View Full Version : SD Helper stops Internet Explorer opening
Since installing latest Spybot 1.5.2, about 50 to 60% of the time, Internet Explorer will no longer open.
I finally came to the conclusion to try stopping the SDhelper process running and problem has immediately gone away suggesting a conflict somewhere. Any ideas why IE will not sometimes open when SD Helper is running please ?
Thanks
Kevin
Forgot to mention - when starting Internet Explorer a process entry always shows in Task manager even when the IE window does not open so it seems that SDHelper is not stopping the process starting, just blocking the window from opening.
md usa spybot fan
2008-02-18, 20:55
There appears to be a conflict between Spybot's latest SDHelper Browser Helper Object (BHO) and Google's toolbar (for example see this thread (http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=23856)) that prevents Internet Explorer from launching properly.
There also may be conflicts between Spybot's latest SDHelper Browser Helper Object (BHO) and other toolbars or browser add-ons (see this thread (http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=24457)) that prevent Internet Explorer from launching properly.
If you are using a Google toolbar there are two options overcome the problem:
Uninstall the Google toolbar as Spogg (http://forums.spybot.info/member.php?u=35429) did:
Internet Explorer often fails to open
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=23856
--- or ---
Disable Spybot's Resident "SDHelper" as follows:
Go into Spybot > Mode > Advanced Mode > Tools > Resident.
Uncheck the following:
Resident "SDHelper" (Internet Explorer bad download blocker) active.
If you are not using a Google toolbar, you can most likely overcome the problem by disabling Spybot's Resident "SDHelper" as follows:
Go into Spybot > Mode > Advanced Mode > Tools > Resident.
Uncheck the following:
Resident "SDHelper" (Internet Explorer bad download blocker) active.
If you are not running a Google toolbar, please indicate what Internet Explorer toolbars and/or other Internet Explorer add-ons you are running so that the overall problem can be resolved.
Thanks for the quick feedback, yes I'm using Google toolbar so assume that is what SDhelper is conflicting with ?
I've disabled SDhelper for now as I want to be able to use Google toolbar - do you know if a working version of SDhelper is going to be available soon ?
Terminator
2008-02-19, 13:00
I had the exact same problem and to solve it I upgraded to IE 7 and the problem went away.
Thanks for the info. There must be a lot of people out there who like me are still happy with running ie6, with Google Toolbar and in no rush to upgrade to ie7.
I've also tried uninstalling Google toolbar and after that sdhelper runs OK so obviously some low level conflict between the two BHOs blocking iexplore window from opening when both are running.
Let's hope for a revised version of SDhelper which runs with Google Toolbar in ie6 please.
Terminator
2008-02-19, 16:43
There is a new Google toolbar on the horizon and hopefully that should be compatible with the SD Helper.
Are you saying that the Google Toolbar is causing the problem ?
I had no problems running sdhelper that came with SpybotSD version 1.4 ?
Should I go back to version 1.4 - I had no problems before I upgraded ?
Terminator
2008-02-19, 19:23
Are you saying that the Google Toolbar is causing the problem ?
I had no problems running sdhelper that came with SpybotSD version 1.4 ?
Should I go back to version 1.4 - I had no problems before I upgraded ?
To answer your first question i'd say it is highly likely that it is.
To answer your second question you've got 4 choices:
(1) Use Spybot 1.4
(2) Uninstall the Google Toolbar (I wouldn't bother trying the The Google Toolbar 5.0 Beta as there have been lots of reports of it's instability) and wait for the 5.0 Final version of the Google Toolbar or wait till the SD Helper has been fixed.
(3) Upgrade to IE 7 or Try another Browser.
(4) Don't use the SD Helper.
md usa spybot fan
2008-02-19, 20:25
Terminator:
Thank you :bow:, Thank you :bow:, Thank you :bow:
I glad that you are fielding some of these questions.
Regards,
md usa spybot fan
Terminator
2008-02-19, 20:55
No problem:)
moondogg
2008-03-13, 01:00
To answer your first question i'd say it is highly likely that it is.
To answer your second question you've got 4 choices:
(1) Use Spybot 1.4
(2) Uninstall the Google Toolbar (I wouldn't bother trying the The Google Toolbar 5.0 Beta as there have been lots of reports of it's instability) and wait for the 5.0 Final version of the Google Toolbar or wait till the SD Helper has been fixed.
(3) Upgrade to IE 7 or Try another Browser.
(4) Don't use the SD Helper.
i have IE7 and google toolbar and have the same issue. i have disabled the sd helper. should i uninstall google instead? is the sd helper that critical to have running? thanks
Terminator
2008-03-13, 11:03
The SD Helper blocks bad programs, cookies etc from downloading so it is important. I have Google and IE 7 running with the SD Helper and no problems.
What version of the Google Toolbar are you running? The latest stable version is 4.0.1602.1060.
