Malwarebytes Services Causing Slow PC

[PowerMan572]

Not sure what happened, but Malwarebytes is causing my computer to be extremely slow. I click on Chrome, and it takes 10-15 seconds to open. Task manager takes 5-10 seconds to open, etc. My entire computer just feels sluggish.

I pay for Malwarebytes Premium and I'm running the latest version 3.4.5. I did a complete uninstall and re-install. The symptoms come back after installing Malwarebytes.  

I found out from others online that Malwabytes Services is causing the issue. So I uninstalled Malwarebytes again, and my computer is back to excellent performance. 

I'm NOT showing that Malwarebytes is utilizing high RAM or CPU (around 179MB of RAM and less than 3% CPU).

So do we know what is going on and what is causing this? Did Malwarebytes push out an update that is causing computers to be crippled? 

[Malwarebytes]

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[dcollins]

The logs above, with Malwarebytes installed, will help us troubleshooting this greatly.

[PowerMan572]

Logs attached.

After re-installing Malwarebytes, it's good for a little bit after the immediate re-install. However, I came back to my computer hours later to check on this thread, and my computer is sluggish again because of Malwarebytes. Chrome took around 8-10 seconds to open, task manager took longer than normal, etc. 

This is a FAST computer too. it's gaming rig. Intel I7-8700K, 32GB DDR4 RAM, Samsung EVO 960 M.2 SSD, 1080 GTX TI. I know Malwarebytes is the culprit, because as soon as I uninstall Malwarebytes, the problem is fixed.

Hopefully the logs will tell what is going on. Thank you.

mbst-grab-results.zip

[dcollins]

I see a couple things that may be going on here, but we'll probably need some trial and error to determine the true cause:

1. If you disable the Ransomware Protection, does the issue go away?
2. Have you added exclusions to Norton and Norton exclusions to Malwarebytes? https://support.malwarebytes.com/docs/DOC-1123
3. If you disable Plex, doesthe issue go away (Plex does a lot of read/writes/encoding which could trip up Ransomware)

[Cody712]

Malwarebytes asked me to install a new update and restarted my pc. Now everything is really slow also, it must have been that new update. I am doing a system restore to see if this works, the pc is unusable right now.

[PowerMan572]

3 minutes ago, Cody712 said:

Malwarebytes asked me to install a new update and restarted my pc. Now everything is really slow also, it must have been that new update. I am doing a system restore to see if this works, the pc is unusable right now.

You could just uninstall Malwarebytes. That seems to fix the problem for me. 

 

If dcollins’ steps above don’t rectify the problem, I’m probably just going to try Emsisoft and switch products. I don’t have time for stuff to be broken like this as I work two jobs and am very busy. 

 

We shall see...

[Valkyrie005]

Just jumping in to say I ran into this problem over the weekend as well. Stepped away from my PC for maybe half an hour, and when I came back it was unusably slow. Programs took forever to launch or wouldn't launch at all, Chrome eventually launched but wouldn't load anything, etc. When I got the Task Manager to open (which took about 5 minutes), the only thing out of the ordinary was that the Malwarebytes Service was pegged using 25% of my CPU. Normally it uses <1%. I was unable to get MWB to open, so I attempted a reboot which got stuck and had to force a shutdown. 

On reboot I disabled the Ransomware Protection module and that seems to have fixed things. By which I mean the problem hasn't reoccurred in the past couple of days.

This is with MWB v3.4.5 on Windows 10. Like PowerMan, my PC's reasonably fast, though not as powerful as his, so this kind of behavior was extremely unusual and seems to have come from MWB going a bit rogue. I'm happy to start my own thread / gather diagnostic logs if need be.

[Cody712]

System restore still initializing after 1 hour. I will just hard reboot and attempt to disable the ransomware protection.

[digmorcrusher]

3 hours ago, PowerMan572 said:

You could just uninstall Malwarebytes. That seems to fix the problem for me. 

 

If dcollins’ steps above don’t rectify the problem, I’m probably just going to try Emsisoft and switch products. I don’t have time for stuff to be broken like this as I work two jobs and am very busy. 

