Malwarebytes 3.5.1

[David-B]

A few Malwarebytes versions ago, there was a bug that caused programs to load very slowly and explorer to be somewhat sluggish. An update a month or two ago fixed it, but the issues seems to have returned with Malwarebytes 3.5.1. Is anyone else noticing this?

[Malwarebytes]

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[exile360]

Greetings,

Yes, there have been several issues related to the Ransomware Protection component which have caused performance issues.  Most of them should be corrected in the latest release published a few days ago.  To make certain you have the latest version, open Malwarebytes and go to Settings>About and you should see the following information for Malwarebytes version: and Component package version:, but if you do not, then go to Settings>Application and click the Install Application Updates button and the latest should be downloaded and installed:

[David-B]

Hello, and thank you for responding. Unfortunately, I am already up-to-date, but it seems the issue has not gone away. What I do not understand is that the issue seems to persist only on one of my machines. On my other machines, it does not happen, and I know it's Malwarebytes-related because the issue was fixed beforehand and on top of that, closing Malwarebytes completely brings back the snappy performance.

Edited June 9, 2018 by David-B

[exile360]

It's possible that one or more of the components/files wasn't updated properly and may still be an older version resulting in this issue.  In order to documented for the Developers, please do the following:

1. Download and run the Malwarebytes Support Tool
2. Accept the EULA and click Advanced Options on the main page (not Get Started)
3. Click the Gather Logs button, and once it completes, attach the zip file it creates on your desktop to your next reply

Once that's done, go ahead and do the following to see if it corrects the problem:

• Run the Malwarebytes Support Tool once more
• Next, click Advanced Options on the main page (not Get Started)
• Click the Clean button, and allow it to restart your system and then reinstall Malwarebytes, either by allowing the tool to do so when it offers to on restart, or by downloading and installing the latest version from here
  

Once that's done, be sure to reboot your system at least once after the installation is complete, then test to see if the issue is fixed or not.

Please let us know how it goes and please provide the requested logs for the sake of our Developers so that they can troubleshoot the issue further in case it was a problem with the installer.

Thanks

Edited June 9, 2018 by exile360

[David-B]

Okay, I will do this later tomorrow. When I use the "Clean" button and Malwarebytes gets uninstalled, will my settings be retained? I would like to avoid losing them if possible.

[exile360]

It will preserve your license, but your settings will be lost so it would be a good idea to make a note of any customized options you've configured, including exclusions you've set etc.

[David-B]

Okay, I grabbed a log (attached here) and did a clean install afterwards, but the issue persisted.

mbst-grab-results.zip

[exile360]

OK, and if you open Malwarebytes and go to Settings>About what does it show for Component package version:?

[David-B]

The component package version is 1.0.374.

[exile360]

OK, that's the latest, so the issue must still be present.  If you disable Ransomware Protection does that eliminate the issue?

[David-B]

3 minutes ago, exile360 said:

OK, that's the latest, so the issue must still be present.  If you disable Ransomware Protection does that eliminate the issue?

Unfortunately not.

[exile360]

OK, go ahead and re-enable Ransomware Protection then try disabling Malware Protection to perform the same test.  Continue to do so with each protection component until you find one that eliminates the issue when disabled.  If none of them do, then confirm that right-clicking the Malwarebytes tray icon and selecting Quit Malwarebytes does eliminate the problem.

Let me know how it goes and which module is at fault etc.

Thanks

[David-B]

Okay, so I tried disabling each module, and none of them improved it, so I tried exiting completely, and the issue went away again.

[exile360]

Joy, OK, that definitely gives me some ideas.  Two things, first is the fact that, at least the last I heard from the Devs, whenever Malware Protection is disabled it's never truly "turned off", instead it actually just goes into a sort of "allow all" mode so that nothing is detected as a threat.  What this means is that if Malware Protection is the problem, then turning that module off probably won't do anything to help which makes me lean towards that as being the cause.  I will petition them once again to change this, but at this time there is no known workaround short of exiting completely as you did.

Second, while it isn't too likely, it is at least somewhat possible that the issue is that one of the other modules isn't fully terminating as it is supposed to.  In order to test, please do the same test you did before where you disabled each module one by one, but this time instead of just disabling it then testing, reboot the system then perform your test to see if the issue is resolved.  So again, start with Ransomware Protection, turning it off, then rebooting the system, then performing your test to see how performance is.

Please do that one at a time for each module and let me know how it goes.

Thanks

[dcollins]

There is one more module to test as well, that's Self-Protection. This can be found in the same Settings -> Protection, but just down a little bit farther. If you turn that off, does it help your situation at all? Also, can you clarify exactly what's happening? You mention programs are slow to load and explorer is sluggish, but any more details would help helpful

[David-B]

9 hours ago, exile360 said:

Joy, OK, that definitely gives me some ideas.  Two things, first is the fact that, at least the last I heard from the Devs, whenever Malware Protection is disabled it's never truly "turned off", instead it actually just goes into a sort of "allow all" mode so that nothing is detected as a threat.  What this means is that if Malware Protection is the problem, then turning that module off probably won't do anything to help which makes me lean towards that as being the cause.  I will petition them once again to change this, but at this time there is no known workaround short of exiting completely as you did.

