GUI crashing

[Pilo]

Hi, I don't know when it actually started, but today I tried opening Malwarebytes after a long time to execute a scan and I found out that the GUI always crashes with a generic "Malwarebytes has stopped working" message. I even tried reinstalling the latest version, but to no avail.

The context menu of the system tray icon displays that all protections are ON though so I believe it's just a matter of the GUI.

I already performed a scan with the support tool in case it can be of help, logs are attached.

Thanks

mbst-grab-results.zip

[Malwarebytes]

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[exile360]

Greetings,

It is possible that this issue is being caused by a conflict with AVG which your logs show that you have installed.  Please try entering exclusions between the two products for one another to see if that helps.  The list of items to exclude in AVG for Malwarebytes can be found in this support article and the procedure you'll need for excluding items in Malwarebytes can be found under the Exclude a File or Folder section of this support article (you should exclude the main program folder for AVG, likely located under either C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) as well as any AVG data folder located under C:\ProgramData and/or C:\Users\<user name>\Application Data along with any AVG drivers that might be located under C:\Windows\System32\drivers which you can locate using a tool such as Microsoft Sysinternals Autoruns by looking under the Drivers tab).

Once that's done, please test to see if the issue is resolved.  If it is not, then please try temporarily disabling AVG to see if that makes any difference.  If it does, then please try re-enabling each component of AVG's protection until you isolate the specific module causing the issue and make a note of which component seems to be causing the problem.

Please let us know how it goes and whether or not the exclusions resolved the problem.

Thanks

[Pilo]

Thanks; I have tried adding the files to the exclusions list but to no avail. Even shutting down AVG didn't help.

In the end I had a look at Windows' event logs and I found that it's actually an issue with the QT libraries (all crashes report the same info)

Faulting application name: mbam.exe, version: 3.1.0.1662, time stamp: 0x5c070ab0
Faulting module name: Qt5Gui.dll, version: 5.11.1.0, time stamp: 0x5bd23319
Exception code: 0xc00000fd
Fault offset: 0x002dce89
Faulting process id: 0x3528
Faulting application start time: 0x01d4b9f6150253f1
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes\Anti-Malware\mbam.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes\Anti-Malware\Qt5Gui.dll
Report Id: 609b4d6d-e06f-4793-b89c-d4a8846c0b74
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID: 

Anything else I can try to do/check?

Thanks

[exile360]

OK, lets try a clean install and see if re-registering all those QT runtime files helps things to become more stable:

1. Download and run the Malwarebytes Support Tool
2. Accept the EULA and click Advanced tab on the left (not Start Repair)
3. 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, test it out for a while and let us know how it goes, but hopefully that will resolve the problems.  If not then we'll proceed with further troubleshooting.

[Pilo]

Same as before, as soon as it's been reinstalled and tries to open the UI for the first time, it crashes with the same event log.

[Pilo]

Forgot to attach the log file, if it can help

mbst-clean-results.txt

[exile360]

Thanks, it looks like it installed OK so there is one more thing to try, and that's uninstalling AVG temporarily using their uninstall tool found here.  I know you already tried disabling it, but sometimes programs will leave components like drivers and DLLs loaded into memory which can't even be seen with tools like Task Manager, and that could be what's causing the issue and I'd like to eliminate it completely as a variable if possible.

If that doesn't help and Malwarebytes is still crashing, then please do the following:

Create Process Memory Dump using Windows Task Manager on Windows Vista/7/8/8.1/10:

• Open Task Manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc on your keyboard
• Click Show processes from all users at the bottom to enable that option and click Yes if prompted by User Account Control
• Click on the Image Name column near the top to sort the list of running processes by name
• Replicate the crash
• Locate the mbam.exe process and right-click on it, selecting Create Dump File
• Wait a moment while Windows creates the dump file
• Once it completes it will inform you of the name and location of the dump file (typically C:\Users\Your user name\AppData\Local\Temp\MBAMService.dmp
• Navigate to this location and right-click on the mbam.dmp file and choose Cut
• Right-click on your desktop or some other convenient location where you'd like to place the file and choose Paste
• Right-click on the mbam.dmp file you just moved and hover your mouse over Send to and choose Compressed (zipped) folder
• Attach the mbam.zip file you just created to your next post or if it is too large, upload it to a file sharing service such as WeTransfer and provide the download link for the file in your next reply

Please let me know how it goes, and if necessary, provide the crash dump file.

Once that's done you can go ahead and reinstall AVG.  You can find the latest version here (if you aren't running the free version you can get the paid version by hovering your mouse over the PC menu at the top and selecting it from there and it should take you to the appropriate page).

