Persistent Event Message: "Virus scanner initialization failed"

At each boot-up, I see these messages in the Event Log ...

Error initializing file submission system.
Virus scanner initialization failed. Antivirus protection will not function properly.

In addition, ESET claims the database is current even though the "Version of the virus signature database" is blank.

My workaround is to force an update of the Virus signature database.

This seems to restore functionality ... or does it?

When reported to ESET support, they claim the issue is caused by insufficient RAM or they claim the issue is caused by a corrupt database.

My configuration:

Dual P-III 1000 MHz; 512MBy RAM; RAID-1 array for C: drive (system); RAID-1 array for D: drive (my data); Windows XP with all current updates applied.

ESET support has suggested that I increase the installed RAM. (I can't do that because of motherboard limits). OTOH, their System Requirements state that 45 MB is required. Therefore, 512 MBy should be enough.

ESET support has also suggested that I reinstall the product. I have done that. This has never corrected the issue.

My current workaround is ...

Automatic "Update" "Every time computer starts" (Scheduler)

"System startup file check" after every "Successful update of the virus signature database" (Scheduler)

I also allow 5-6 minutes between power on and Windows Login so that the signature download and update as well as the startup file scan will have completed.

Questions ...

1. Is ESET _really_ working properly?

2. Aside from upgrading to a newer system with more RAM, are there any other changes I could make to eliminate this annoyance.

Thanks for any comment or suggestion.

 

check event viewer logs for errors in case it offers more clues as to what happens on the machine. What other software do you have loading on startup?

 

Good point ...

Looking at Event Viewer, didn't see any events at boot time.

OTOH, there 20 Startup Items in MSconfig -> "Startup" Tab

... and 86 Services in MSconfig -> "Services" tab.

Is there an easy way to list all of them? After all, that would be more accurate than typing all of those names ... easier, too. [wink, grin]

I'll have to see which ones I can get rid of.

--AlwaysLearning

 

use MS AutoRuns. It will list and allow you to stop/start selections

 

All these symptoms indicate a problem with corruption of the file em002_32.dat in the ESET install folder. This could happen in the event of a disk error so I'd suggest running a full disk scan for errors.

 

I downloaded and ran Autorunsc.

The resulting csv file has 994 lines!!!

Perhaps it is a miracle that my system is able to start at all. [grin]

Should I post that csv here?

As to "corruption of the file em002_32.dat in the ESET install folder", I just reinstalled ESS last week on 7/27/2010. In any case, the file "em002_32.dat" is not on my C: drive (Both "Search system folders" and "Search hidden files and folders" are checked).

I'll do a disk scan in a short while ... not sure what that could show when running on a RAID-1 array.

--AlwaysLearning