This Latest Update Won't Break Everything Again, Will It?

[BrianRubin]

Hey Malwarebytes, I love you guys. Seriously, I'd never own a PC without your software installed on it. However, every time there's an update, the entire thing breaks. I have to stop services, uninstall everything, run that mb-clean program, yadda yadda yadda. It's really annoying.

For the past few days, MWB has been bugging me to install the latest version (I'm on 3.6.1.2711) and I keep telling it no, because every time I update, I have to go through these steps to remove it and reinstall it:

https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/202114-unable-to-connect-the-service/?do=findComment&comment=1132358

Every time.

So I'd like to know, before I tell this dang thing that I'd like to update it, if there's anything I can do to prevent updating your software from also breaking your software?

Thank you for your time. 

[Malwarebytes]

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[exile360]

Greetings,

Unfortunately some systems do seem to experience frequent issues when upgrading Malwarebytes though we don't know why at this point (though it is continually being researched by the Product team and Developers).  So far I've had exactly 0 issues doing in-place upgrades going all the way back to the first 3.0 beta builds, yet at the same time some users, such as yourself, report problems with nearly every release after upgrading.  I can't speculate as to why this happens except to say that each environment is different and it could be a driver issue, permissions issue, some odd conflict with another piece of software on the system somehow interfering with or otherwise disrupting the installer, or it could just be some odd quirk with some other unknown cause but it does seem pretty consistent unfortunately.

That said, you might be able to increase your chances of success if you do a few simple things to prepare for the upgrade before proceeding:

1. First, disable self-protection in Malwarebytes.  This is by far one of the most common causes of past issues with upgrades, and while we do believe they have been fixed, it's always a possibility that the self-protection driver may be a cause of at least some of these issues.  To do this, open Malwarebytes and navigate to Settings>Protection and under Startup Options toggle the Enable self-protection module setting to Off
2. Next, if you are running any other AV/AM software, temporarily disable it before initiating the upgrade install as we have confirmed instances where an AV interrupted a Malwarebytes install, silently blocking/preventing one or more of its files from being written to disk/replaced correctly causing corruption in the Malwarebytes installation, especially for AVs with HIPS capabilities.  Many internet security suites and some standalone AVs include such components these days, and if too aggressive, they can wreak havoc on installers for any software, not just Malwarebytes, though in particular they tend to be sensitive to programs like Malwarebytes which install their own drivers as drivers are also used by the bad guys for things like rootkits in addition to normal hardware drivers and the drivers used by security software like Malwarebytes as well as AVs.
3. Additionally, make certain you're logged into the system as an administrative user.  Since Windows generally prevents limited/standard users from installing or removing software, especially software that contains drivers as Malwarebytes and other AVs do it is important to make sure that permissions don't get in the way of a successful install.
4. And finally, exit Malwarebytes and rather than running the installer when it prompts you to, just download a fresh copy of the latest build from here and go ahead and install it over the top of your existing installation.  While not quite as neat or convenient as installing it through the normal update prompt, it doesn't take much longer and is more likely not to have issues
   

While none of these measures are required, performing one or all of them prior to upgrading to a new version may help prevent issues with the upgrade process.

I hope this helps, and if there is anything else we might assist you with please don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks

[Cavehomme]

I've had no problems for this update nor the last one. Earlier ones were terrible. It might be the version of Win 10 possibly. I delay "feature" updates for 365 days in order to reduce Winsdows compatibility issues, currently running Win 10 Pro 1709. I also use Windows Defender, it now works very smoothly with MWB Pro, unlike earlier v3 versions about a year ago.

[Davidtoo]

Exile, I will say one thing with the caveat that I know Kaspersky is a much larger company with far many more "experts" on its programming staff...but having been using it for years now....I never recall a time when an update caused a problem with my computer.  Once a year I upload the new program, always flawlessly...other than that it updates itself behind the scenes.  Just saying.  Last January the issue with Malwarebytes  is old news now, but caused quite a problem at the time, and then there was a small blip what, a month ago or so on some Win 7 computers?  

There is nothing that hurts Malwarebytes reputation more than defective updates....seems to me Malwarebytes, even if it means a slower updating schedule, should do more testing on various platforms before actually releasing anything...........I still use Malwarebytes as secondary protection and put it on my daughters' macs as primary protection, so I am happy with the program...but I see where the OP is coming from.

[exile360]

Sure, and one of the biggest differences is how Kaspersky handles their public beta program run through their forums, which is constantly ongoing with the latest builds being tested by a wide array of users/systems/OS versions and with their forum mods reporting directly to Kaspersky's product/dev teams.  This enables them to ferret out a lot of the high impact issues before they ever hit regular customers' systems on release (though there have been a few that did, they are few and far between).