NOD 32 5.0.93.0 & 5.0.94.0:PC freezes when USB HD is connected

Discussion in 'ESET NOD32 Antivirus' started by DD2012, Oct 7, 2011.

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  1. goffredo

    goffredo Registered Member

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    Just a follow-up to my own 'solution' above -- turns out there is still a problem with NOD32, because my machine still freezes up on boot. How did I discover this, you may ask? Well, I sat down to use my WinXP box just now and Windows Explorer was frozen up so badly that I couldn't get to the task manager (exactly the same symptoms as the start-up freeze). This is a new issue that I have not yet experienced; previously my freeze-ups were only when (re)booting so it was tolerable. So I had to cycle the power to reboot it. And when my desktop came back up, it was frozen!

    Probably if I reboot a few times, it will fix it. The start-up freeze seems to be intermittent, maybe a timing issue. Unfortunately, I need my computer to work, so I'm going to ask support if they have a last-known "good" version of ESET that does NOT exhibit this freeze-up issue (4.x?) that I can down-grade to. And if not, or if they give me the run-around, I have no choice but to demand my money back for my 3-license renewal (or dispute the charge on my credit charge if it comes to that) and start trying out some other antivirus packages that don't prevent me from using my computer. Which is really too bad because I like NOD32 and have been using it for 4 or 5 years.

    Hope others are having better luck with this. If you've found an older version that doesn't exhibit this issue, or you've moved on to another antivirus package, I'd love to hear your input.
     
  2. wolliballa

    wolliballa Registered Member

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    On my machine 4.2.71 showed no problems.
    Up to now, I never had boot-up issues, as long as it works, I do connect USB-Drives before I power on, which is a live-with work-around for me.
     
  3. jaeger

    jaeger Registered Member

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    This problem is so f'ing irritating.

    I've tried 5.0.95.... no go.

    I've even now backed out to 4+..... no go.

    I've tried a different controller card..... (USB instead of eSATA).

    no go.

    Very very very close to completely giving up on ESET.

    This is completely ridiculous.

    (yes, I'm sure it's ESET..... if I completely disable it, everything works just fine).
     
  4. kjz

    kjz Registered Member

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    My tests with version 5.0.95:

    1 older computer, WinXPSP3:

    USB-Stick: o.k.

    1.8" USB-HDD: o.k.

    2.5" USB-HDD: o.k.

    1 newer computer, WinXPSP3:

    USB-Stick: o.k.

    1.8" USB-HDD: o.k.

    2.5" USB-HDD: freeze

    So I roll back on the newer machine to 4.2.71.2: all USB drives are working again with no freezes. It seems that version 5.0.95 only partially solved the USB problem. Performance with version 5 installed was on both machines as fast (or slow) as with version 4 so this seems to be o.k. also.

    One question: has the codebase for the integration of the USB driver totally changed in version 5 or why can Eset not roll back to the (USB) codebase as in version 4?
     
  5. Jito463

    Jito463 Registered Member

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    I see there hasn't been any further movement by Eset to correct this problem. Just to correct something that kjz said, though, I don't believe this is a USB issue. My customer's PC locked up after reconnecting his second internal HDD. And occasionally, I still get lockups on my virus scanning PC with XP Pro x64; even though I turned off scanning of removable media. Though, I may have discovered something. It last happened when I hooked up an HDD with XP on it, but it didn't lock up when I plugged in an HDD with Vista on it. So maybe it has something to do with the version of NTFS used in XP, but not triggered by the version used in Vista and 7. I could be off base here, but it's worth investigating.
     
  6. goffredo

    goffredo Registered Member

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    There are multiple issues at play here. The issue I experienced was most certainly because I had an external USB HDD attached to my computer.

    I asked ESET NOD32 support to send me the most recent version of 4.x; I received a download link for 4.2.71.2, and then did a manual uninstall of 5.whatever, rebooted, and installed the 4.2.71.2 version. I am no longer experiencing the issue.

    It is a bitter pill to swallow, however, having paid to upgrade my 3-seat license for another year and having to use an older version of the application because of a technical issue that ESET is not willing or able to address. I've been using NOD32 for many years, and I seem to remember the support as being decent when I had minor issues here and there. But with this major issue failing to be resolved let alone acknowledged by ESET has me wanting to move on to a different company that provides timely and useful support for their customers. It's really too bad because NOD32 worked so well for me and my home office machines.
     
  7. wolliballa

    wolliballa Registered Member

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    Sure I understand your issues, but especially this one appears hard to fix: Only talking about XP SP3 ( which I have 5 under control ) I do only experience reproducible problems with one of them.
    So I personally am patient ( by knowing how to overcome the situation ( connect drive during boot)), I am pretty shure, this problem will go away in one of the next releases.
     
  8. Marcos

    Marcos Eset Staff Account

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    Unfortunately, this issue wasn't reported during the beta testing phase when dozens of thousands users installed it on their machines. Version 5 of EAV/ESS is not mature yet, it's been released in Q4 2011. Unlike previous versions 3 or 4, version 5 has been release as most stable with least bugs discovered after the release. It is a matter of fact that every new version of any software introduces some hidden bugs that are revealed only after masses of users have installed it.
    As for the issue with computers locking up after attaching a USB disk on Windows XP, there is a fix available. If you're interested in installing it, PM me and I'll provide you with further instructions.
     
  9. jngreen

    jngreen Registered Member

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    I'd like to install the fix Marcos, but "The private messaging system is currently unavailable."
     
  10. Marcos

    Marcos Eset Staff Account

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    Ok, I'll send you more information momentarily. The PM system doesn't work for you because of your status "Infrequent Poster" but it will become activated once I PM you.
     
