SpywareBlaster 3.2 taking a very long time to load databases/enable protection

Hi all, I replied with this below to another thread on the subject, but it has been inactive for several months, so I though I better start a new on this.

I'm having a severe SpywareBlaster 3.2 slowdown while it's loads the databases. I've uninstalled it, reinstalled it, and that didn't help. There are no errors at all and it works fine, it just takes minutes to load the databases and to enable protection! The program will open, then the green progress indicator(s) at the bottom will go all the way to the end, then they just stop at 100% and nothing happens nor is anything clickable for minutes. The strange thing, is on my PC I don't get this slowdown. But this is on a customer's new computer of which they haven't even picked up yet that's having the slowdown. It uses the same AV software as mine, as well as the same firewall, XP Pro, updates, etc, etc. It's an AMD 3200+ Barton and an AN7 mobo. Nothing else is slow on the PC, just SWB!
Thanks,
-Clint

 

Hey Clint,

Just a couple of questions that may or may not be effecting this problem in hopes of getting to the possible culprit.

1)XP SP2 installed
2)Attempting this while logged on as what type user

Also....have you attempted to load databases not connected to the net....with all other TSR's(AV, Firewall...etc) disabled.

 

Thanks for the reply. No, no way I'll ever use SP2! It's SP1 on both PC's. There's only one user, same on both PC's. They are both totally setup the same way.....only one login and it's admin enabled.

There's no net access going on while the DB's are being loaded, or enabled. That only comes into play when checking for updates. Both PC's are on a DSL LAN via router, so the net connection is "always on" requiring no login.

Like I mentioned, both use the same AV software (KAV) and Firewall (Sygate Pro), but for the heck of it I disabled them, and no change. Still painfully slow. (When Sygate is disabled it's set to block all net traffic). When I click "enable all protection" the progress indicator moves VERY VERY SLOW, and hangs up at 50% for a while, then finally goes to 100%, but just hangs there for a while. That process takes about 2 seconds on my PC. When I first start the program to open it, it opens up OK as it should, and says "Loading protection" and below that "Please be patient while......." etc., etc., then that green progress indicator at the bottom at this time moves all the way to 100% in about 2 seconds, but that's when it hangs @100% for quite a while.

I also defrag using Diskeeper (on both PC's). But one thing odd about it, that I don't have on my PC, is it won't defrag ntldr! It says all files are defragmented except for one "\ntldr [excluded]". Odd thing is I searched for that issue, and it's supposed to be normal! If normal, then why on my PC is everything defrag'd OK? At any rate, I seriously doubt that has anything to do with the SWB slow-down since that file is only 226k, and is not the registry.

Thanks.

 

Hi Clint, welcome to forums...

I understand exactly what you are saying. I personally too have the same prob on my PC.

Upong starting, green progress bar goes across in like 2 seconds, then it waits for approx. 60+ seconds to load the protection indicators. This has always been the case on this PC, from previous versions also.

Now, like you I have experienced the opposite on my daughter's PC and a couple of friends PC, where it loads very very fast. Takes like about 10-15 seconds tops for the lot to load.

I am sorry I cannot help, as I too have uninstalled, defragged, cleaned every temp thing I could find, reinstalled, to no avail.

In particular where I see a very slow load, is after an update, takes like around 2+ mins then to load, check integrity, click on enable all and that takes the longest.

I have learned to live with it.

TAS

PS: What I had thought of, was the fact I have a large HOSTS file, and thought somehow that may be it, also a lot of sites in Restricted Sites Zones and Eric Howes IEspyAds. But...who knows...

 

Thanks for the info Clint and I think I found the thread you were referring to about this problem.

This thread---> ? speed up!!

Without assuming wrongly....it appears this is happenig on a PC that is just now being set up ?
Also....have you attempted to individually enable the protections one at a time....instead of Enable All Protection ?

you said

I do not want to head you in the wrong direction BUT if this is a new install....would it be much trouble to remove Sygate OR for that matter....the AV and any other registry monitoring software ?

I realize that may be a stab in the dark but as it is with the other thread....some other software is possibly butting heads with SB

 

Hi Bubba, thanks for that link, had not seen that thread.

Wow, some of those guys are way beyond slooooow... lol... I am nowhere near that bad.

OK... I run Firefox, but this was long before that, so FF is out of the pic.

I will do a test, close everything down [not tonight, will do so tomorrow] and post.

Current:

Kerio FW
TDS
SpywareGuard
KAV

Those are my permanent running apps in SysTray.

As I said in previous post, what takes the longes for me is after an update, takes around 2-3 mins to fully 'install, integrity check, enable all protection'...

