System lock ups since NOD32 v 5 installed

Did an upgrade install of NOD32 v5 5.0.93.0 over version 4 on a Win7 x64 laptop. Ever since I have multiple lock ups of the laptop where I go to use it and all of the programs are unresponsive. The last time occurred tonight where all applications locked up 20 mins before I noticed it. NOD32 showed that it was trying to do an update and its progress bar was just sitting at 0.

Trying to bring up taskmanager caused a window saying MS Windows has become unresponsive do you want to close this program. That caused all of the apps to disappear along with the desktop icons. I had to do a hard power off to get Windows restarted.

 

NOD32 v5 5.0.93.0 CLEAN Install 5 days ago, Windows 7 64bit Toshiba Laptop. All good until this mornings boot..........Lockup and windows unresponsive. Hit 'end program' twice waited a few seconds and windows booted without further shutdown or restart. Have subsequently restarted and all appears fine. This did not happen on Wife's 32 bit Windows 7 Acer Netbook.

 

What was really weird that I have seen Win7 saying that for example Explorer was unresponsive and simply close close explorer causing Windows to restart it and in turn the desktop icons, this time it actually indicated that Windows itself was unresponsive! Trying to terminate itself caused the hard lockup where there was no desktop or icons. This has happened twice over the past week since Nod32 v5 x64 has been installed on this box.

This machine is being hibernated rather than being powered off at night. Any known problems with hibernation and Nod32 v5?

 

Hello,

I am not aware of any issues with ESET NOD32 Antivirus v5 and hibernation, but to help rule it out as a possibility, could you try shutting the down the computer instead of hibernating for a few days and see if that makes any difference?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

 

I tried shutting down the laptop every time and did not use hibernation for a while and seemed to behave. I also seem to behaving itself when I went back to using hibernation.

So I upgraded my desktop computer to Nod32 v5.0.93 and within 3 or 4 days it too exhibited the same problem. I went to use it and started VLC and wham. All of the computer was totally unresponsive. Moving my mouse over the task bar gave me a double headed arrow. Pressing Al-Clt-Del brought up a screen saying that task manger could not be displayed. Like the laptop I had to reboot the computer this time via the reset button. The other thing in common is that both of these computers have software firewall OnlineArmor 5.1.0.1331 installed.

 

I just upgraded 3 machines to v5 from v4: 2 XP Pro (32-bit) and 1 Win7 (64-bit). While performing my weekly backups with a Toshiba Canvio 1 TB USB HD (my NAS just died) I quickly discovered the following: the XP machines IMMEDIATELY locked-up when the drive was connected. Disconnecting the drive did nothing -- a reboot was required. The Win7 machine works fine. This behavior started immediately after upgrading to v5 -- all 3 machines were upgraded over v4, and this was the only system configuration change when the problem started. I just received a reply from ESET tech support asking me to try rolling back to v4, which I would prefer to not do. I tried disabling the scanning of removable media, with no change. I'm not sure what's going on here, but it definitely has something to do with the AV upgrade. I forgot to mention that this does NOT occur when I use a Patriot 32 GB USB flash drive, but it does happen when using a custom built Antec external HD enclosure. Disproves my idea about it being related to USB 3.0 (Canvio).

 

are all of your drivers up to date?

--Sam

 

this suggests that vnc is the problem.

 

VNC is the problem? How did you arrive at that conclusion?

 

Hello,

Could you try enabling pre-release updates on one of the affected PCs, performing an update, and then manually performing a weekly backup operation of that PC?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

 

Who was this directed to me or roadierider

 

Hello,

For RoadieRider, actually, but I would be interested in your results as well.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

 

Hi,

This might not help but thought I should mention something as I think OnlineArmor is firewall with HIPS.

I had a similar problem with Outpost (HIPS) firewall with NOD32 v5, causing lockups, sometimes unable to boot into Win7 x64 or shutdown properly, unresponsive, and general instability issues. I managed to resolve problem by disabling HIPS in NOD32 v5 and rebooting. Now system is 100% stable, responsive and quick. Only seems to happen with Win7 OS as the same firewall + NOD32 v5 combo working fine on XP and vita with HIPS enabled on NOD32.

My problem was a HIPS conflict between firewall and NOD32 when running WIN7 (as discussed on another thread somewhere in this forum)

Maybe this helps or maybe not. Either way, best of luck in resolving your issue.

 

OK -- I'll give it a try when I have some time in a day or so. Thanks for the reply. I was going to try rolling back to v4 to see if the problem resolved.

 

I tried enabling pre-release updates to no avail -- continues to lock-up when external USB 2.0/3.0 hard drives are connected. Also tried disabling HIPS -- no improvement. Rolled-back to v4.0 -- no problems whatsoever. I am running my backups on my other box as I write this. Let me know if there is any other info that would help.

 

We would appreciate if you could reproduce the issue and supply us with a complete memory dump created manually at the moment of a system lockup as per the instructions here. The dump should shed more light and probably reveal the cause of lockups.

 

I"m convinced it has something to do with checking for the existence of external drives (whether to be scanned or not), at least in Windows XP. If it's working okay in Win 7, then it's an XP and Version 5 problem.

Try connecting the external USB drive when the system is shut down, start the system up and let the BIOS recognize the drive. It may work fine that way, but only when you connect the drive in that manner.

 

Try connecting the USB drive before turning on the XP system and see what happens. I suspect that it has to do with the system recognizing the drive before Eset services load. I don't know why this would happen with XP and not with Win 7, but if it is consistent, then it is an XP problem. The behavior with USB stick (thumb) drives is okay, so this is something about these drives that have to spin up.

Sorry about the semi-duplicate report. Firefox 7 crashed during the first post and did not recover immediately.

 

That's an interesting idea -- I'll give it a try later when I have a little time. I rolled back my main box to v4, but I haven't worked on my wife's laptop yet. I'll reproduce the problem, get a memory dump, then try your suggestion. I'll need to roll back her machine to v4 so I can run my backups until the problem is resolved. More info later.

 

OK, here's the scoop:

Unfortunately there are no memory dump files that were generated -- I guess the kernel didn't crash, just the front end GUI. However, I did try rcdailey's suggestion, which yielded interesting results. Connecting the USB HD after boot results in the OS becoming unresponsive EVERY time this is attempted. However, connecting the HD prior to boot results in the computer operating normally, with the USB drive fully accessible from the file system. Sorry I don't have any technical data for you, but I hope this information helps. BTW, the OS is completely up-to-date with SPs. The two machines that exhibited this behavior were running WinXP Pro and WinXP Media Center edition, respectively. No other USB-related issues, no hardware issues, no driver issues. Both machines are well maintained on a weekly basis (backups, malware scan, virus scan, HD defrag, file system + registry cleanup).

 

Hello,

Just to verify, you followed the instructions in ESET Knowledgebase Article #380, "Generating a memory dump file" and a memory dump file could not be generated?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

 

I've replicated it in a VM, I'll be converting a snapshot to a memory dump and upload it ASAP.

 

If you open the main setup, navigate to Computer -> Removable media and uncheck the "Action to take after inserting removable media" check box, does it make a difference?

 

I tried that on my system, and it did not make any difference with regard to system unresponsiveness when a USB hard drive is attached after the system is up and running.

 

Was using 5.0.94 for a while and today the box locked up tightly requiring me to reboot the box.