Scan time greatly increased

[Debbie 58]

Last week when I scanned it took just under half an hour. Today it took one hour 4 minutes.
Now I dont know if this is connected to my upgrading to AVG version 8 as I have not scanned since I did this last week.
I have done the usual basics such as emptying temp files, cookies etc. but has made no difference.
The scan is okay til about 90% then stays forever on Zlob, however like I said it eventually completed.
Incidentally the scan time displayed showed 4.02 when it was one hour 4.02.

I run XP home with SP2. Also have Spywareblaster installed.
I know there are some issues with false warnings displayed during AVG scan, however do you think this is the cause of the doubling in scan length?

[drragostea]

I'm not sure what the problem is, but I can be sure is that the new AVG 8.0 Free is showing false positives about Spybot-SD. I have scanned and a few dozen registry keys appeared. I have deleted them and then 190 items in Spywareblaster were unimmunized. 30 were unimmunized in Spybot-SD.

http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=27264

Can you download CCleaner to clean the temp., cache, cookies, "again"? See if that solves the problem.

http://www.ccleaner.com/download

Thanks.

[Debbie 58]

I did that but no improvement.
When I scanned again it took one hour 10 mins BUT the odd thing was on the time displayed for the scan when it ended it showed 20 mins one second!
Its fine until it gets to 125500 or so and then it takes forever on Zlob.downloader.bs
It scanned and finished and found no problems so I still have the use of spybot which I would not want to lose, however it is inconvenient with taking so long to scan.
Also before scanning I disabled the protection in spywareblaster but that made no difference.
I would be interested to hear from anyone else who has downloaded AVG 8 free in the last week so so if they are meeting the same problem or if not what their scan times are.

[terrypin]

I did that but no improvement.
When I scanned again it took one hour 10 mins BUT the odd thing was on the time displayed for the scan when it ended it showed 20 mins one second!
Its fine until it gets to 125500 or so and then it takes forever on Zlob.downloader.bs
It scanned and finished and found no problems so I still have the use of spybot which I would not want to lose, however it is inconvenient with taking so long to scan.
Also before scanning I disabled the protection in spywareblaster but that made no difference.
I would be interested to hear from anyone else who has downloaded AVG 8 free in the last week so so if they are meeting the same problem or if not what their scan times are.

I've just upgraded to v 8 and first full scan is taking place right now. I didn't note the exact start time, but I'm sure it wasn't anywhere near "Elapsed time 52 minute(s)..." as AVG reports at the moment.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[Debbie 58]

Terrypin, when you do your first Spybot scan now that you have AVG 8, would you be able to post on here what the Spybot scan time was in total. That will give me a clue as to whether its just me thats having increased scan times.
Thanking you in advance.

[terrypin]

Terrypin, when you do your first Spybot scan now that you have AVG 8, would you be able to post on here what the Spybot scan time was in total. That will give me a clue as to whether its just me thats having increased scan times.
Thanking you in advance.

Replied to that in haste a minute ago, but if you saw it ignore it! I'm shuttling between 3 PCs at the moment, my own old and new PCs, and my wife's PC. The latter is running an S&D 1.4 scan. My new PC is running an AVG 8 full scan (and taking forever - perhaps because it's scanning a large Recycle Bin as well). I haven't yet run S&D on this new PC, since installing AVG 8, but willl give you an S&D 1.5 time when I get my act together!

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[Debbie 58]

Terrypin, if you are talking about AVG then you need to uncheck scan within archives on the scan options. This will greatly reduce subsequent scan times and no I am sure AVG did not have a progress bar unlike Spybot.

[terrypin]

My first scan with Spybot S&D 1.5 took only 16 mins. But not sure how useful that info is to you, as I can't quote any previous results on this new PC. And it's a fast Intel Quad Core 2.66 MHz, 4 GB, much higher spec than my last.

BTW, AVG 8 took about 1 hour 45. In fact it was still running then, but starting to scan an external 120 GB HD which I'd installed this morning.

Thanks for the tip about the AVG Scan within archives option. I saw that but didn't really know how to interpret 'archives'. OK - ZIPs etc.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[drragostea]

@terrypin. It is normal for AVG 8.0 to be scanning for well over an hour. The average scanning time (default scan settings [scan within archives]) was around 1 hour and 5 mins. This time, I would not, consider fast, because it would make sense that it is normal. I have cleared all the "gutter" out of the system prior to each scan (browser tracks and recycle bin).

[marjohnau]

Last week when I scanned it took just under half an hour. Today it took one hour 4 minutes.
Now I dont know if this is connected to my upgrading to AVG version 8 as I have not scanned since I did this last week.
I have done the usual basics such as emptying temp files, cookies etc. but has made no difference.
The scan is okay til about 90% then stays forever on Zlob, however like I said it eventually completed.
Incidentally the scan time displayed showed 4.02 when it was one hour 4.02.