On a work colleague's PC I just installed it earlier in the night, I sat there looking for it to work, when I realised it already had. So I quit it and restarted, and the dang lot only took like 3-5 seconds tops to load fully, and his is a slower PC than mine. [Mine Athlon XP 2.1 + Ghz with 1G RAM]

Anyhow, will keep you posted re shut everything down, uninstall all protection and start again. Time it.

Cheers, TAS

 

Thanks. What type of mobo are you using? Maybe there is a commonalty among us experiencing this that use Nvidia Nforce chipset mobo's. ? Could be the driver package for these mobo's somehow doing it, and that's just stab!

 

Here...

 

and Vid info...

TAS

 

Yep, that's the thread. Yes, the PC is pretty much completed. It's pretty stripped, doesn't have any registry monitor 'ware on it. Only has all drivers, KAV, Sygate, AdAware, SpywareBlaster, benchmarking programs,.....whatever is on it, is also on my computer that does not have the slow down. Plus my PC has a lot more "monitoring" 'ware on it.

I think in my last post I described the different slow downs for each type of protection enabled. They are very slow, some slower than others.

It's not really an option to remove Sygate and KAV since Sygate for one; takes a very long time to "train" and setup, and KAV takes even longer to properly set up its various modules for maximum protection. I also hate uninstalling anything on a new PC since as we all know, once you start doing that sometimes things are never the same after that! However, like I mentioned, since both PC's have KAV and Sygate on them (exact same versions, builds, updates and settings), and since I disabled them on the PC with the slow down to no effect, I seriously doubt they are the culprit.

Thanks.

 

Hmmm, well, there goes that theory. Different mobo chipsets, different video cards too (PC with the slow down uses an AIW 9800 Pro, and my PC is an AIW Radeon 7500, same software). Guess we have to look elsewhere.

 

Although, I see Nvidia is still involved, that could be a connection. We'll have to get more input from others with the slow down.

 

Clint:

Off toopic for a tiny sec..... re setting up KAV... why don't you right click on SysTray Icon of KAV on YOUR PC, select Export settings.. and save the .dat file to a flopy and then save to somewhere on new PC, then same right click and Import, and point to the .dat file of yours.... done, finished in less than 2 seconds.. all preferences you have, etc. will be set on new one....

OK.. back OT... I will further test tomorrow time permitting, and see if I can narrow it down.. but.. like you Clint, my daughter's PC was set up exactly the same way as mine.. same AV, FW, SP1, fully patched, etc. etc.. same Vid.

Cheers, TAS

 

Good question. I tried that with KAV, and it did nothing! Perhaps I didn't do it correctly, but it seems very straight forward and simple, however none of the settings changed!
Clint

 

OK Clint, will test further tomorrow, off to bed.

One thing, did you try your SWB reload with everything off on the new PC, just to see. I know it's same as yours, but maybe it's picked up some conflict with one of them...

Anyhow, will check tomorrow and test..

TAS

 

Back.....

Testing procedures:

I rebooted, unloaded my startup programs ~ KAV 4.5; Kerio FW; SpywareGuard.

Started SpywareBlaster, timing it from moment it's GUI hit the screen:

40 seconds from start to seeing IE/Restricted Sites/Mozilla Firefox protection enabled.

Unloaded SpywareBlaster's protection.

Reloaded: Time ~ 42 seconds.

Closed.

Rebooted, let my startup apps run, started TDS3 and AwAware's AdWatch as normal.

Started SWB. Time from start to full protection ~ 46 seconds [I attribute that to TDS the slight extra time].

Unloaded protection.

Reloaded. Time ~ 50 seconds.

It's slower than a lot but definitely not as bad as I thought, just felt that way waiting.

Also, no times for new updates now to test on, but it's definitely a lot slower when I do get new updates, especially when it says doing the integrity file checking, then enabling the protection. I know that's around the 2 mins mark from the quick time test I did yesterday with a new update I had [15 items].

TAS

 

Yeah, I thought I mentioned above that everything was disabled/off/unloaded.

 

Guys (Blaster creators), when are you going to do something about this? I have a test PC that I put SP2 on, and Blaster was fine on it.......WAS. Yesterday the same massive slowdown happened on it, and it's even worse than the slowdown I mentioned on one of my customer's computers! "Enable all protection" now takes about EIGHT minutes!!! This is totally unacceptable! I have to go and do something else on ANOTHER computer every time I open Blaster on my test PC! It just locks EVERYTHING up until the program is finally loaded! On my main PC, it still works fine! The programs and software are exactly the same on BOTH computers! So I'm still at a loss as to what is causing this on some PC's.

 

Might as well add to this thread also. Since last posting in other thread, I have reformatted and reintalled XP Pro on the 2 systems that were the worst as far as taking forever to load database and stuff. Both now load in a matter of seconds. Odd thing is, both these systems have been set up EXACTLY like they were before I reformatted!!