MBP crashes while scanning

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Dwood wrote:

I have tried deleting SAV

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How did you do that?   Properly uninstalling and reinstalling?

I assume you are running a 'Scan This Mac' scan? And hence all local drives are being scanned.  Is it just the main hard drive it's scanning or are there one or more secondary drives or USB/FireWire drives attached?

Is there anything in the Console log that hints at where the scan got to?  Example of opening the log:

If it's just the main hard drive then you could break down the problem with custom scans and scan just certain folders (ie just add one item at a time like /Users and see if you can recreate the problem).  You could create a custom scan to check the entire hard, but on the 'Options' tab uncheck the 'Scan archives and compressed files' option.

If you wanted to run a scan with sweep (the command line version) you could log to a file all the file names being scanned with...

sudo sweep / -dn 2> ~/Desktop/manualscan.txt

If/when the computer hangs the problematic file may be listed need the bottom of the log.

And finally (or maybe this should have been the first thing :smileylol:)...you could close all other applications and leave the computer alone while it does the scan.  Having one or more applications open may lock some files and when the scanner gets to them it tries so hard to scan them that it pulls down the computer's resource to the point where Finder stops responding.

Good luck.

Diz,

First off, thanks for the speedy reply!

Now to answer your questions:

1.  How did you do that?   Properly uninstalling and reinstalling?

Yes I went through the SAV uninstaller

2.  I assume you are running a 'Scan This Mac' scan? And hence all local drives are being scanned.  Is it just the main hard drive it's scanning or are there one or more secondary drives or USB/FireWire drives attached?

Yes I was just using the 'Scan This Mac'  option, and no I do not have any external hard drives.

3.  Is there anything in the Console log that hints at where the scan got to?  

No, unfortunately because it stops mid-scan and I am forced to restart the computer, I don't think it recorded any of the progress it made on the scans, but let me check and get back to you.

Ok so, custom scans are in progress as I type, I am just going through folder by folder (i.e. Applications, Library, Users, etc).  All of the 'Scan This Mac' scans that I did I had closed all other applications.

Thanks again,

Dwood

OK,

I have scanned the following folders and here are the results:

Library scan:

No threats

System scan:

No threats

Users scan:

No threats

Issues detected

Applications scan:

No threats

Issues detected

User Information scan:

No threats

So, could the issues be what are freezing the computer?  Quarantine manager doesn't recognize them (just like on that other discussion thread), so is there something or some location that I haven't scanned that could contain the trouble child?

I also found no record of past attempted scans.

Thanks,

Dwood

The 'Issues detected' will only be encrypted files or corrupt (to the scanner) files - nothing to worry about.  See my reply to the same report here.

Sounds like the problematic file/folder hasn't been found yet - you have picked a few folders but no problem so far.  Can you try a custom scan of the whole hard drive like this...

...but on the options tab de-select the option for 'Scan inside archives and compressed files' (shown above the clean-up option highlighted in red)...

Then let the scan run.  Keep the Console open and watch/reload the log as it goes.

I could suggest a couple more things, but it's best to change just one thing and test.  With the advice above you're doing a 'Scan This Mac' scan but excluding compress files and with changing just that it would be interesting to know the outcome.

Ok so I ran the full test, and no threats were detected and it went smoothly... Not entirely sure what that means though.  You said you had a few more suggestions?:)

Thank you so much,

Dwood

I just had a thought, would a bootcamp partition be messing with the scan?

Dwood

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Dwood wrote:
You said you had a few more suggestions?

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First:  Run a 'Scan this Mac' scan again to see if the problem returns. Yes/No?

Second: Going back to my previous post...use sweep to log the file names being scanned.  Open Terminal and type this:

sudo sweep / -dn 2> ~/Desktop/manualscan.txt

See if (a) the problem occurs and (b) the 'manualscan.txt' file on the Desktop shows files that may be slow to scan.

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Dwood wrote:

I just had a thought, would a bootcamp partition be messing with the scan?

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One for the developers (if they see this post).

Before trying those I am going to try scanning the mac partition from the windows partition with the microsoft security essentials application and see if it picks anything up or freezes.  If that doesn't work I will try your suggestions.

Dwood

Alrighty,

Sorry it took so long, the microsoft scanner is pretty slow, I tried scanning a few times and it took 6+ hours to get halfway and I just finally had the opportunity to leave it overnight.  Now the scan did not show anything, however the computer did freeze up at one point, unfortunately by the time task manager was open it was back to running like normal so I couldn't see the file that caused it.

Dwood

I'm not sure about the different partitions on your Mac.  I wouldn't have thought the Windows partition would cause any problem - one for the developers to be honest.

The running of the Windows scan was probably for your peace of mind and that the Windows partition is clean - however it's not really anything to do with Mac OS X and SAV.  Put the Windows scan to one side.

Back in Mac OS X...You have got all other applications closed during the Mac scan right?  Nothing in the menu bar that may not look 'open' but is running?  Best to confirm that first.

With that done, the way I see it: you haven't been able to isolate if one or more files (or type of files) have caused the problem.  To do this it's logical to run a scan that outputs the file name as it runs.  Hence I can only suggest that you scroll back up to the sweep command I previously mentioned and run that.  When the hang occurs look in the log file and see what the most recent entries are.

From there you can create a custom scan in the program for just the folder(s) where the problem files are and test if the custom scan has a problem - that would be a big step forward.

Good luck.