 

We shall see...

Emsisoft is an anti-virus, you cannot use it alongside Norton.

[PowerMan572]

22 minutes ago, digmorcrusher said:

Emsisoft is an anti-virus, you cannot use it alongside Norton.

I understand. I will uninstall Norton if I go with them.

Any thoughts on Emsisoft? I see they scan real-time and block malware. Do you know how the protection of malware is compared to Malwarebytes? 

[exile360]

9 minutes ago, PowerMan572 said:

Any thoughts on Emsisoft? I see they scan real-time and block malware. Do you know how the protection of malware is compared to Malwarebytes? 

While I don't have any extensive details about Emsisoft, I checked their site and they don't seem to include any comprehensive exploit protection like Malwarebytes does for one.  I'm also not sure if they have anything that would be an acceptable substitute for the recently implemented signature-less anomalous file detection capabilities in Malwarebytes, which use machine learning and advanced heuristics algorithms rather than more traditional threat signatures to detect new and unknown malware (0-hour/0-day threats).  Obviously there are going to be differences between the other layers as well, even the ones which cover similar areas/threats etc. but there's no real way of comparing them in-depth without detailed technical knowledge of what's going on under the hood (proprietary information only the Developers of each product would know).

I also don't know what kind of self-protection/self-defense mechanism(s) they have, if any, though I do know that the self-protection driver in Malwarebytes, which is based on their former Chameleon technology, is quite robust.

As far as general protection from more common threats goes, while they may not have the same level of heuristics as Malwarebytes, they do at least use 2 AV engines according to their site, and while that's no guarantee against newer/unknown threats, it does mean that you should at least get the same or better protection that you got with Norton.

I'm also not certain about their policy on PUPs (Potentially Unwanted Programs) and whether or not they are as aggressive against them as Malwarebytes; one of the areas Malwarebytes has been a leader in the entire industry in over the past few years with regards to their intolerance of PUPs.  That said, PUPs aren't malware though, so that may not be as important to you as other areas of coverage.

With all of that said, you might consider giving the new beta of Malwarebytes a try to see if it resolves the problem.  I just asked another use to try it who was having similar performance issues and so far at least it seems to have corrected the issues.  If you wish to try it, open Malwarebytes and navigate to Settings>Application then scroll down to where it says Beta Application Updates and turn on the option beneath it to receive beta updates, then scroll back up to the top and click the Install Application Updates button and allow it to download/install the new version, then reboot if prompted to complete the installation process and test and see how it goes.  Hopefully it will correct the issues for you as well.

[lock]

4 hours ago, exile360 said:

don't seem to include any comprehensive exploit protection like Malwarebytes does for one.

Emsisoft relies on their behavior blocker (former Mamutu) to provide multiple "shields"

Years ago , Mamutu was the best behavior blocker on the market.

[exile360]

7 minutes ago, lock said:

Emsisoft relies on their behavior blocker (former Mamutu) to provide multiple "shields"

Years ago , Mamutu was the best behavior blocker on the market.

Ah, I see, so sort of like a HIPS then essentially, a bit like what Malwarebytes uses for its Anti-Ransomware component (except in Malwarebytes it's obviously limited to ransomware, not other malware types).  Thanks for the extra info.

[PowerMan572]

5 hours ago, exile360 said:

While I don't have any extensive details about Emsisoft, I checked their site and they don't seem to include any comprehensive exploit protection like Malwarebytes does for one.  I'm also not sure if they have anything that would be an acceptable substitute for the recently implemented signature-less anomalous file detection capabilities in Malwarebytes, which use machine learning and advanced heuristics algorithms rather than more traditional threat signatures to detect new and unknown malware (0-hour/0-day threats).  Obviously there are going to be differences between the other layers as well, even the ones which cover similar areas/threats etc. but there's no real way of comparing them in-depth without detailed technical knowledge of what's going on under the hood (proprietary information only the Developers of each product would know).

