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Problems running Firefox with MWBAE


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I had big problems with Firefox this morning - it loaded but simply would not function at all. I spent hours trying to fix the problem but not a even a system restore made any difference. Chrome worked OK but not FF. Then for some reason (i'm by no means expert on computers) it occurred to me to disable Anti-Exploit. Like magic the problem resolved itself.

I have since found that if i deactivating Firefox in 'Shields' also solves the problem, although i am not sure if that makes Firefox vulnerable? I came to this forum to ask for guidance and noticed that there has been a very recent upgrade to MWBAE (and i appear to be running 1.13.1.415) so i am of course suspicious that this has caused the problem.

I don't know if it's connected, but i then remembered that on a different PC the other day - under MWB 4.2.1 -  i had to add firefox.exe to my allow list in order for it to function correctly.

I'm a little confused and would very much welcome any comments. Thanks.

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Hi Arthi

Thanks. I assume this is a better solution than deactivating Firefox in 'shields'?

Would you recommend that i reactivate Firefox in 'shields' when i have unchecked the 'detect penetration testing attacks' setting?

Was i correct in assuming this was to do with the MWBAE update?

Any comment on the MWB 4.2.1 event that i mentioned?

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I suggest you roll this back if possible until you get the kinks worked out.    There is more to this story.

 

The suggested fix does not work for all these affected browsers so something else is going on in the new implementation.

It took down WaterFox , FireFox and Comodo Dragon browsers and the effect was beyond belief destroying profiles for each (mainly persistent sessions) while making the browsers do the oddest things I've ever seen.

First inkling of problems was Comodo Dragon would launch then shut down immediately.

FireFox was running during the silent update and all tabs became gray, new tabs would not work the browser colors all disappeared, tab icons disappeared. 

WaterFox would not launch, same as Dragon

Strangely several Chromium variants, IE, Edge all worked and were not affected at all.

So there had to be a common basis to the problem so began looking for this. But where? I went on a quest but the very odd damage and behavior  really didn't readily indicate any common denominator. 

Rolled back the most recent changes to the system despite them being more than 10 days old just in case. Ran through and restored a recovery point.

Reinstalled FireFox (clean with folder deleted) several times. The profile was already corrupted but had  multiple profiles enabled  so made a new one it exhibited the same incredibly messed up behavior. A Real head scratcher.   I considered that some bad plugins may have mysteriously updated at the same time (unlikely) but there was no common denominator.

Clean reinstall of Dragon along with new profile - no help it did launch but then wouldn't launch again after that. When it did launch behavior was similar to FireFox - no ability to load a page or surf.

Why Chromium variants were not affected but Comodo Dragon (another chromium variant) was?

I still don't know

ran several sfc scans and dism and everything was kosher

ran several antivirals including malwarebytes  and all were negative (nothing else looked like a virus  but in an abundance of caution  I ran them)

Ran Hijack this - nothing stood out

I even tried installing the latest VC redist just in case it might be a common denominator 

Had to throw in the towel after more than 6 hours of no progress....

When I got back at trying to crack this problem later  I began, once again, going through recently installed software to see if there was something that might account for this and low and behold MBAE had set an update last night. 

I disabled it and Firefox showed some signs of life ...some of the tabs that had remained visible but not functional could now load pages but they were colorless and grayed out even the text for the tab name was an off color from the norm

Fortunately I had a backup that had the affected damaged profiles that was recent enough and I was able to repair all the damage sufficiently. 

Love MBAE and the team here - I have been running it for many years since you first rolled it out without significant issues of any sort and kept it going despite it being integrated in MBAM but there are more issues here than your initial response indicated and I just wanted to let you know. 

Hopefully an updated release will be posted here - I will have to leave MBAE disabled for the time being. 

Best Regards to everyone!

 

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15 hours ago, Porthos said:

MB 4.2.1 is way out of date. Current version is 4.4.8.

 

Thanks for this. I had 'notify' checked in settings but no notification of updates from MWB. Anyway, i've done the update now.

Any comments of the substantive incident with MWB 4.2.1 that i mentioned?

I'm not sure how to roll back MWBAE. I've left Firefox deactivated in 'shields' and unchecked the 'detect penetration testing attacks' setting as advised. A sort of 'belt and braces' i guess? If i get any more peculiar browser behaviour i'll uninstall MWBAE.

I didn't know about Firefox ESR. I must admit i hate this constant updating as it usually produces a problem with something, so i may go down that route.

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  • Root Admin

I cannot offer advice on using, keeping products out of date. That is a choice you need make and typically users that make such a choice do need to pay closer attention than those that keep their software up to date.

I would highly recommend though that if you wish to use outdated software in an effort to try and avoid potential issues that new software builds might bring then make a good, solid image backup of your system as the risk of an attack is greatly increased on older versions of Windows and software in general.

Backup Software
https://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?/topic/136226-backup-software

 

 

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