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My Anti-exploit has disappeared!


Louis

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This AM, when I booted my Win 10 PC, my Anti-Exploit did not load.  My MBAM premium was up and running, my Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware  and my primary AV (Emsisoft) were running -- but not my MBAE. 

I did not delete it.

So, what's going on?

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My Win 10 icon menu (in the lower right-hand corner of the task bar) does not show MBAE running.  It does show my other AV and AM programs running -- MBAM Premium, Emsisoft, Malwarebytes Anti-ransomware Beta. 

The MBAE program has not been deleted.  I located the program -- included in the "All Apps" -- and (again) pinned it to the task bar.  I opened the program and it claims to be running.  Why doesn't Win 10 "Hidden Icons" show it running -- as it does with all of my other AV-AM programs?  That is the issue.

 

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After I pinned the program to the Task Bar and opened it -- as described in the message above -- I rebooted my PC and MBAE is now appearing with my other AV-AM programs in the "Hidden Icons" of my Win 10 Task Bar.  It appears to be running and is (again) recognized by my Win 10 OS.

My concern level is very low.  However, I should not have to check every time I boot my PC to see if MBAE is up and running -- but I will be doing so for some time to come.

Louis

 

 

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Hey, @Louis.

I noticed similar behavior whenever I have an app that updates itself (such as Google Drive) that causes the Windows Explorer process to reset itself - MBAE disappears from the notification area (aka system tray, aka the are you described to the lower right when the taskbar is situated at the bottom of your screen).

Did you reboot at all the first time it did not appear?  I found that after a couple of reboots it started appearing normally again in the notification area.

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Hi John,

Thanks for the reply.  Here is the sequence:

1.  This AM, I turned my PC and moden/router on -- as I do every AM.  As usual, the boot was wicked fast and typical for my SSD Win 10 PC -- about 12 seconds. 

2.  The last item to appear on my task bar was my Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware icon.  This is typical.  I have it on a slight delay.

3.  I checked by "Show Hidden Icons" in the lower right-hand corner of my task bar to see if all of my AV and AM programs had loaded.  I noted the missing icon for MBAE.

4.  I also noted that my MBAE quick start icon was missing from the left margin of my homepage -- where I keep my AV-AM and cleaning quick start icons. 

5.  I thought I'd take it to the Forum.

Something made MBAE go bye-bye.  You could be onto something.  What's curious is that the MBAE program was intact and I simply sent a new quick start icon to my homepage and -- after rebooting my PC again -- the MBAE icon appeared in my hidden icons area with the others (as it should do).

Well, John Galt, did Atlas Shrug?

Best,

Louis

 

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More than likely you probably didn't even need to pin the icon t the taskbar - the reboot itself probably fixed it.

As for Atlas, well, yeah, right now it seems he is not only shrugging but face palming left and right at the antics of the peoples of the world today.

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JLG,

Yup.  The fix could be simply a matter of rebooting -- BUT that is what I do every morning. 

Regarding Atlas miming at what's going on, that's very likely.  You do know that antidisestablishmentarianism is the opposition of the separation of the State from the Church of England.  Are you in the UK?  I'm in AZ, USA.  John Galt was a fictitious Architect.  I wasn't.  [I'm getting far afield.]

LTG

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Yeah, the reboot may have coincided with an application update that caused the explorer.exe to restart.  Another reboot probably allowed MBAE to normally start and since there was not another explorer.exe restart after that second boot, it worked fine.

You can actually manually trigger this yourself.  With no programs open other than what is running automatically in your notification area, including MBAE, open task manager, find explorer.exe and right click it, select restart.  Your desktop should disappear, and then It should pop right back up in seconds, and most everything should show - except the MBAE notification area icon (perhaps others as well, depending upon what you have running on your machine).  However, it should still be in Task manager.  At this point it should be almost like it was when you booted this morning.

Then perform a normal reboot, and after the machine boots again, all should be well again.