I run XP home with SP2. Also have Spywareblaster installed.
I know there are some issues with false warnings displayed during AVG scan, however do you think this is the cause of the doubling in scan length?

Similar problem for me.

On my Windows XP Pro SP2 machine, running Spybot 1.5.2.20, a scan took 55 minutes, compared to an average over the last few weeks of 40 to 45 minutes. It slowed noticeably when scanning Zlob.Downloader.bs.

On my Windows 98SE machine, running Spybot 1.5.2.20, the scan hadn't completed after three (3) hours. It slowed noticeably when scanning Zlob.Downloader.bs, and eventually appeared to 'hang' when the status bar was showing 135520/150537. Normally it completes in about 32 minutes on this machine.

Contrary to the situation described in a couple of posts, reporting a similar problem, AVG is not installed or running on either of my machines.

[Cimarron]

After a spybot scan, I have never noticed that it stated the time that it took for the scan.

Where would one find this?


Thanks

[Cimarron]

After a Spybot scan, I have never noticed that the time for the scan was displayed.

Where would you find this displayed?

Thanks

Sorry - double post here!!!!

[Cimarron]

I really apologize for the repeats. When I replied and never saw my post, I thought it didn't go through. I never realized that you had to click on page 2 on the bottom so it would show.

[drragostea]

On a patched Windows ME (unsupported) machine, a average scan without AVG would have taken around 30-40 minutes. On a Windows XP SP2 however, the Spybot-SD (latest version) scan with AVG 8.0 Free would have still took 16-20 minutes. Twenty minutes at max for mine. I just find it odd how OS's prior to 2000 took longer to scan than XP and the modern OS's.

[tashi]

I just find it odd how OS's prior to 2000 took longer to scan than XP and the modern OS's.

Ever defragmented Win ME? :clown:

[Debbie 58]

Okay, I have looked at what was added in the last lot of updated definitions in the Announcements section and Zlob.downloader.bs is mentioned. This would point to it being in conflict with an unknown issue on some machines. Perhaps we can hope that the next lot of definitions might fix this?

[md usa spybot fan]

Debbie 58:

If you do not want to run the scan for "Zlob.downloader.bs":
Go into Spybot > Mode > Advanced mode > Settings > Ignore products.
Locate the item that you what to exclude from the scan ("Zlob.downloader.bs") and check it.

[drragostea]

@tashi. Correct, I have defragmented before running a Spybot-SD scan (1.5.2.20 w/ latest updates) and have performed a "cleanup" with CCleaner (latest). I also usually perform a disk check for errors every few months. I'm not really sure why my aunt's Windows ME (fully patched) takes so long to scan. I mean her OS does have a lot less files than my XP.

Windows ME:
Fully patched (unsupported as of 2006)
ATI Rage 128
64 MB of RAM
Dial-up (Netzero)
10 GB of Space
Drives C and D (backup).

[Debbie 58]

md usa spybot fan, Oh thankyou so much for that tip. I was unaware you could do that. I will not scan again til the next lot of definitions and if it sticks at that point I will then exclude it. Thanks again for your expert knowledge. It is very much appreciated!

[md usa spybot fan]

Cimarron:


After a spybot scan, I have never noticed that it stated the time that it took for the scan.

Where would one find this?

Scan Status

During the running of a Spybot scan ("Check for problems") the status bar in the lower left hand corner of the Spybot window shows the following:
"Running bot-check(xxxxx/yyyyy:zzzzzz)" where:
xxxxx = Current check count.
yyyyy = Total check count.
zzzzz = Malware check being performed.


The zzzzz value is not what is on your system, it is the malware check being performed by Spybot.
At the end of the Spybot scan the status bar in the lower left hand corner of the Spybot window shows the following:
"xx problems found (mm:ss)" where:
xx = Number of problems found.
mm:ss = Scan time in minutes and seconds.

[marjohnau]

Debbie 58:

If you do not want to run the scan for "Zlob.downloader.bs":
Go into Spybot > Mode > Advanced mode > Settings > Ignore products.
Locate the item that you what to exclude from the scan ("Zlob.downloader.bs") and check it.

md usa spybot fan,

Thanks for your suggestion.

I excluded Zlob.downloader.bs and the scan on my Windows 98SE machine completed successfully in 47:53 minutes.

This compares with my previous scan which hadn't completed after 3 hours (see my prior post).