Another thing you could try is uninstalling Google, remove all traces of it and then re-install it.
Terminator
2008-03-13, 16:52
If your up to it you could also try the Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 and see if that makes any difference.
If your up to it you could also try the Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 and see if that makes any difference.
Unless a beta tester, not something I would recommend yet. :)
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/03/12/the-ie8-favorites-bar.aspx
BigJacko
2008-03-14, 18:30
I've been having issues with this same IE6 failure to fire up, since I upgraded to Spybot S&D 1.5.2.20 yesterday. I'm glad I'm not alone! :)
I also have Google Toolbar installed, whose Help>About shows version 4.0.1601.4978-big/en-GB (GZEZ)
I use SDHelper, but not Teatimer, and have found that I can enable immunisation as follows:
Firefox
default (Cookies) - YES
default (Images) - YES
default (Installations - YES
default (Popups) - YES
Internet Explorer (32-bit)
\SOFTWARE (Cookies) - YES
\SOFTWARE (Domains) - YES
\SOFTWARE (IPs) - YES
\SOFTWARE (Plugins) - YES
Internet Explorer (32/64 bit)
DEFAULT (Cookies) - YES
DEFAULT (Domains) - NO
DEFAULT (IPs) - YES
Administrator (Cookies) - NO
Administrator (Domains) - NO
Administrator (IPs) - NO
myusername (MYPCNAME) (Cookies) - NO
myusername (MYPCNAME) (Domains) - NO
myusername (MYPCNAME) (IPs) - NO
Windows
Global (Hosts) - YES
If I enable anything marked YES above, the IE6 browser window will appear fine when attempting to open it. If I enable anything marked NO above, then I can pretty guarantee NOT to see the browser window if I try to open a link (particularly any links from within email messages).
Other info that might be relevant:
(a) I'm using Windows XP version 2002 SP2 fully patched.
(b) I'm using Internet Explorer version 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254 (and have no intention of installing the bloaty IE7 anytime soon, nor going near Vista with a ten-foot-long bargepole! ;))
(c) for email, I'm using Mozilla Thunderbird version 2.0.0.12 (20080213) though I am NOT using the Mozilla Firefox browser (unless it is hardwired inside the email client, like IE's browsing guts were, as used by Outlook Express).
I also have no idea whether the settings above are giving me full, or even 'enough' immunisation protection - but at least I can leave these settings on and still operate the browser. Perhaps someone official can let us know whether this is a safer set of settings to use until the main problem has been overcome by a future release of either Google Toolbar or Spybot itself?
I hope this is info useful to someone in the debug process, or in setting it up for their own use! I know I nearly lost my hair until I found this thread and realised it wasn't just me having messed something up in the removal of Spybot S&D 1.4! :)
Regards
Neil
BigJacko
2008-03-14, 19:23
OK - so it's bad form to follow-up one's own posts, I know... but I can't seem to edit my post above.
On further examination, I think I must have been observing some kind of 'freak event' above... at the time, it did seem as if I COULD enable some of those listed immunisation features and the browser would open... however, it's apparent now that it's still NOT working reliably. Sometimes the browser will STILL not open correctly when using the QuickLaunch IE icon, but if I hit that icon maybe six times, I will see maybe two browser windows appear, after a short while. The rest end up as 'hung tasks' (iexplore.exe) in the Processes tab of Task Manager.
It's proving impossible to debug sensibly, so I've just disabled ALL immunisation for the time being. :(
I hope someone can fix this - browser-immunisation sounds like a great idea, and I'd love to have it - but at the moment, it feels more like browser-amputation, and that's a bit excessive for my needs! ;)
Just to update the thread, I've now updated to the latest Beta version of Google Toolbar but the problem still seems to be there - so for the moment I'm having to keep sdhelper.dll disabled.
Hope to hear of a solution soon ?
Terminator
2008-03-21, 20:44
The main reason I upgraded to IE 7 was because one of my favourite sites stopped working and as soon as I upgraded the site worked again and as bonus side affect IE Started working again. My theory is that there is something in IE 6 that is causing a Memory Leak (or something similar) whilst The Google Toolbar and the SD Helper are active.
MadelineC
2008-03-22, 08:06
I don't know if this will help/confirm anything, but I've been using IE7 with the Google Toolbar for a long time now and had Spybot S&D 1.4 installed when I updated to IE7. I now have Spybot S&D 1.5.2.20 and have never experienced any problems on the few occasions when I use IE7. I have always had the SD Helper enabled.
My advice would be either to use IE7 or Firefox (my default browser). Opera's fine too. You can also get the Google Toolbar for Firefox.
