Quarantining Process Running For Over 4 Hours

[boweasel]

I've used Malwarebytes literally hundreds of times - I'm an old retired IT guy and somehow became the neighborhood PC troubleshooter and fixer.

 

I'm working on an old Vista tower and one of the first things I did was to run Malwarebytes.  It completed in a couple of hours and found close to 1900 items - 9 or 10 of them showing up with a red dot next to them.  I clicked the box at the top left to select everything and clicked on remove.  The first 1400 got quarantined in a couple of minutes, but then it just seemed to die.  The process was still running, but nothing else seemed to be getting quarantined.  So I just made sure no other applications were running on the PC and I let it continue. 

 

90 minutes later I checked and it was up to 1470 something.  45 minutes later - 1480 something.  It has now been quarantining for over 4 hours and it's up to 1536.  The process continues to be responsive according to taskmgr, and it IS continuing to quarantine items, but at a glacial pace.

 

Anybody ever seen this before?  I've never seen an instance where it's taken longer than 10 minutes to complete the quarantine, so 4-plus hours is a bit of an eye-opener.  I sort of need to get this back to the owner ASAP, and now I'm starting to wonder if just finishing with MBAM will take more than a couple more days.

[daledoc1]

Hello and welcome back:
 
It's impossible to say for sure without seeing the logs or knowing the system specs.
But, yes, on a very heavily infected system (with what sounds like it could be a LOT of PUPs), the cleaning process can take a while, especially on old hardware.  You might want to let it do its thing for a bit longer.

In any event, we are not permitted to work on possible malware-related issues here in this section of the forum.
Such work is conducted in a special forum area reserved for that purpose, or at the help desk.

So, for expert assistance, I suggest that you might want to please follow the advice in this pinned topic: Available Assistance For Possibly Infected Computers.
It explains the options for free, expert help >>AND<< the suggested, preliminary steps to expedite the process.
A malware analyst will assist you with looking into your issue - the helper will guide you through scanning, cleanup and repair.

Thanks,

[boweasel]

Hello and welcome back:

 

It's impossible to say for sure without seeing the logs or knowing the system specs.

But, yes, on a very heavily infected system (with what sounds like it could be a LOT of PUPs), the cleaning process can take a while, especially on old hardware.  You might want to let it do its thing for a bit longer.

In any event, we are not permitted to work on possible malware-related issues here in this section of the forum.

Such work is conducted in a special forum area reserved for that purpose, or at the help desk.

So, for expert assistance, I suggest that you might want to please follow the advice in this pinned topic: Available Assistance For Possibly Infected Computers.

Thanks, but I don't think the other section of the forum you pointed me to is allowed to work on malware related issues either - my topic sat there, with zero responses, for 4 days until somebody finally asked me if I still needed help.   Your original replay to my post started out, 'Hello and welcome back'.  Perhaps now we know why there was such a long interval between any posts of mine. 

 

Lesson learned.

[Porthos]

The reason you were over looked is the experts are looking for 0 reply topics and each time you posted added a reply and it looked like you were getting help.

 

You did not post the requested logs from the instructions as well.

[daledoc1]

Hi, @boweasel:

 

Yes, unfortunately, it does appear that your topic in the malware removal section may have been inadvertently overlooked, perhaps because it had been "bumped" (as @porthos explained). 

 

The advice in this pinned topic does say the following:

 

 

• Also, please do not 'bump' or add a reply to your topic once it is started. Topics which appear to have replies are considered to have an helper assisting them and may be overlooked, resulting in a longer waiting period for help.

NOTE: Please be patient.  When the site is busy it can sometimes take up to 48 hours before someone will be able to assist you.
If no one has replied to your new topic after 48 hours please contact a Moderator or Administrator to let them know.

 

Moreover, most of the malware helpers are volunteers -- they do the best they can to assist users with cleanup, as time permits.

 

Having said that, our forum Admin, @AdvancedSetup, is helping you now.

As the system seems to be heavily infected, I suggest that you might want to follow through with the cleanup process.

It will only cost you a bit of your time.

 

Sorry for delay and the misunderstanding,

 

P.S. For the record, I greeted you with "welcome back" because you were not a new forum member posting for the first time.

[boweasel]

The reason you were over looked is the experts are looking for 0 reply topics and each time you posted added a reply and it looked like you were getting help.

 

You did not post the requested logs from the instructions as well.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to determine that if the OP is boweasel, and the latest post is by.... boweasel... well that pretty much means there are no replies.  And if you had a facility for 'editing' a post, I could have posted updates about the quarantining process without adding to the reply count. 

 

Logs are only generated, AFAIK, at the completion of MB.  I needed help when the quarantining had gone on for several hours, before logs were created.    

[daledoc1]

Hi:

 

Our forum Admin, @AdvancedSetup, is helping you now in that other topic.

If you would like help, please stay with that thread.

He will get you cleaned up.

 

We apologize for the delay.

 

P.S. Unfortunately, because of prior abuse and spamming, newer forum members with lower post counts are not permitted to edit posts.  We apologize for the inconvenience.

[boweasel]

Hi:

 

Our forum Admin, @AdvancedSetup, is helping you now in that other topic.

If you would like help, please stay with that thread.

He will get you cleaned up.

 

We apologize for the delay.

 

P.S. Unfortunately, because of prior abuse and spamming, newer forum members with lower post counts are not permitted to edit posts.  We apologize for the inconvenience.

Well, no, AdvancedSetup is not helping me - there is actually nothing to help.  After the quarantining process went on for over 14 hours, it suddenly finished and all 1898 items were quarantined.  I then ran an AdwCleaner scan, got rid a bunch of stuff with that, ran the first 2 parts of CCleaner, and finished up with an sfc /scannow and a run of JRT.  The computer was running splendidly when everything was completed and I returned the tower a couple of days ago.

 

I'd already searched the forum for similar topics and found nothing, so I rather thought that you guys might be, you know, interested in a quarantine process that didn't seem to want to end.  It being a problem with running Malwarebytes and this being a Malwarebytes forum, I mistakenly reasoned that the topic would generate a flurry of activity.         

[daledoc1]

 

 

I'd already searched the forum for similar topics and found nothing, so I rather thought that you guys might be, you know, interested in a quarantine process that didn't seem to want to end.  It being a problem with running Malwarebytes and this being a Malwarebytes forum, I mistakenly reasoned that the topic would generate a flurry of activity.         

 

For safety's sake the policy in the malware removal section is one topic - one OP - one helper.

That's why there was not a "flurry of activity".  More info here and here.

 

I'm sorry.

I am just a home user and volunteer helper.

I and the other forum staff/volunteers have done our best to explain how to get help and to help you.

@AdvancedSetup replied HERE to ask if you still need help.

If you answer affirmatively, he will guide you through the process.

If you answer in the negative or do not wish further help cleaning the badly infected computer, then that's fine, too, of course.

 

Thank you again.

 

Take care,

[AdvancedSetup]

I've gone ahead and closed the other topic as you've said you completed and have returned the system. Unfortunately no support company I'm aware of is able to provide free support on the time line you're looking for. We do try our best but there simply are not enough trained tech support people to provide free support within a few hours you're looking for.

 

Thank you though for reaching out and hopefully next time we're able to help sooner.

 

Cheers

 

Ron