[drragostea]

Hello, marjohnau. Have you defragmented your drive with Windows 98SE? Also have you performed a "cleanup" read my pervious posts. My aunt's Windows ME completed around 30 mins... and I do not think it ever had a problem like freezing during scan. Her computer is just old... due to the inadequate quantity of RAM. Lols, modern computers should have at least 512 MB of RAM.

[Cimarron]

md usa spybot fan, thank you for the info about the scan time.

Also the info given to debbie58 was also my problem, so I will follow her lead.
It really seems that the culprit here must be that zlob downloader too.

Will look forward for next updates, and hopefully there will be a fix.

Thanks

[marjohnau]

Hello, marjohnau. Have you defragmented your drive with Windows 98SE? Also have you performed a "cleanup" read my pervious posts. My aunt's Windows ME completed around 30 mins... and I do not think it ever had a problem like freezing during scan. Her computer is just old... due to the inadequate quantity of RAM. Lols, modern computers should have at least 512 MB of RAM.

Hello drragostea,

Yes, I've defragmented the drive with Windows 98SE, and also cleaned up the drive (do both regularly).

Must admit that the old machine only has 128 MB of RAM, but that's always been sufficient for running Windows 98SE.

Looks, to me, as though there is a problem with the Zlob.Downloader.bs scan, rather than the computer/operating system per se.

[drragostea]

Hello, marjohnau. Have you read md usa fan's, post? Go to Advanced Mode in the MODE tab. Go to settings and click on IGNORE PRODUCTS. Find the Zlob "fingerprint" and click on it. Spybot-SD should ignore that during the scan. I'll be assuming it'll complete your scan.

[marjohnau]

Hello, marjohnau. Have you read md usa fan's, post? Go to Advanced Mode in the MODE tab. Go to settings and click on IGNORE PRODUCTS. Find the Zlob "fingerprint" and click on it. Spybot-SD should ignore that during the scan. I'll be assuming it'll complete your scan.

drragostea,

Thanks for your advice, but if you look at my second last post in this thread (#21) you'll probably notice that that's what I've already done (and reported back on). Hence I was able to report that the scan completed successfully in 47:53 minutes.

[drragostea]

Ah. Gotcha. :euro:

[Debbie 58]

Downloaded latest definition today. Scan took one hour.

It took 32 mintues on Zlob.downloader.bs to move from 13600 to 13716. All the time the scan is moving slowly I can hear the hard drive working away and the yellow light on the systems casing box is constantly flashing.

Now I know my system is clean as I paid an IT professional to look at it yesterday.
He also re ran Ccleaner, trojan remover, the smithfraud fix (I had that 18 months ago but Spybot saved my system then), and then he uninstalled AVG 8 and reinstalled AVG 7.5.

Nothing was found on my system that was of any significance.

I also decided to rerun Spybot last night and it took 58 minutes. So that is slightly better.

I guess that I will have to exclude the Zlob file as suggested earlier in the thread.

[marjohnau]

Downloaded latest definition today. Scan took one hour.

It took 32 mintues on Zlob.downloader.bs to move from 13600 to 13716. All the time the scan is moving slowly I can hear the hard drive working away and the yellow light on the systems casing box is constantly flashing.

Now I know my system is clean as I paid an IT professional to look at it yesterday.
He also re ran Ccleaner, trojan remover, the smithfraud fix (I had that 18 months ago but Spybot saved my system then), and then he uninstalled AVG 8 and reinstalled AVG 7.5.

Nothing was found on my system that was of any significance.

I also decided to rerun Spybot last night and it took 58 minutes. So that is slightly better.

I guess that I will have to exclude the Zlob file as suggested earlier in the thread.

Here's my take on scanning performance with the latest (7 May 2008) definition updates. Not much different to last week, but for those who are interested.

With Spybot 1.5.2.20:

WinXP SP2 - 54:53 minutes

Win98SE, nothing excluded -

Not finished after 2 hours; 'hung' again when scanning Zlob.Downloader.bs; got as far as 135637/150799. According to the computer clock the computer locked up after 1 hour of scanning.

Win98SE, Zlob.Downloader.bs excluded -

Completed after 56:11 minutes

marjohnau

[drragostea]

Windows XP SP3 released 5.6.08. I would suggest you upgrade to it. It won't be a significant difference such as SP2, but it's got a performance boost.

[Greyfox]

marjohnau

Just in case you might be considering updating to XP, bear in mind that the absolute minimum memory requirement specified by Microsoft for XP was 256MB and frankly 560MB is the least I would consider to get reasonable performance.

[drragostea]

Yes, like Greyfox said, the minimum is around 500 MB. I purchased mine in 2002 and runs with 512 MB of RAM. It runs smoothly. If you are like a Java-developer or you run memory intense programs get around 1 GB of RAM.