MBAM Real-Time Protection Issue?

[m3equals333]

Hi - I am running MBAM pro and noticed a couple of oddities that I hope are not related to malware or a defective MBAM.

If I have protection enabled and totally exit the program (so the icon from my tray disappears), when I open it back up the real-time protection is disabled. After I enable the protection, the checkbox turns gray and I can't disable it anymore, although I can disable it from right clicking on the system tray MBAM icon. When I disable real-time protection from the system tray and click the "OK" message (that just confirms I want to disable protection), and I open up MBAM to the protection tab, the checkbox is still grayed out and protection seems to be still enabled (even though if I right click the system tray icon, the real-time protection is still unchecked, indicating protection should be off). Seems like there is a disconnect between the system tray icon and the program's GUI.

Another issue - when I right click the system tray MBAM icon and I uncheck website blocking, it takes about 3 minutes before I can check it again (if I try to re-enable it the moment after I disable the website blocking, it has no effect...it stays unchecked). This may be due to normal system lag, but just want to confirm this is the case and not malware and/or system malfunction related. Also, after I disable website protection, isn't one of the options under the "Protection" tab related to website blocking also uncheck or is that option unrelated?

Thanks for your help, just a couple issues I wanted to address and make sure my program is running ok.

[m3equals333]

Sorry, not sure how to edit my original post. I actually have one more question....I am also running MSE w/ real-time protection, SuperAntiSpyware (with real-time protection turned off), and Windows 7 (64bit) firewall. I saw in another post that I should have specific exclusions when running the MBAM real-time protection with MSE protection, would greatly appreciate if you can share those exclusions, thanks!

[exile360]

Greetings and welcome

The behaviors you describe are normal. When you exit the tray, that is when the checkbox in the Protection tab of Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware will be unchecked, and once it is enabled again, it cannot be unchecked through the user interface of the scanner, but you can exit it by using the Exit option in the tray menu.

For the Website Blocking module, this too is normal. There is a delay in enabling or disabling the Website Blocking mechanism on Windows Vista and Windows 7 due to the nature of the network stack in newer Windows versions, that means that after a database update (when the IP block database is refreshed), when an item is added to or removed from the Ignore List (including IP addresses), and when you disable the Website Blocking mechanism, there will be a delay of 30 seconds or more while it refreshes its database.

As for exclusions, it is a good idea to set them. For Microsoft Security Essentials, please see Section I of our FAQ, it provides detailed instructions on how to set exclusions for Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware in Microsoft Security Essentials as well as how to set exclusions for Microsoft Security Essentials in Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, which has been shown to sometimes improve system responsiveness and performance as well as potentially improve the startup time of your computer.

[m3equals333]

great news, thanks!

[exile360]

I'm glad to be of service, if you need anything else please let us know.

Thanks

[m3equals333]

hi -I have one quick question regarding the MSE & MBAM real-time protection exceptions setup.

Pls see below steps from your link to reconfigure MBAM to work with MSE. My questions is, there is a "Microsoft Security Client" folder in both the C:\Program Files and C:\Program Files(x86) locations. Should I include both loctions or one one of them...thanks!

Open Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and click on the Ignore List tab

Click the Add button on the lower left

In the small browse window that opens, navigate to C:\Program Files and click once on Microsoft Security Client and click OK

Close Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

[exile360]

Only the one under C:\Program Files is necessary, the other one only contains a few DLL files, no executables (exe's).