I have been playing with this problem for a couple of months now. As reported in another thread here, I determined the problem is definitely Google Toolbar related (makes no difference what version of the toolbar). Therefore, I unloaded the toolbar in favor of the additional security provided by SD Helper. After a couple of weeks, to my complete dismay, I discovered, according to its own performance statistics, SD Helper was doing NOTHING. It occurred to me that I am also running SpywareBlaster (it is free and used to be recommended by Spybot S&D). It appears that when one is using SpywareBlaster, SD Helper is completely unnecessary and ineffective. Additionally, SpywareBlaster has no negative effects on Google Toolbar.
MadelineC
2008-03-24, 09:42
On the rare occasions that I use IE7, I've found that SD Helper does 'do something'. Despite having both the Google Toolbar and SpywareBlaster. If I try go to a 'bad' page, it tells me it's blocking it or denying access, something like that. I only know this because there's a test page where you can check it out, but I can't find the post with the link in.
Perhaps it's just me but my problem didn't start until I updated to the latest version of Spybot / sdhelper. I didn't change google toolbar at that time so that would seem to suggest to me that something changed in sdhelper.dll that now causes the conflict when used with ie6 ?
giverny: "Perhaps it's just me but my problem didn't start until I updated to the latest version of Spybot / sdhelper. I didn't change google toolbar at that time so that would seem to suggest to me that something changed in sdhelper.dll that now causes the conflict when used with ie6 ?"
Exactly! Yours is apparently the very same problem everyone else with this complaint is experiencing. The problem isn't the fault of Google Toolbar...the problem is SD Helper in the recent version(s) of Spybot. I am running SpywareBlaster and have disabled SD Helper. I also do not run TeaTimer simply because it eats up way too many system resources.
BigJacko
2008-03-26, 14:20
I concur with Mervich's take on this - you're certainly not alone, Giverny, and he's right about the root of the problem being SDHelper.DLL in some way, shape or form.
Like you, I didn't have any problem until I upgraded SpyBot S&D to version 1.5.2.20 (having previously been on 1.4.something for quite a while).
During that time, I have not had cause to update Google Toolbar (still on 4.0.1601.4978-big/en-GB (GZEZ) so nothing's changed there), and I'm using the same version of IE6 (6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254) as I was before, so no change there either.
The ONLY factor which has altered, is SpyBot.
Alas, I'm not in a position to upgrade to IE7 currently (nor for the forseeable), as I REQUIRE IE6 running on this machine for backwards-compatibility testing of websites. Not that I really WANT IE7 on here either, to be honest. ;)
At the moment, I've just had to disable the SDHelper.DLL and be very, very careful about where I go! I'm grateful to the developers for producing such a fine and public-spirited piece of free kit as SpyBot, but I'll be very, very keen to see the current problem with SDHelper resolved. And I don't mean to appear ungrateful, when I say that, by the way!
md usa spybot fan
2008-03-26, 18:00
Mervich:
BigJacko:
… The problem isn't the fault of Google Toolbar...the problem is SD Helper in the recent version(s) of Spybot. …
I concur with Mervich's take on this - you're certainly not alone, ... and he's right about the root of the problem being SDHelper.DLL in some way, shape or form. ...
Although you may well be correct, I don't understand how you came to that conclusion since both work independently in Internet Explorer 6 without a problem. There only seems to be a problem when both are run together. Is your conclusion based on the fact that you had the Google Toolbar before you upgraded to Spybot 1.5?
In that case I would have to assume that people who are running the Spybot 1.5 SDHelper BHO with IE 6 and then add the Google Toolbar, would come to the completely opposite conclusion.
Oil and water don't mix. Is that the oil's fault, the water's fault, or is it whichever you add last to the mix?
Mervich:
BigJacko:
Although you may well be correct, I don't understand how you came to that conclusion since both work independently in Internet Explorer 6 without a problem. There only seems to be a problem when both are run together. Is your conclusion based on the fact that you had the Google Toolbar before you upgraded to Spybot 1.5?
In that case I would have to assume that people who are running the Spybot 1.5 SDHelper BHO with IE 6 and then add the Google Toolbar, would come to the completely opposite conclusion.
Oil and water don't mix. Is that the oil's fault, the water's fault, or is it whichever you add last to the mix?
The conclusion is simple, not so much down to timing but what products have changed. Both the old versions of Google Toolbar and sdhelper worked together fine with Explore 6. When the new version of sdhelper was released the problems started - thus the question has to be what is different between the old / new versions of sdhelper because all other items are the same namely google toolbar and explorer 6 - neither has changed ?
The conclusion is simple, not so much down to timing but what products have changed. Both the old versions of Google Toolbar and sdhelper worked together fine with Explore 6. When the new version of sdhelper was released the problems started - thus the question has to be what is different between the old / new versions of sdhelper because all other items are the same namely google toolbar and explorer 6 - neither has changed ?
Just wondering whether anyone has any thoughts yet on how to progress through this problem (without having to upgrade to Explorer 7), I surely can't be the only person with this problem ?