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Exploit Protection crashing MS Office applications


Mike406

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On version 3.0.6.1469 - The Exploit Protection feature causes hangs and crashes of my Microsoft Office 2016 programs either when starting the program or randomly during usage. Once I turn protection off for these programs the crashing stops. I noticed that a related known issue is listed here toward the bottom of the page (Websense exploit). Is this the same known issue or something new?

Thanks,
Mike

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I've experienced the same problem. Soon after upgrading to MalwareBytes 3, Microsoft Office365 started crashing. After a couple crashes, the Office apps would no longer even open and instead I'd get a dialog box complaining about some error preventing it from running. I looked up the error code and it said my Office was corrupt and I should reinstall it. I then tried to uninstall MS Office365, but uninstaller would fail with an error code. Even the Microsoft provided "fix" uninstaller would fail. I tried every once in a while over a couple months to get it to uninstall, and it never worked.

Eventually I figured out that MalwareBytes was causing the problem. I rebooted, quit MalwareBytes, and retried the uninstaller and it was successful. I rebooted my PC again, then downloaded the Office365 offline installer. I attempted to uncompress the installation image and then my PC rebooted. I tried again and the same thing happened. After another reboot, I quit MalwareBytes and then the uncompress worked without rebooting.

Now I'm afraid to install Office365 or even use it with MalwareBytes installed. There seems to be some file or parts of a file(s) that it doesn't like and then it messes up the PC or causes a reboot.

I'm tempted to stop using MalwareBytes all together or maybe just go back to version 2.

Anyone know of a fix for this?

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On 27/2/2017 at 9:45 PM, Mike406 said:

On version 3.0.6.1469 - The Exploit Protection feature causes hangs and crashes of my Microsoft Office 2016 programs either when starting the program or randomly during usage. Once I turn protection off for these programs the crashing stops. I noticed that a related known issue is listed here toward the bottom of the page (Websense exploit). Is this the same known issue or something new?

Thanks,
Mike

Try this,

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've got the same issue with 2010 Office Suite: MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint are unable to launch properly and just hanging in Task Manager with no visible windows. The only way to launch it is to either to run winword.exe with administrative rights or to exclude all Office apps from the Protected Applications list in Protection -> Manage Protected Applications option in Malwarebytes.

Malwarebytes verison 3.0.6.1469; MS Office version is 4.0.7177.5000 (32-bit); Windows 10 x64 version 1607 (OS Build 14393.969).

Hope this would be fixed soon.

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Can you please follow the instructions below to grab us some information on what's going on?

  1. Open up Malwarebytes 3
  2. Go to Settings -> Protection
  3. Open the Manage Protected Applications window
  4. Turn on the protections for the Microsoft Office applications
  5. Click Ok
  6. Go to Settings -> Application
  7. Turn on the option for Event Log Data
  8. Attempt to open one of the affected applications (like Word)
  9. Wait 60 seconds and verify the application doesn't open
  10. Go to Settings -> Application
  11. Turn off the option for Event  Log Data
  12. Navigate to C:\ProgramData\Malwarebytes\MBAMService
  13. Right click the logs folder and choose Send to -> Compressed (Zipped) folder
    • This will create a file on your desktop named logs.zip
  14. Upload this logs.zip file in your response
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  • 4 weeks later...

Seems to be working so far.  I've been able to save from Word and Excel.  Haven't tried a mail merge again yet. 

For those who are installing the update, remember to turn back on the protection for the Microsoft Office applications IF you turned them off with the previous installation as the only fix available at that time.  

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  • 2 months later...