Mind you - you do not have to do this, and there is a VERY MINUTE chance of messing something up (like 0.0001% chance), so if this is your regular daily use machine, I do not advise it.

I just mentioned how to replicate the issue because that is exactly how I was able to figure out that this behavior happened on my machine.

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I don't want to take the chance of messing something up.  I'm confident that if this happens again, I will be able to reboot and solve the issue.  I do think it was some sort of transitory anomaly that may never happen again.  To my knowledge it's only happened once.  All of my AV and AM programs seem to play well together and nothing has penetrated my sanctum sanctorum -- other than a few unwanted cookies, which are easily identified and removed.

Thanks for your advice.

Best,

Louis

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  • 5 months later...

The same happened to me on WinXP/SP3 a couple of days ago.

Malwarebytes Anti-exploit 1.08.1.2572 stopped working with the message:

 "Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit Protection is not started. The Anti-Exploit Process will Be Terminated".

Uninstalled and then re-installed v. 1.08.1.2572 (without reboot) - seems to have fixed it for present.

Will continue to monitor it to see if the fix is permanent.

 

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I am having precisely this same problem.  My registered Malwarebytes Anti Exploit is NO longer working.  I just get the same message described here by several others.....

 

"Malwarebytes Anti-exploit Protextion is not started. The Anti-exploit Process will be terminated".  End of message, end of Malwarebytes Anti-exploit.  This occurred immediately after Microsoft pushed through a HUGH update to Windows 10 (which, incidentally, was geared to increase the invasive capabilities of their dreadful "Cortana" bot assistant. (I'd say she's doing a bang up job of interferring with everything that isn't a Microsoft product!)  Hope this can be resolved soon.  Malwarebytes Anti Exploit has been a very effective deterrant to the ransomware exploits attempting to invade my PC (up to now).

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I have the same issue.

Thinking there was some licensing issue, I purchased a new Anti Exploit license (I had just purchased a license on July 14) today and uninstalled the current Anti Exploit program. Rebooted and deleted the Anti Exploit folder in the Programs Data folder.

Installed the new downloaded version. Rebooted.

It worked for a few minutes then the service stopped and attempts to restart it fail.

Hate that I spent an additional $40 for another license I did not need.

This did not start happening until a few days after the Windows 1607 version was installed.

The only new thing I had done was enable self-protection and self protection early start for MWB. Disabled these settings and the problem still exists.

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Very disappointed that a request submitted to support about this issue over a week ago has yet to be responded to.

No matter, I sorted this all out by myself.

Uninstall MWB Ani-Exploit.

Use a tool like Registry First Aid and search for and delete all registry entries containing the "Anti-Exploit" string.

Delete left over start menu program folders for the program that were not removed by the uninstaller.

Download the trial version of MWB AE from the MWB site.

Install and enter ID and license strings.

Problem solved.

Really sad to see how customer-centric claims made at the MWB site are apparently but marketing hype.

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I have not had ANY problems with this issue since I posted the following in April:

I don't want to take the chance of messing something up.  I'm confident that if this happens again, I will be able to reboot and solve the issue.  I do think it was some sort of transitory anomaly that may never happen again.  To my knowledge it's only happened once.  All of my AV and AM programs seem to play well together and nothing has penetrated my sanctum sanctorum -- other than a few unwanted cookies, which are easily identified and removed.

 

Louis

 

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On 4/17/2016 at 0:25 PM, John L. Galt said:

More than likely you probably didn't even need to pin the icon t the taskbar - the reboot itself probably fixed it.

As for Atlas, well, yeah, right now it seems he is not only shrugging but face palming left and right at the antics of the peoples of the world today.

Do the MWB folks monitor these forums actively? I have not got a response from a submitted support request for the issue as well.

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Looks like my last fix above has worked. Although I now have this odd problem that when I create a new folder I cannot change the name of the folder with the error message that the folder does not exist. I can only rename the New Folder using a command prompt and ren oldname newname

Not sure this is related to the fix, but wanted to note it in case anyone else has the same problem.

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