Second, while it isn't too likely, it is at least somewhat possible that the issue is that one of the other modules isn't fully terminating as it is supposed to.  In order to test, please do the same test you did before where you disabled each module one by one, but this time instead of just disabling it then testing, reboot the system then perform your test to see if the issue is resolved.  So again, start with Ransomware Protection, turning it off, then rebooting the system, then performing your test to see how performance is.

Please do that one at a time for each module and let me know how it goes.

Thanks

This is rather time-consuming and I haven't had a chance to do this yet. If @dcollins's suggestion does not work, I will try this later.

3 hours ago, dcollins said:

There is one more module to test as well, that's Self-Protection. This can be found in the same Settings -> Protection, but just down a little bit farther. If you turn that off, does it help your situation at all? Also, can you clarify exactly what's happening? You mention programs are slow to load and explorer is sluggish, but any more details would help helpful

When I mentioned that programs were slow to load, I was testing with a program that itself had a bug that caused that that has been resolved by the developers. Sorry about that. The explorer issue on the other hand is a Malwarebytes thing. Turning off the self protection module seems to stop it from happening. When I said that it was "sluggish", I meant that switching between folders and things of that nature took a second or two instead of being snappy like they should be. Anyway, I suppose that I can live without the self protection module until the MBAM team fixes this. Thank you to everyone who provided assistance to me. I know that the issue isn't solved (merely a workaround), but at least the file explorer is speedy again!

[exile360]

I'm the former Product Manager for Malwarebytes and I haven't enabled Self-Protection in over 2 years, that's how confident I am that it isn't needed.  I believe that if any threat is able to get past Malwarebytes, that Self-Protection wouldn't do you any real good and you'd need to resort to other tools like the Malwarebytes Anti-Rootkit Beta etc., but more than that I'm that confident that no threat would get through in the first place thus rendering Self-Protection moot.

I cannot speak for the staff as I'm no longer Product Manager, but I know a lot about the internals of Malwarebytes as well as the methods used by the Research and Dev teams and I am very confident that no major threat will get through as long as you keep Malwarebytes up to date and its protection active (especially Anti-Exploit, Web Protection and Malware Protection as those are by far the most proactive components along with the recently added signature-less anomaly detection engine that uses some serious kung-fu to detect unknown threats).

[newbie]

I was curious, so I disabled self-protection.  Programs do seem to open quicker when it is disabled, particularly Word 2013 which becomes quite snappy.

[box]

I'm posting this here as it sounds like the same issue, please move this to a separate thread if it isn't.

A reproducible sluggishness issue I am getting with MBAM is when navigating Explorer in "Details" view using up and down keyboard arrows. I also find I have to triple-click a folder to open it, otherwise it tries to edit the folder name (I also get the hourglass/circle twice very briefly with the first click).

If I close MBAM the problem goes away. If I disable ALL of the protection options, the problem remains. However if I delete my license key so that the MBM runs in unlicensed mode, the problem goes away. When I add the license back in the problem returns.

Interestingly, if I hide the Explorer ribbon and close/reopen a folder, the problem goes away until I bring back the ribbon.

I'd be interested to hear if OP can reproduce this.

MBAM version 3.5.1.2522, Component Package version 1.0.374, Windows 10 1709 (16299.461)

[exile360]

Greetings,

Did you already try disabling Self-Protection located under Settings>Protection beneath the Startup Options section (it's called Enable self-protection module) to see if that makes any difference when Malwarebytes is in Premium mode?

[box]

Many thanks for the reply, interestingly I was just trying this - (probably the same time you were typing the reply), and yes it does fix the issue. Is this something planned to be fixed in a later release so that the more paranoid among us can have self-protection running again?

[exile360]

Yes, I'm sure that if the Devs can fix the problem then they will.

In the meantime, if you wouldn't mind providing diagnostic logs to help in documenting and replicating the issue that would  be very helpful.  If you are willing, please do the following:

1. Download and run the Malwarebytes Support Tool
2. Accept the EULA and click Advanced Options on the main page (not Get Started)
3. Click the Gather Logs button, and once it completes, attach the zip file it creates on your desktop to your next reply
   

[Max-H]

Wow, what a great "solution" to disable Self-Protection. For many weeks I thought my mouse is broken, although 4 months old. Slow reacting scrolling, had to push harder/twice on the left button. Now with the Self-Protection off, smooth as it should be. As mentioned, Windows explorer reacts faster. ?
Turned it off on my wife's laptop. Also better response now.?

Edited June 10, 2018 by Max-H

[exile360]

Very good, I'm glad that it helped.  If you wouldn't mind providing the same logs I requested above, that could be most helpful to the Dev team and fixing this issue so that you guys no longer need to disable Self-Protection in order to eliminate the performance issues.