Virus scanner initialization failed. Antivirus protection will not function properly.

Just got this after latest MS critical update on a Win7 32 bit system. Couldn't get it started. Rt click on taskbar icon showed scanner was not disabled. Rolled back to previous checkpoint and everything seems to be working. doing scans just in case. Anyone else getting this problem?

 

latest MS critical update on a Win7 32 bit system - which would be? SP1 installed as well? which NOD version (number)?

 

sorry, SP1 is installed

The update that I think might have caused the problem is:
Update for Windows 7 (KB2524375)



Virus signature database: 5983 (20110324)
Update module: 1031 (20091029)
Antivirus and antispyware scanner module: 1296 (20110301)
Advanced heuristics module: 1115 (20101116)
Archive support module: 1127 (20110314)
Cleaner module: 1050 (20101207)
Anti-Stealth support module: 1024 (20101227)
SysInspector module: 1217 (20100907)
Self-defense support module : 1018 (20100812)

Jon

 

assuming you are on NOD 4.2.71.2, if not upgrade to the latest.

the last one issued yesterday was about a bunch of compromised and thus revoked certificates for the IE, that could hardly cause a trouble.

if it is a bunch of updates try to update on by one, reboot in between and see which one the culprit is. however prior to that would recommend an on demand scan with HitmanPro and Malwarebytes to check if either would pick up an infection.

 

that MS KB is actually about the those certificates. would be quite a surprise if that would cause trouble for NOD. henceforth see if HitmanPro and/or Malwarebytes comes up with anything on your machine

 

so far trend and bitdefender have come up with nothing. f-secure, nod32 and defender running and nothing so far.

That update was the only one not applied after rolling back to yesterdays check point.


Interestingly defender would not start either until i rolled back

will try hitman pro and malware bytes.

 

Please wait for an ESET Moderator or ESET Staff to review your issue, there are several on the board of late.

Thank you.

 

Hello,

I tried to reproduce this on a computer running Microsoft Windows 7 RTM (x64), SP1 (x64) and SP1 (x86) without success. This was using the latest version of ESET's software with the default settings.

Is there anything you can tell me about your operating environment that is different or unusual which would help me investigate this further?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

 

I'd do a scan with a memory diagnostic tool. Intermittent process crashes and the like can be caused by hardware issues.

 

No, nothing unusual. No scanners show anything but updated NOD and applied updates and everything now seems ok.

Jon

 

I'm in a totally different situation with the same message. Maybe related, maybe not...

Old WinXP and after the old not-free Windows Antivirus told us there were all kinds of infected files after my daughter visited a wikipedia page, I went and purchased 4 NOD32s.

I installed on my Dell laptop just fine.

I installed on one Dell desktop forgetting to disable Symantec, but a little F8 safe mode change later, everything was fine.

The Dell desktop that started this journey, however...

After install, I rebooted, and virtually all applications and control panels complain that rundll32.exe can't be found, but I can navigate to it in Control Panel. Ouch.

Thinking they managed to hack rundll32.exe, I pulled the drives and put them on IDE2 in the working desktop, thinking I'd use the working NOD32/OS to disinfect them.

The hardware auto-installed, the drivers said I needed a reboot, and *NOW* I'm at the point of:
5/19/2011 9:31:28 PM Kernel Virus scanner initialization failed. Antivirus protection will not function properly.

If I go ahead and try to scan, it is very odd. It scrolls a bunch of files by, and then says it examined none of them.

Note that this is on the box that was working NOD32 just fine before...

Whew.

This is either a very smart virus or something is just not right in the world for me.

The fourth license will go on the other laptop whose hard drive crashed some time ago, after I reassemble it, which involves finding a 1.8 inch non-standard drive and figuring out if I can fit a larger capacity in or not, while it's all in pieces anyway... Maybe this just is not my best time for hardware...

At this point the bad boot drive's only value is having the Windows license on it, since it doesn't even boot, so I'd be happy to ship it to ESET for analysis if that helps...

I sure hope it didn't cross-infect this working system somehow. Ugh!

PS
The ESET HTTP Server service is stopped and manual startup... Is that the way it should be? Starting it just said it started and stopped itself, but it might be normal if there is nothing to do.
I'll try autostart and reboot, just for fun.

 

Hmph.
Either the latest Malicious Software Remover Tool from MS or downloading 5/18 NOD32 revision even though 5/16 was "current" fixed this for me.

I'm now happily scanning the infected drives mounted in the un-infected box.

This might even work!