Prevx semi-silent "abnormal" exits/scan aborts

Version 3.0.1.65 intermittently exits. Sometimes silently, others a message box or balloon is displayed. Less frequently, the message says that Prevx had a problem that requires a reboot. There have been occasions when Prevx did not restart automatically.

Scans occasionally abort without any message/explanation. That happened yesterday three times. Each aborted early in the process at the same file: RemoveWGA.exe. It checked out OK with MalwareBytes Anti-malware. A subsequent Prevex scan ran to completion, including that file without reporting infections.

The computer is an HP dv4000 Notebook - p4 1.73Ghz (PAE), 2048MB ram running XP Pro SP3 (all updates applied), Windows Firewall, WinClamAV. AOL 9.0 Security Edition (yuk ). It's a legacy package predating my maintaining the system. It has it's "hooks" (pun intended, but more sad/scary than funny) into everything on the system. It's time to get rid of it.

Prevx seems designed to be a "toaster". Almost invisible to the user. I would vote for more diagnostic information in some form. If other software is interfering with its operation it should be possible to diagnose and resolve the conflict.

I'm happy that Prevx is expanding the scope of its highly effective, unobtrusive scanning technology covering additional threat/vulnerabilities. It might be possible to eliminate one or more scanning engines.

david

 

I've just completed a series of scans. As suggested in a prior post I'm using Prevx 3.0.5.64. 2 of 9 scans reported normal completion, 7 reported that the scan was aborted. Log files for the last 5 scans (only 5 fields on the upload popup ) are attached.

There may not be a problem other than, IMO, scans reported as aborted that may have completed successfully, but not quite normally. Observed behavior could result from files scanned being determined by heuristics.

Prevx appears to function normally after aborted scans. System status is "Protected".

"Aborted" scans start from the Status tab "Scan My PC Now" button produced a log file listing the same 9 files. Scans started from the "Advanced Scan" panel using each option all reported "aborted" except when the last directory in the list of nine files was selected. That scan did not display aborted, but the log file was identical listing, in the same order, the same nine files. Files actually scanned (displayed during scan) varied with option selected.

The system was rebooted, then scanned. It completed without reporting "aborted" producing a much larger log (prevx09.log - attached).

If scanning is terminated by a rule analogous to a "cut" heuristic IMO "aborted" is misleading. If scans are initiated using different advanced options IMO it should be reflected/recorded in the log file. If that is already the case I may have missed it. If not it isn't possible to know if the contents are the result of the last scan or somehow a duplicate of an earlier one.

Additional log files, annotations and/or other information can be provide upon request.

Please let me know if I missed something or just generally confused.

david

 

Hello,
Could you please try sending the scan log to report@prevxresearch.com? It looks as though the files weren't uploaded, and I'm not quite sure what the cause would be of the aborted scans so I'd definitely be interested in taking a closer look.

Thanks!

 

I'm returning the computer to Kris (owner) in a few minutes. I don't have email setup on this machine so I've attached .7z archive containing all scan 9 logs. (Sorry, if it's inconvenient or worse unusable. I don't have much time now.) If it doesn't get uploaded again it will be emailed. The archive is named prevx7z.log. I had to use the log extension for the forum upload.

I'll coordinate/work with Kris if further info/testing is needed.

david

 

Thank you for the logs I've made some modifications to our database - you may want to have Kris uninstall and reinstall the newest test version again, but it should now be scanning quicker and without the aborting issue.

Let me know if anything re-occurs and I'll investigate further!