Missing try icon / can't start the app manually

[rbialo]

Today I noticed there is no try icon for Malwarebytes app, so I open the installation folder to try to start mbam.exe manually. Nothing happened - no app screen, no error messages, as if I did not start anything. I did try to fix it my self, but no result so here I'm looking for professional diagnose and help. 

What I did when trying to fix it myself: 

 - download and run Malwarebytes Support Tool (mb-support-1.3.1.553.exe) - "Repair" does not work, it gets stuck on second step "Saving settings"

- downloaded and run adwcleaner_7.2.5.0.exe - it found some hola.org related files and removed it, but it did not solved my problem 

- cleaned and reinstalled using Malwarebytes Support Tool - it cleaned ok, but was stuck on installing (like 30 mins or so and still did not finished), so I restarted in Windows in safe mode and installed from there (mb3-setup-consumer-3.6.1.2711-1.0.508-1.0.8211.exe). It did lunched so I restarted in normal mode and... the problem still persist: no try icon and can;t start main app window. 

At this stage I give up and posted here. mbst zip attached, looking for some help.  

 

mbst-grab-results.zip

[Malwarebytes]

***This is an automated reply***

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[dcollins]

Can you please try booting into Safe Mode and seeing if you can open Malwarebytes again. If you can, go to Settings -> Protection and disable Self-Protection. Then reboot back to normal mode and try to open Malwarebytes again.

[rbialo]

Unfortunately still does not work. 

Not sure if it is important but when Windows is in safe mode, Malwarebytes application starts normally, icons shows normally, main windows opens normally but all protection is disabled and I can't turn it on. 

[exile360]

That's normal, protection doesn't function in Safe Mode.  You may also try creating a second administrative user account, uninstalling Malwarebytes temporarily, logging into the second user account you created then reinstalling Malwarebytes from that new user account and testing to see if you are able to launch Malwarebytes from that second user account and restart the system to see if Malwarebytes starts properly from that second user account.

If it does start and work from the second user account then the issue likely has something to do with permissions and/or some kind of profile corruption unique to your original user account on the system.

I bring this up because it is something we've seen happen several times in the past which would also explain why the program launches in Safe Mode.

[rbialo]

Oddly enough, today everything seams to be working. 

 

Yesterday, while trying to fix it in safe mode, I went to save mode a few more times and tried to find some clue as to what can be wrong. From what I remember: 

• I checked the log and found nothing unusual, except that I noticed that scheduled scans were running all the time, even on days when I could not access the application window. So it seams that it could be just window / icon display problem, but all necessary services were running in background for all this time. 
• I played with some other settings, mainly turned on Windows System Try notification on. Usually I disable all pop-up's, but I just wanted to see if it make a difference - yesterday, after forced restart it did not. 
• I disabled a scan for rootkits. I not sure if it was on or off before, but since there was no effect after changing it I left it in disabled state.
• as I was not making any progress, I changed language settings from PL to EN (UK), to make our future communication easy and turn off PC for a night.

Today, when I turn PC on after I was back from work, an icon is in a try, I can click it and it opens application window, generally all seams to be working properly. 

 

I'm kind of skeptical that changing a language could make a difference but  at first glance it looks like that.

If it is of any help to you, here are current support tool logs - maybe you can find something useful by comparing them to previous results. 

 

mbst-grab-results.zip

[exile360]

Excellent, I'm glad it is working properly now.  I think we'll leave the system alone for now as long as it continues to work properly, but please keep an eye on it and let us know if this issue returns or if you have any other problems with the software and we can continue to try and diagnose and fix the problem, but my guess is that there was probably some kind of issue with the settings/configuration files that Malwarebytes uses, and that when you started changing those settings, it somehow fixed it, probably because you inadvertently caused Malwarebytes to rewrite/recreate whatever configuration file/files that was/were corrupt or missing, so now it's working as it should be.