Eset Nod32 v3 Freezes Vista Computer

I believe that there is a critical problem with one of the older builds of Eset Nod32 v3 with both the 32 and 64 bit versions of Vista (I am referring only to the AV solution and not Smart Security). Here is what I experienced this morning:

I have two computers that have Eset Nod32 v3. One of them runs Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit and other runs the 64 bit version.

This morning, when I attempted to resume my 64 bit computer from Standby, I was unable to login. So, after waiting for 10 minutes with no change, I did a hard reset. After rebooting, I was able to login, but the Start Menu, Task Manager, Ctrl+Alt+Del options did not appear. Besides the wallpaper all I saw was the spinning mouse cursor. After another 10 minutes of no change, I did a hard reset and started Safe Mode which worked without any problems. I then initiated a chkdsk, rebooted and found no errors. Since I had to leave to go to another location, I left this computer as is (not responding).

I have a second computer that has the 32 bit version of Vista. When I came in to use my second computer, I was unable to login and I noticed all of the same symptoms as the first computer (task manager, start menu and ctrl+alt+del didn't respond). So, on a hunch, I rebooted and then disabled the Eset services and the 2 Eset programs (egui.exe and the Eset HTTP program) from starting up. After rebooting, everything worked fine. So, to confirm that Eset was the cause of my problem, I re-enabled the service and programs and rebooted and the computer froze again. So, I again disabled the services and programs, rebooted and then uninstalled Eset and reinstalled the latest build. The latest build has resolved my problem.

So far, the problem appears to only affect Vista. But, I will verify that this evening because I have a few other computers at home that run XP, although I don't know whether they run Nod32 v3 (they may be running v2.7).

I will apply the latest build fix to my first computer later this evening. However, before I uninstall Nod32 from my first computer, I wanted to know if Eset wanted any information from this computer to work on a fix to prevent this problem for other people. If so, please let me know what you need and how you would like me to submit it.

Note that I do not use any other AntiVirus products, I use the Windows Firewall only, I have disabled Windows Defender and besides Eset Nod32, the only other security product I have is MalwareBytes' AntiMalware installed in manual mode (I do not have Active protection enabled for this). So, my problem doesn't appear to be a conflict with another security product.

 

Same problem here. vista 32 bit. writing this from safe mode with networking .... a shame.. it's the second time eset is doing that to us (automatic update messing nod32 !!!)
faithfull user disapointed
so now my only option to continue working with my computer with network is to be unproctected... nice.
...
update as of today, Seems the last update fixed the problem.
hope this doesn't happen a third time or I might just quit with eset...
I don't see why a virus update definition is causing trouble (or updates are they more thorough, like program updates ? but in that case there should be a way of not updating those automatically like most other antivirus programs ....)

 

Are you guys sure this is not a virus?
Im also runnig Vista 32bit My computer was working fine this morning when I left for work.
When I got home this evening I had the same symptoms as you, resuming from standby it wouldnt bring up the login box, so from a hard boot I logged in but no start menu no task bar no ctrl alt del, then it froze up, after several attempts to reboot I did a system restore back 2 days, that didnt fix it, tommorow I will try unistalling NOD in safe mode and see if that works.

 

Update to my previous post I have more reason to believe this is the work of a virus, I was just talking to a friend of mine she told me her Vista computer has just done the same thing today, not allowing her to log in and then when she hard reboots it logs in then freezes up, but she has never used NOD antivirus, she has AVG free.

 

I wanted to post an update:

It turns out that all of my other computers use v2.7, so my other computers were not affected. Also, I mentioned in my initial post that I disabled 1 Eset service and 2 Eset programs, but I meant to say 2 Eset services and 1 Eset program.

When I came home, the first computer that I had left turned on since this morning was still unresponsive after 11 hours, so Nod32 didn't just slow my computer down, it truly messed it up.

This was a frustrating experience since I have never had any other experienced any AV program take down a system like this - not even Norton has been this bad in my experience (I work in IT so I have come across a lot of computer setups)!

I am also confused as to the resolution Eset has asked users like me to take (from other posts I have read in the forum), where we are asked to uninstall the old build and then install the new one. I have enabled updates for a reason - to receive updates. It doesn't make sense to me that Eset doesn't offer build updates through their update mechanism even though I have opted to automatically install new builds and also when so many bugs have been fixed with each build.

It's quite ironic that this happened to be today because I have been talking with my boss this week about purchasing Eset for some of our computers at work, but I can no longer support Eset due to the following reasons:
1. Update mechanism did not update my program build to the latest version to prevent this problem in the first place.
2. Nod32 literally crippled my computer to the point that I had to get into safe mode to do anything. Before this, the worst AV experience I had was with Norton when their program spiked the CPU usage.
3. No advisory was emailed to me informing me of the problem. I dug deeper into the forums and found that this problem has occurred before and Eset did not contact users in earlier situations either.

So, while I will probably continue to use Eset (I still have about 1.5 years left), I will be looking for alternatives to suggest to friends and colleagues. It's sad since I was such a huge fan of Nod32 v2.7. Nod32 v3 has been a disappointment.

I should add that I had a problem on another one of my computers a few months ago where v3 would crash it. At that time, I assumed the problem was hardware related even though downgrading to Nod32 v2.7 resolved the issue. However, after reading old forum posts, it appears that this was around the time that Nod32 had posted flawed definition files that also crippled a lot of computers earlier this year (sometime in May I think).

 

I don't believe the problem I experienced is virus related because I have two different computers in two different cities that are not connected that experienced the same problems (I point this out to show you that it is inlikely that I would have downloaded the same virus/files on both computers). I just ran Malwarebytes' Antimalware and found no problems, and I checked my startup options using both Sysinternals Autoruns and Eset Sysinspector and found nothing new or suspicious. In addition, I have not experienced any other issues that would lead me to believe it is a virus (popups, extra icons, slow downs, lost files, etc). And, since reinstalling the latest Nod32 build appears to have resolved the problem on both my computers, I do not believe that my problem was virus related.

 

Either a weird coincidence or a recent Windows Update problem. But, since my problem was resolved by updating to the latest build it does not appear to be Windows Update related.

 

Im wondering if it is a windows update problem too now, windows update installed 8 or 9 updates yesterday morning before this happend, I have the same version NOD antivirus on my Windows XP machine , it was not affected, so I believe it is probably one of three things, a Windows Vista 32 bit update, an Eset NOD Antivirus update or a virus, I wont have time to further investigate untill I get home from work this evening.

 

It's possible it is because of Windows Update. But, I think that I had installed my updates the day before this problem occured and I believe I had rebooted since then. So, if the problem was because of Windows Updates, the problem should have appeared sooner.