GRUMPY

I have two computers both running Malwarebytes Pro. It occurred to me that while both copies of Malwarebytes happily update their definitions automatically they never seem to update to a new version of the programme automatically. The only time I have seen Malwarebytes update to a new programme version is when I have opened the programme. Then I get a window telling me that the latest version has been downloaded and that now Malwarebytes will close and install the new version. In normal use, once you have set up your update and scan schedules, if you don't become infected by malware most people would have no reason to ever open the programme. In which case Malwarebytes would never update to the new version. By way of a test, when version 1.50.1.1100 was released I opened Malwarebytes on one of my computers and when I got the window asking if I wanted to update to the latest version I clicked OK. On the other I have left it alone and not opened it (for several days now) and while the tooltip shows that it is updating the definitions it still shows that it is version 1.50 and has not updated to 1.50.1.1100, even though the computer has been restarted several times. As someone who works in on-site computer support I know that many (if not most) users never touch any programmes on their computers other than the ones that they use regularly such as e-mail, word processor etc. As long as there are no problems security software tends to be ignored. So as Malwarebytes doesn't seem to automatically update itself to newer versions unless it is opened it is likely that many people will still be using older versions. I think I've got this right. Can anyone else confirm this?

When you say you "opened your Yahoo email account" do you mean on your computer (using Oultlook Express, Windows Mail or similar) or on the web. If you mean on the web then the problem is not on your computer. It simply means that somebody has hacked into your account and used it to send out spam. It happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Log into your Yahoo account and change your password (to a stronger one) so they can't use it again. Having said that, if they want to hack into it again, they will. If, on the other hand you use Yahoo through an e-mail programme (as mentioned above) then follow the suggestions in the previous post

Try this: In IE click on the Tools menu, choose Internet Options, click on the Connections tab and then click the LAN settings button at the bottom. If there is a tick in the 'Use a proxy server for your LAN etc.' tickbox, click in the box to remove the tick and then press OK to close the window and OK again to close the other window. Hope this helps.

You could check IE's proxy settings yourself just to be sure. In IE click on the Tools menu, choose Internet Options, click on the Connetions tab and then click the LAN settings button at the bottom. If there is a tick in the 'Use a proxy server for your LAN etc.' tickbox, click in the box to remove the tick and then press OK to close the window and OK again to close the other window. Hope this helps.

This gave me an idea. It worked for me and will probably work for others with Norton security products (an maybe others too). Note: THIS WILL ONLY WORK FOR THE PRO (PAID FOR) VERSION It involves setting MBAM to check fro updates whenever the computer boots up. On the Update tab of the scheduler I chose 'On reboot' at the bottom of the list, added it and then rebooted. On my machine MBAM starts before Norton (as will be the case on most machines) and so it was able to connect to the update server and download the update before the firewall part of Norton kicked in and blocked it. MBAM now checks for updates every time I turn my computer on. In order to be sure that this workaround is working, if you have been using fruty's proxy server workaround make sure that you disable it first so that you are connecting directly to the Malwarebytes server. If this works for other people please post back here and let me know. Tony

Fruty you are a genius. You've found the answer. It works on mine too. So my question to the developers is 'is this something that can be fixed so that people don't have to delve into the inner working of their antivirus and firewall software'?

I had no idea that post #6 was an offer of personal help. it simply says: Please contact the Help Desk and they should be able to assist you with this. You can contact the help desk at support@malwarebytes.org Thank you. I did send an e-mail to support@malwarebytes but never received a reply which is why I continued here. I'll try again. And yes, I have followed all the advice given but to no avail. Tony

OK I get the message "It's not our problem, go away".

For what it's worth I followed the instructions and added all the MBAM files listed to both the antivirus and firewall parts of Norton Internet Security 2008 as either Trusted, Allowed or Exclude from scanning. Then I rebooted. Unfortunately it made no difference and I'm still getting the error message. I'd be interested to know if adding these files has fixed the problem for anyone. Tony

I tried adding C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\mbam.sys to the Program Control list as Allow, but it didn't make a blind bit of difference.

OK, I've tracked it down. It is Norton Internet Security 2008. I used msconfig to knock out all the startups, rebooted and was able to update MBAM fine. Then I started to put the startup items back in one by one. The first one I put in was ccApp (which starts Norton Internet Security 2008). I rebooted, tried to update and got the error message. Now to see if I can get NIS 2008 and MBAM to play nice together. Will keep you informed. Tony

Tried that KangaJack, but still got the same error message. Glad it's fixed for you anyway. Tony

Well, I tried a few things: Removed MBAM.exe from Norton's list of trusted programmes and let it find it again. Same problem. Removed MBAM.exe from Norton's list of trusted programmes and told it to ask me when something tried to access the internet. Norton warned that MBAM.exe was trying to do just that and I told it allow all access. Same problem. Turned off all aspects of Norton Internet Security that I could find. Same problem. Disabled Spyware Guard. Same problem. Undid all the changes made by Spyware Blaster Same problem. In desperation I restarted in Safe Mode With Networking (so as to have internet access) Started MBAM an was able to update fine. So.... something on my computer is stopping MBAM accessing the update server, but it doesn't seem to be Norton, Spyware Guard or Spyware Blaster and that's all the security software (apart from MBAM) that I have. BTW I'm running XP SP3. I also have a machine runing Vista Ultimate SP2 and I'm having exactly the same is happening on that. :-( Curioser and curioser.

Hi There, Any chance you could help me too?

Hi There, I'm using Norton Internet Security 2008. I disabled both the antivirus (autoprotect) and the firewall, but it made no difference, same error message. This only started after upgrading to version 1.45. Version 1.44 never had any problems updating, in fact it downloaded version 1.45 via update :-/ Thanks, Tony