Edited February 1, 2019 by exile360

[Pilo]

Thanks again for the help. Unfortunately even uninstalling AVG solved the situation. I put the dump file here.

 

[exile360]

OK, please try booting into Safe Mode (instructions on doing so can be found here) and try launching Malwarebytes there to see if the UI opens or if it still crashes and let me know how it goes.

Thanks

[Pilo]

In this case, I get the icon on the taskbar for a couple of seconds, and then it closes itself. No errors though

[exile360]

OK, thanks.  That definitely reduces the chances that it's something related to another program on the system since it isn't working correctly in Safe Mode either.

There's at least one more thing we can try here.  Please perform a clean uninstall of Malwarebytes again as instructed here but once it is removed, don't reinstall it yet (click no when the support tool offers to download/install it for you after restarting the system).  Next, create a new administrative user account (instructions on doing so may be found here) and once that's done, restart your system and log into the new account you just created then download and install the latest version of Malwarebytes from that account and test to see if Malwarebytes works properly under the new user account.

Please let me know how it goes and if the program still crashes or not.

Thanks

[Pilo]

Did all that, still the same outcome: tray icon shows everything is ON and application crashes with error coming from Qt5gui.dll

[exile360]

OK, thanks.  I guess there's just something going on with QT on your system causing it to be unstable.  I'll ask one of the Support team members to take a look at your logs and crash dump and hopefully they can provide some additional insight.

@LiquidTension can you take a look when you get a chance please?  We've got a memory dump of the crashing process here and logs are attached above as well.

Hopefully he'll be able to help figure out what's going on with it and find a fix.  I'm sorry I wasn't able to resolve it, but hopefully that memory dump will provide the info they need to figure out the issue.

[Pilo]

No worries, I'm also starting to see some weird behaviour all across the board so I'm pondering the idea of giving my system a good cleanup - last format was 7+ years ago, and the system went through a windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 update path, multiple hardware changes and relative drivers.. I'm kind of amazed it lasted this long

If a fix can't be found, I'll take it as the universe telling me the time has come

[exile360]

Oh wow, yeah that's quite a while and a lot of changes.  I could definitely see there being issues with the system after all that.  It probably is some obscure system file or registry value that's messed up somewhere just from all that the system's been through.  I do wish we could have solved the problem, but given the state of the OS it really could be anything and this isn't an issue we see very often.

Anyway, please keep us updated on how things go and what you decide to do, and if there is anything else we can help with please don't hesitate to let us know.  Either way I'm hopeful that the logs and crash dump will provide some useful info for the Devs because even if it is due to an issue specific to your system, it might be something they could be able to address in a future release to prevent it from happening to anyone else and to make Malwarebytes that much more stable.

[LiquidTension]

@Pilo Thank you for the information.

Whilst we investigate the issue, please over-the-top install the 3.7 beta version. Use the following link to download the installer: https://malwarebytes.box.com/s/f2cr95aia1vf5vdykfusd49f1ooomgjb

Please let us know if mbam.exe still crashes when attempting to launch the user interface.

[Pilo]

Thanks, did that, same results (didn't format yet)

Faulting application name: mbam.exe, version: 3.1.0.1723, time stamp: 0x5c4a3645
Faulting module name: Qt5Gui.dll, version: 5.11.1.0, time stamp: 0x5bfee3ee
Exception code: 0xc00000fd
Fault offset: 0x002dce89
Faulting process id: 0xe20
Faulting application start time: 0x01d4bcb490299f77
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes\Anti-Malware\mbam.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes\Anti-Malware\Qt5Gui.dll
Report Id: 9eca18eb-f6b1-4e47-8031-af4570427a5d
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 

 

[Pilo]

Good news! I tried following the solution posted here and it worked! I just repaired everything and now the GUI opens properly. Hopefully this fixed other issues as well and it saved me a system restore for a while

[exile360]

Oh wow, really?  That's great news !

Thanks for letting us know.  I kinda wish we knew which specific fix did the trick, but that's OK, fixed is fixed and at least you didn't end up having to do anything as drastic as reinstalling Windows to correct the problem.

[LiquidTension]

18 hours ago, Pilo said:

Good news! I tried following the solution posted here and it worked! I just repaired everything and now the GUI opens properly. Hopefully this fixed other issues as well and it saved me a system restore for a while

Thanks for the update!

Do you have the logs created by Windows Repair All-In-One? They should be in a folder named "Logs" located either in the extracted folder (if you ran the portable version) or %programdata%\Tweaking.com\Windows Repair (All in One)\Logs (if you used the installed version).

[Pilo]

Sure, there you go

04.02.2019_19.18.09.zip

[LiquidTension]

Thanks a lot!