I also don't know what kind of self-protection/self-defense mechanism(s) they have, if any, though I do know that the self-protection driver in Malwarebytes, which is based on their former Chameleon technology, is quite robust.

As far as general protection from more common threats goes, while they may not have the same level of heuristics as Malwarebytes, they do at least use 2 AV engines according to their site, and while that's no guarantee against newer/unknown threats, it does mean that you should at least get the same or better protection that you got with Norton.

I'm also not certain about their policy on PUPs (Potentially Unwanted Programs) and whether or not they are as aggressive against them as Malwarebytes; one of the areas Malwarebytes has been a leader in the entire industry in over the past few years with regards to their intolerance of PUPs.  That said, PUPs aren't malware though, so that may not be as important to you as other areas of coverage.

With all of that said, you might consider giving the new beta of Malwarebytes a try to see if it resolves the problem.  I just asked another use to try it who was having similar performance issues and so far at least it seems to have corrected the issues.  If you wish to try it, open Malwarebytes and navigate to Settings>Application then scroll down to where it says Beta Application Updates and turn on the option beneath it to receive beta updates, then scroll back up to the top and click the Install Application Updates button and allow it to download/install the new version, then reboot if prompted to complete the installation process and test and see how it goes.  Hopefully it will correct the issues for you as well.

Updated to beta version 3.5.0. Turned ransomware protection back on. Same thing is happening. Chrome is slow, task manager slow to open = sluggish computer. 

I turn ransomware back off, and the computer is back to normal. 

[KenW]

I run Emsisoft along with MBAM without any problems.

[digmorcrusher]

6 hours ago, PowerMan572 said:

I understand. I will uninstall Norton if I go with them.

Any thoughts on Emsisoft? I see they scan real-time and block malware. Do you know how the protection of malware is compared to Malwarebytes? 

In my opinion Emsisoft is one of the best anti-virus products on the market, their behaviour blocker is top notch, virtually nothing gets by it, been using for 4 years and not one infection. Superb customer service, no bloat, they don't collect or sell your data and increasing yearly discounts.  And yes exile 360, they use signature-less detection. Dual engine is their own and Bitdefenders. I would say their PUP policy is not as strict as MB3. Although MB3 and Emsisoft provide protection differently if I had to choose only 1 to protect my computer it would be Emsisoft. This is coming from someone who has used both products for years, want to lock down your computer tight, use both. I've seen no conflicts.

Edited May 1, 2018 by digmorcrusher

[exile360]

34 minutes ago, PowerMan572 said:

Updated to beta version 3.5.0. Turned ransomware protection back on. Same thing is happening. Chrome is slow, task manager slow to open = sluggish computer. 

I turn ransomware back off, and the computer is back to normal. 

I'm sorry, I was really hoping they would have it fixed in the beta.  I will be sure to make the Product team aware that these performance issues with Ransomware Protection have yet to be completely resolved in all cases (they have fixed it for many over the past few releases, but obviously there are still some systems/configurations where the performance issues persist such as is the case with your system).  I do  hope they are finally able to put all of these performance issues to bed soon and finally get all of them fixed, though I understand why it's difficult given the nature of the Ransomware Protection and how it works by constantly monitoring all process behaviors (unlike the other components which generally just analyze specific aspects/components of files/processes/threads and more specific actions).

8 minutes ago, digmorcrusher said:

In my opinion Emsisoft is one of the best anti-virus products on the market, their behaviour blocker is top notch, as good as protection as you will find anywhere. Superb customer service, no bloat, and they don't collect or sell your data.  And yes exile 360, they use signature-less detection. I would say their PUP policy is not as strict as MB3. Although MB3 and Emsisoft provide protection with different methods if I had to choose only 1 to protect my computer it would be Emsisoft. This is coming from someone who has used both products for years, want to lock down your computer tight, use both.

Yes, I could definitely see the two of them being a solid combination, especially since Emsisoft has those 2 AV engines.  That's a lot of layers when you add all those to the several layers included in Malwarebytes and should make for quite a robust solution.

