Question Internet issue

[Craig234]

Today, I found my PC had powered off overnight. I powered it on, and it installed a Windows update. I restarted the browser, and it restored tabs, but they all remain in 'resolving host' for minutes. Eventually, some loaded, others are still 'resolving host' 15 minutes+ later.

On pages where I tried to load something, like typing a search bar search that goes to bing, over ten minutes later, it's still spinning circles. I'd entered a search for 'internet speed test' to see what that showed, it's still searching.

Using this site, when I hit 'back' in the browser to get to this forum, it stayed circles a long time. Finally right clicking the 'forward' button and picking a page loaded it.

Steam was very slow, it not start as normal, I started it, it had the window of promotions, but it took a while for each to load. I clicked to look at store home page, it still isn't loaded. Other pages aren't loading either, except 'library' comes up immediately.

What the heck?

 

[Craig234]

It immediately posted this thread, but then stayed with spinning circles a couple minutes and got a popup 'this page isn't responding', which several pages got. When I clicked 'edit' on the above post, it took several seconds to come up.

 

[Craig234]

Circle still spinning on this page, but I can use it. I took a look at task manager to see if anything is slowing the system, no, 40% CPU used while I'm not running things, with Malwarebytes Services #1 at 16%, and IObit taking 14%. Keep getting edge 'this page isn't responding' popups, including for this site as I type.

Ran Malwarebytes after that, no problems found. Edit this post came up fast this time, I gave up on the speed test search and just typed "google.com" in the URL bar, and after 10 minutes THAT is still just a spinning circle.

 

[Craig234]

Weird. I rebooted again 'just to see if it helped', and everything seems back to normal.

 

[Steltek]

It is not generally a good idea to run multiple anti-malware programs at the same time. Did you set up exclusions in each of them so they don't scan each other's folders or otherwise interfere with each other?

 

[Craig234]

It is not generally a good idea to run multiple anti-malware programs at the same time. Did you set up exclusions in each of them so they don't scan each other's folders or otherwise interfere with each other?

You mean in the background? I don't run actual scans at the same time. But the IObit program in question was an 'update monitor' nagging me to update program, though the IObit malware program might be in the background.

 

[Steltek]

Even if you don't run scans at the same time, it would be a good idea to set exceptions for the installation folders in each application.

This is especially when those two particular applications are involved, because there has been a very nasty past history between Malwarebytes and IOBit dating all the way back to 2009 that seems to keep bubbling back up every so often.

The gist is that in 2009 Malwarebytes accused IOBit (which is a Chinese software company) of stealing their malware signature database and incorporating it into their own products without permission. Malwarebytes allegedly proved it by adding a fake malware signature from a fake infected file into Malwarebytes that existed nowhere else but in Malwarebytes and thus was detected as malware only by Malwarebytes. The signature then very quickly showed up in the next update of IOBit's software which started flagging the fake file as malware.

Since then, Malwarebytes has had an off and on history of flagging IOBit applications as PUPs and sometimes moving them to quarantine. This spat has continued off and on and was most recently seen again last year.

There is no way to get a straight answer on what is going on between them, because as soon as something happens the fanboys on both sides start excusing and accusing each other right and left.

If you want to see more information about the history there, just google search for "Malwarebytes and IOBit" and you should get plenty of hits.

I don't know if what happened to you was just another chapter in their little squabble, but I can't discount it either. The Malwarebytes organization still considers a lot of IOBit application as unsafe, and IOBit doesn't help themselves as they've had a historical tendency to delve into some gray advertising practices.

Just my two cents worth. May not happen again, but I wouldn't bet on it based upon the history there.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but those ARE signs, not always, but CAN BE, of an SSD that is failing.

Some "tasks" that you tell the computer to do, sometimes, some of them, just go into a sort of la-la land, for an unknown period of time. Some, may eventually return to normal processing, like nothing was wrong. Others, the applications screen will turn grey, and you'll have to force-quit, and sometimes, they may hang on doing that, and then, if you try to restart, it may hang or restart semi-infinitely.

I had a SandForce Gen2 drive go belly-up on me. I know the signs.

The other possibility is, I've seen when there are multiple anti-virus (and anti-malware? other than Malwarebytes that was written to co-exist with other A/V software), and when both of them start to scan after boot, the system will basically nearly hang hard, because disk I/O (on a HDD capable of 150MB/sec) will drop to like 1MB/sec or less. Basically, unusable system. Trying to reboot or restart through software will take ages too.

I've seen this on two systems before, thus far. The second one, had Norton pre-installed in the OEM system image, and then downloading Flash Player and not paying attention to the checkboxes, installed McAfee TOO.

Thereafter, attempting to do anything with the system from 10-30 secs after boot, it was unusable (both A/V presumably doing boot-time scans at the same time, and conflicting in the I/O driver, possibly recursively).

 

[Craig234]

I don't have the malware programs scan automatically, so their scanning on boot wouldn't be an issue.

I'll just uninstall iobit malware, that should address any chance.