View Full Version : SB 1.6 slows system
ver 1.6 has really slowed response on my computer. Is there a fix in the works? Failing that is there a site to dowload the older 1.5 version? Win 2000 sys with McAfee and all current windows updates. Ver 1.6 is only update made in the last couple of weeks and slowdown was immediate.
EVanlee
You don't really give enough detail to determine what exactly has happened to your system.
There are three specific slowdowns that have been reported by some users:
The first slows responses in Windows Explorer/My Computer when browsing folders on the local pc.
The second slows responses in Internet Explorer when browsing the web.
The third only happens as the Teatimer utility is checking memory resident processes during bootup.
The Teatimer slowdown has now largely been addressed with the new version that caches previously checked files to avoid rescanning the same files at each bootup. The latest released version of Teatimer (aka Spybot SD-Resident) is v1.6.2.23 - which you should see in your system tray.
The first two problems seem to be system dependant and one cause can be found in the following thread:
Delay Opening Folders Caused by SDHelper - Solved!! (http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=32763)
Basically if your Cookies folder contains 1000's of cookies try clearing it as Spybots Resident IE module (SDHelper) appears to choke on excessive numbers of cookies - causing a delay on every new folder/webpage change.
Failing all else Spybot v1.5.2 is still available here:
http://www.spybotupdates.com/files/spybotsd152.exe
http://www.spybotupdates.biz/files/spybotsd152.exe
http://files.spybot.info/spybotsd152.exe
Sorry, SB 1.6 has slowed opening folders as well as opening browser windows, particularly slow when using my hotmail account to read groups. I have tested turning off SDhelper and everything goes back to normal. I turned it back on not knowing if it was necessary or not. So now my system is slow again. I did dump all cookies (2,010) and that does not appear to have any effect. I am running Win 2000 with all updates and IE6.
should I go back to 1.5 and wait for a fix, though they don't appear to think this is a bug since when I tried to report a bug they sent me to the forum.
Evanlee
I have been trying to get the developers to acknowledge and investigate the SDHelper problems for may weeks now without any apparent success - no forum responses and no bug tracker entry created. So you may be waiting a long time if you can't find the cause yourself - as I eventually did.
If you followed the links from the thread I mentioned above you to you will see how I tracked down the cause of the slowdown on my system. Excessive cookies seems to be the cause in many cases - but it appears it must be different on yours. You could always try the same analysis that I used, on your setup - and if the delays are long enough it should be possible to see what the system is doing during the delay period.
However there could be other possibilities:
Did you check the actual content of the folder named Cookies? or just accept that the delete all cookies button actually worked? Some cookies are protected and will not get deleted - unlikely to be enough to cause a problem but who knows. On my system (with XP-Pro) the size of the Index.dat file (in the Cookies folder) was not the cause - but this may not always be true - and this file requires special measures to delete.
I have now been able to reactivate SDHelper without getting a slowdown - but I was running without it for a few weeks. Can't say I was happy to do that - but it was better than battling the Windows Explorer 3 second delay. I reasoned that with both AVG v8 and Spybots Teatimer running I had a fair degree of spyware protection - at least until the problem could be solved.
Reverting to Spybot v1.5.2 is very tempting when faced with an unexplained slowdown caused by SDHelper - especially as it was basically a trouble free version - but I got hooked by the faster scan times of v1.6. I chose the alternative route of disabling SDHelper on v1.6 and loosing the extra layer of Resident Download protection.
In closing I just say if "you" do not want users to disable a misbehaving SDHelper module then it needs to fixed so it works correctly as it did in v1.5.2
Thanks for the replys. I'm not computer savy enough to try to check what is slowing things down. I've uninstalled and gone back to 1.5 for the time being. That tried to install 1.6 automatically but I was able to cut it off. I did try to report this as a bug again. Will wait and see if they do a fix and then reinstall.
Evanlee