Hi, this is an ongoing problem between malwarebytes and microsoft word.  The Malwarebytes program somehow thinks that word is a virus or ? and then it crashes word repeatedly losing all of our work. My husband is working on a resume and cover letter for a VERY IMPORTANT JOB INTERVIEW FOR A MANAGERIAL POSITION tomorrow morning and the word will not stop crashing.  So i go to my laptop...guess what?  THE SAME.  You see, this happened to me before and  i was miserable and frustrated and microsoft tech's went on my computer and looked everything over and figured out that malwarebytes is not working correctly with word.  They changed my settings and turned off portions of malwarebytes it all worked great UNTIL TODAY.  Like I said, I am a master's degree student -and I have a long apa paper due weekly and this program is making it so I cannot write anything!  I complained prior to malwarebytes and all I got was some general email.  I am serious about this.  This is a big deal and it needs to be fixed. I have no idea what the microsoft tech did to keep malwarebytes from crashing word over and over, but I suppose I am going to have to get their techs on my computer again.  I do not have HOURS TO WASTE on this again tonight.  VERY DISGUSTED.  WHY would they allow their program to mess with one of the most popular pieces of software?  I am so close to just uninstalling malwarebytes.  I see there is no way to contact anyone like on chat  so I cannot get immediate help.  Very frustrating.  Otherwise, I do love this product and have recommended it to several people.  I am considering un-recommending it now.

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  • Staff

Hello Angi,

 

I want to help get to the bottom of the issue to solve it for good for you, but I want to make sure that you or your husband won't be plagued by this issue. To disable the shield that is causing this, open up Malwarebytes and go to the settings pane on the left. From there, click on the Protection tab at the top and click on the 'Manage protected applications' button. In here, you should see the options for office (including word). When you disable the word button, it should stop this crashing issue you are seeing. 

 

I do want to get this fixed so you can be protected if you would be willing to grab them. All you have to do is run this tool https://downloads.malwarebytes.org/file/mb3_check and collect the zip file that is on the desktop. Once I get that, I can get that over to our team to see about getting this fixed.

I do apologize you are running into this problem that has hindered you and your husbands job opportunities.

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Same problems as users above, but with Outlook only allowing startup in Safe Mode. This started last week. I had no idea MWB had anything to do with the problem. I uninstalled/ re-installed Outlook like a good little M$ customer and Outlook worked - until today.

This coincides with a MWB problem, though - MWB Protection keeps turning off and won't turn on again. When this happened a couple of weeks ago, MWB forums said to "allow to start early" [sic]. So I selected early start and MWB was okay - until today. Allow early start is still selected but not working, evidently. Scans are okay - touch wood.

MWB 3.1.2.1733. Win 7 Pro.

Thanks.

 

 

 

mb-check-results.zip

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Fiddled with both M$ Outlook and Malwarebytes. Outlook was stubborn with wanting a Safe Mode start. So I unchecked MWB Early Start. Restarted computer. MWB came up with Protection on. Rechecked Early Start. Rebooted. MWB came up perfectly - so did Outlook. smh

IDK what the problem is, but if someone figures this out so I don't have to do this "stuff" anymore, I'd appreciate a note.

Yes, this is a Home edition of MWB but we run a small engineering consulting business from home. I too need to be doing other things ... Thanks.

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I am so glad to find this thread! I've been having tons of issues with Outlook 365 programs crashing and could not figure out what was causing it. I thought it was an add-in but disabling exploit protection for office programs in Malwarebytes fixed it for me. Office 365 was pretty much unusable until I did that due to constant crashes in Excel, Word, etc. I'd get a message about an exploit and Malwarebytes would immediately close the program, or I'd get odd behavior with no exploit message followed by a crash.

I have checked the box to notify me of replies to this thread, but I hope Malwarebytes fixes this problem soon. I have the home edition version 3.1.2.

One concern:  In Settings > Protected Applications I found individual listings for Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Publisher. I did not see an entry for Microsoft Office or for Outlook. As Outlook as been one of my problem applications, I'd like to figure out how to turn off exploit protection for that too while waiting for a fix from Malwarebytes. Do you know how I do that? I did try adding a custom application to outlook.exe but want to be sure that is the way to do it. I've not had a crash yet in Outlook but would prefer not to have one at all as I am afraid they will eventually corrupt my profile.

Thanks.

Edited by wombat88
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  • 2 years later...

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