabled by default cause it could cause some issues with some computers due to encryption and such....  You can enable it on yours if you are not using encryption and see if it runs OK.  If you leave it disabled that is fine, MBAM will still scan the areas where rootkits like to hide and notify you if one is found.

Thanx my friend for your time and info. I have learned more in these responses than I ever could have any other way.

 

Do you have Rootkits enabled on your Custom Scan?

Some of us have had the system freeze with that option.

I run Hyper and Threat scans with Rootkits enabled but not the Custom scan.

 

Jim

As I posted somewhere else I believe I did have rootkits enabled this once. The few quick scans that were run on 2.0 were just default settings.

[Firefox]

Your quite welcome, glad you learned something new...

 

Should you have any further questions don't hesitate to ask...