Scan stuck at Surfsidekick

[gaber]

Hi, I just can't seem to get spybot to finish scanning. Whenever it scans, it gets stuck at SurfSideKick, and the progress bar will remain the same until I cancel the scan. I've tried scanning in safe mode, uninstalling and reinstalling, updating using only europe servers and it still gets stuck at the same spot. I've also checked and am pretty sure I'm not infected with the SurfSideKick spyware. Any clues on how I can fix this? :sad:

[drragostea]

Have you cleared the cache, temp. files, and cookies from your browsers? Have you defragmented your drive lately?

Edit: Run Spybot in ADVANCED MODE and find DIRECTORIES. I'm sure it's in the first tab. Is there anything in there? If so, right click on it and tell Spybot to remove it.

[gaber]

Thanks for the reply.

I've defragged my drive quite recently, and I just tried scanning again after clearing the cache, temp files and cookies for both my browsers and it's still stuck at the same point. I checked "Directories" in advanced mode and it's already empty.

[drragostea]

I got this from another thread, which another user was having trouble with "Clickspring.outerinfo".
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Clearing the temporary files may also help, to do this manually with Spybot S&D users can do the following:

switch to advanced mode
navigate to tools - secure shredder
choose "add files from Temp folder" from templates drop down menu
click "chop it away" to delete these temporary files

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If this doesn't work, I'm thinking about... ignoring the product from future scans.

[gaber]

Thanks! I ignored SurfSideKick and the scan finally completed!
Though the results showed that there were no threats, which is kinda weird since it's been a year since I last scanned, and I always manage to find spyware on my other pc every few weeks :fear:

[drragostea]

Have attempted "chop away" the temp. files from Yodama?

You should have done that first.

Also, do you mean tracking cookies? Some users ask why Spybot 1.5.2 does not find anything compared to the dozens of stuff that 1.4 finds. Well this is because Spybot now recognizes some cookies as "good".

However, the usual tribalfusion and ad.yieldmanager (for example) are still detected.

[md usa spybot fan]

gaber:

You have provided very little information to really trace the possible problem down. For example:
What Windows OS are you running?
What version of Spybot are you running (Spybot > help About)?
Is this the first time you tried running Spybot?
If so, have you run a CHKDSK (see Note #1) recently to make sure the that problem is not a file system problem causing the hang?
If not, did the problem occur?
After upgrading from one version of Spybot to another?
After a particular detection file update and if so what update was that (from yyyy-mm-dd to yyy-mm-dd?
__________

Note #1: The problem may not be with Spybot itself but some condition being encountered while Spybot is scanning. Although it is long shot, I suggest you try running CHKDSK on your primary drive to make sure there are no file system errors that may be causing the problem.

Open a command prompt. Click Start then select Run… Type "command" or "cmd" (no quotes). Click "OK" Type "chkdsk x: /r" (type the command with no quotes and substituting the drive letter of the drive you want to scan for the "x:"). Note: Option /f : Fixes errors on the disk. Option /r : Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information.
If the following message appears:
Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N) Type "Y" (no quotes). Type "EXIT" (no quotes). Reboot your system. If you did not get the message indicating that a reboot was required (3. above), type "EXIT" (no quotes) when Chkdsk completes. Note: CHKDSK may run for quite a while so just be patient.For more information on CHKDSK see:
Chkdsk
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb491051(TechNet.10).aspx

[gaber]

Ooh, yeah most of the old results were tracking cookies, no wonder I didn't find any this time around.

As for "chopping" the files from the temp folder, I did try that but the moment I clicked "add files from temp folder", spybot freezes and doesn't respond, even if I leave it there for 5 minutes, so I ended up ending the process. Tried it a couple of times too and it always freezes/hangs.

edit:md usa spybot fan:
I'm using Windows XP Professional with SP3,Spybot version 1.5.2.20.
This isn't my first time running spybot, I used the older version for quite some time before I stopped scanning regularly. I recently updated to the latest version and that is when I first encountered this problem. I can't quite remember which version I updated from, but it's been easily 8-12 months since I last used spybot.

I also use chkdsk every month on both my drives, so it's safe to say there's no file system errors.

The scan worked fine once I ignored SurfSideKick, the only thing I'm curious about is why the scan found 0 threats when I find it pretty unlikely to have no spyware after 8-12 months of not scanning =/

Also, sorry for the lack of information.