  11. wolliballa

    wolliballa Registered Member

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    @Marcos:
    Pls. send PM with information, if there is anything new. All tweaks/ updates provided by my local (german) ESET-Support have not cleared the situation on that particular machine ( incl. replacement of special files ) ( various dumps etc. are with them).
    Would be nice to cross check.
     
  12. kan

    kan Registered Member

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    Why this information and solution is not available open wide? Not to talk about permanent fix of AV. There are a few revision of version 5.
    I've been struggling with this issue for months. It is very annoying and frustrating when I have to restart my computer to connect HDD drive.
    Please, send me the fix as well.
     
  13. wolliballa

    wolliballa Registered Member

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    Thanks to Marcos.
    Having had a 4 days private discussion we reinvestigated old dumps previously sent to ESET and latest findings. An hour ago he came back with a finding : check for presence of incdfs.sys (typically in %windir%/system32/drivers) beeing part of a Nero CD burning suite.
    In my case file was present ( 5.9.10.0 as part of Nero 8 ). Just renaming it and restarting the system cured the problem.

    As a final decision I deinstalled Nero 8 completely as I typically use CDBurnerXPPro and reinstalled latest version of InCD (no longer integral part of Nero 9 / 10 as separate application from http://www.nero.com/deu/support-nero10-tools-utilities.html (other languages available). I need InCD to write/read R/W CDs and DVDs like floppies.

    incdfs.sys now has version 6.6.5.100 and appears to no longer interfere with NOD32 and USB connected harddrives.

    Would be nice to see whether others can confirm my and Marcos findings.
     
  14. kjz

    kjz Registered Member

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    I've not tested it yet, but on both PCs where I had problems with NOD 32 V5 and external USB-HDDs INCD (in an older version) is installed. So I'll uninstall INCD first and then installing NOD32 V5 for a new test.
     
  15. MaesyB

    MaesyB Registered Member

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    No evidence of incdfs.sys on my system - I did have Nero 9 which I've uninstalled. However the problem still persists. Folder Lock and Truecrypt both freeze up, connecting my Zalman USB HDD/CD drive freezes etc etc. Any suggestions?
     
  16. GreenWhite

    GreenWhite Registered Member

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    Not a hint of nero or incdfs.sys ever on my pc.
     
  17. rif

    rif Registered Member

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    No incdfs.sys and used never Nero.
     
  18. Phonemes

    Phonemes Registered Member

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    Same here.
     
  19. kjz

    kjz Registered Member

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    Now I made some testing. On my PC INCD (Ahead) was installed but I've deinstalled this program several months ago. The newer versions of this program are too bloated and DVDs written with INCD could not be read on some other machines. I switched to meiudf.sys, a driver from Matsushita for packet writing with the UDF file system on DVD-RAMs. This driver (+ program for formatting the media) is much leaner software and more compatible with other machines. Also installed on my PCs is an NDAS driver from Ximeta for attaching network HDDs.

    Now I've tested the new versions of ekrn.exe and ekrnAmon.dll: until now no freezes when connecting external USB drives, so the 'USB Bug' seems to be gone with these new versions.

    Only some (less important) events: one crash of Firefox and one crash of Thunderbird. Also I had one time the popup window 'User rule file contains invalid data'. But until now no other errors.
     
  20. mouser

    mouser Registered Member

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    Unfortunately I've tried the new versions of ekrn.exe and ekrnAmon.dll and the behavior is the same, windows hangs almost immediately after turning on the external usb drive (Windows xp x64).

    I'll note that I do have Nero installed for what that's worth.
     
  21. wolliballa

    wolliballa Registered Member

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    Have you tried to replace InCD (integral part of Nero 8 and below) with the current version (see above)? This indeed cured MY problem.
     
  22. Marcos

    Marcos Eset Staff Account

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    If the fix did not resolve the issue for you, please generate a complete memory dump at the moment of a system feeze / lockup as per the instructions here. When done, PM me for further instructions. The dump would likely reveal the actual cause and narrow it down to the problematic driver / software.
     
  23. mouser

    mouser Registered Member

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    I completely uninstalled Nero using their cleaner tool and rebooted, problem still exists.

    I will try to do a memory dump as requested.
     
  24. mouser

    mouser Registered Member

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    After editing system registry, rebooting, bluescreening and restarting my computer 5 or 6 times to reconfigure memory dump settings, memory dump creation has failed. Warnings about a 16gb memory dump and pagefile limitations may have something to do with it.

    At this point i think i'm done with this.

    Marcos -- I really do appreciate your help, and your taking the time to try to help. Thank you.

    But to ESET, as a loyal customer for many years I can tell you this has been a very unpleasant experience dealing with this -- I can only imagine how painful it must be for the users who haven't yet discovered that eset is the reason their computer is hanging, and are still trying to figure out what is wrong.

    I guess I'll probably uninstall smart security and use something else. And switch from recommending ESET to recommending people avoid ESET.

    The only request I have from ESET is to ask your developers to update the changelog when you really think the problem is fixed so I don't go through all the hassle of reinstalling a new version in the future only to find out the problem is still there.

    ---

    It has been 4 months since this problem was discovered -- it's hard to imagine how such a severe and reproducible problem that is likely to cause real data loss for your customers could still remain in the software. If I found a bug like this in one of my programs it's inconceivable that it would still be there after 4 months.

    --

    Maybe you should consider adding some option to turn off whatever new thing was added to the software that has started it causing this problem, that would be fine too.

    But really, 4 months and you've still got a bug that is completely hanging people's computers in the middle of what they're doing? I don't know how that is acceptable to you.
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2012
  25. kjz

    kjz Registered Member

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    Is there really time to write such a dump? My PC freezed in a part of a second and was 'dead' (also no BSOD). No program can write a dump to harddisk in the part of a second, the freezing simply comes too fast.
     
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