Latest Malwarebytes Update Causing Windows 7 to Freeze

Latest Malwarebytes Update Causing Windows 7 to Freeze

Written by Lawrence Abrams / Courtesy of Bleeping Computer

Since the middle of December 2018, numerous complaints have been pouring in that state Windows 7 had started freezing after a component of Malwarebytes was upgraded to a new version. Once users, disabled the Malwarebytes, Windows 7 would not longer freeze.

According to these reports, this problem appears to have started after users upgraded Malwarebytes to a new version and the component package version was upgraded to 1.0.508. This is the version that is currently being offered on Malwarebytes’ site and was also being installed via program updates.

Once installed, users were discovering that Windows 7 would experience a hard freeze where the mouse, keyboard, and screen became unresponsive. The only way that users could regain use of their computers again was to reset their computer by holding down the power button.

While this problem was first reported in the middle of December, users are still experiencing the problem to this day. Unfortunately, it is an intermittent bug and not every one is affected, so tracking down the cause has been difficult. As of right now, Malwarebytes suspects that it may be a network adapter driver causing a conflict with Malwarebytes’ Web Protection feature.

This Sunday Malwarebytes created a support topic that contains two methods that users can choose in order to prevent the freezes. The first method is to disable the Web Protection module and the second method is to uninstall the current version of Malwarebytes and download an older version that does not contain the problematic component package.

While there may be other bug fixes and possible improvements in detections with the newer version, we strongly do not suggest that you disable any protections that could prevent malicious attacks when using the web. Instead we suggest that you downgrade to the previous version as suggested so that you can use all of the protection modules available in Malwarebytes.

At BleepingComputer, we host Malwarebytes version 3.6.1.2711-1.0.482-1.0.7915, which uses an version 1.0.482 of the component package. You can also download it from support topic linked to above.

Once you downgrade to an earlier version of the component package, the Windows 7 freezes should no longer occur.

Malwarebytes is looking for users to assist them

If you are affected by this bug, Malwarebytes is looking for users to assist them in figuring out what is causing the problem.

To help diagnose the Windows 7 freezing issue, Malwarebytes is asking those who are affected to:

1. Download the Malwarebytes Support Tool (MBST) and use the Gather Logs feature.  When done a file named mbst-grab-results.zip will be saved to the desktop.
2. They also want you to generate a Windows system information report using msinfo32 and save the report to the desktop. When done, drag the resulting .nfo report into the mbst-grab-results.zip file.
3. Finally, create a forum post in this topic and attach your mbst-grab-results.zip file so it can be diagnosed by their developers.

Optionally, they are asking for a list of processes by using SysInternal’s PSList program. To aid in this, Malwarebytes has created a package consisting of batch files that can be used to create a report of running processes. For 64-bit versions of Windows, use PSList64.bat and for 32-bit versions use PSList.bat.

Finally, if you have two network adapters on your computer, trying disabling one and switching to the other to see if the issue persists. 

All of the resulting information should then be posted to the above topic where you posted the mbst-grab-results.zip file.

Read the original article over at BleepingComputer.com.