[digmorcrusher]

3 minutes ago, exile360 said:

I'm sorry, I was really hoping they would have it fixed in the beta.  I will be sure to make the Product team aware that these performance issues with Ransomware Protection have yet to be completely resolved in all cases (they have fixed it for many over the past few releases, but obviously there are still some systems/configurations where the performance issues persist such as is the case with your system).  I do  hope they are finally able to put all of these performance issues to bed soon and finally get all of them fixed, though I understand why it's difficult given the nature of the Ransomware Protection and how it works by constantly monitoring all process behaviors (unlike the other components which generally just analyze specific aspects/components of files/processes/threads and more specific actions).

Yes, I could definitely see the two of them being a solid combination, especially since Emsisoft has those 2 AV engines.  That's a lot of layers when you add all those to the several layers included in Malwarebytes and should make for quite a robust solution.

Absolutely.

[lock]

9 hours ago, digmorcrusher said:

In my opinion Emsisoft is one of the best anti-virus products on the market, their behaviour blocker is top notch, virtually nothing gets by

Yet, Emsisoft has only 99.1% detection rate in March 2018 AV Comparatives.

The free MSE 4.10 did better , with 100%.

[Mark]

I've been having similar problems lately. Premium version on Windows 7 x64 (relatively fast desktop computer). It all started after the last build auto update. First signs were terribly long Windows shutdowns (minutes, when usually 15 seconds), very long user account logouts and, eventually many-many FireFox crashes after stopping to respond.

Just after the MBAM update I also updated the free Panda AV I have (newer build) so I thought this was the problem. I uninstalled it, things seemed better, so I installed the free Kaspersky. Things started to deteriorate soon after. Uninstalled Kaspersky, things were a bit better (I think), then I uninstalled MBAM a few days ago (regular uninstall method), machine was as fast as new again. Re-installed, and things were good for a day, maybe. Today, back to system lagging, FireFox crashing and stopping MBAMService cures it.

Haven't tried disabling Ransomware, will do that now. No other AV installed except Windows Defender.

A little worried because this doesn't seem widespread, so probably not an easy t-shoot.

[Mark]

Ok, too early to tell, but with Ransomware protection Off, things are back to normal. For now anyway. Will update if there are changes.

One thing I should mention, just in case it could be a factor : I do have Macrium Reflect Home version 7 (paid), which has its own ransomware protection scheme built-in, though I have no idea how they go about it but it seems they protect their own backup files, not the system per se. I've had this version for many-many months now, never a problem. So I'm not *that worried* about having MBAM ransomware protection Off, because I'm covered by Reflect (I hope). I use their home version to be able to do incremental backups, which are great, and ransomware protection was just a bonus.

[digmorcrusher]

5 hours ago, lock said:

Yet, Emsisoft has only 99.1% detection rate in March 2018 AV Comparatives.

The free MSE 4.10 did better , with 100%.

These tests mean nothing to me, there are so many variables that can be used in their testing methods. I'll go with my real world results, I haven't been infected using EAM.  Besides 99.1 -100 miniscule difference.

[Mark]

Have been reading a few more topics on this problem. @exile360 : do you think I'd be a good candidate for the Beta ? If so, does it activate with my current licence and will it upgrade to the official 3.5 on its own ? I'll give this time, with ransomware protection disabled, but I have a feeling it won't stay *normal* for very long... Thanks...

Edited May 1, 2018 by Mark
typo edited

[exile360]

2 minutes ago, Mark said:

Have been reading a few more topics on this problem. @exile360 : do you think I'd be a good candidate for the Beta ? If so, does it activate with my current licence and will it upgrade to the official 3.5 on its own ? I'll give this time, with ransomware protection disabled, but I have a feeling it won't stay *normal* for very long... Thanks...

Yep, I think so.  I've been running the beta myself since it first launched and it's been going well so far for me.  And yes, it will activate with your current license and will automatically upgrade to the release version (assuming there are any changes before it comes out of beta, otherwise if it isn't changed, you'll already have the latest with the beta and so won't need to update/upgrade).

If you do decide to try the beta, let us know how it goes and if it helps with the performance issues etc.