Teatimer Performance and Startup Issues

[787Infoquest]

I have been performing a number of performance test with the various malware software options out there… Spybot, Ad-Aware, Spyware Doctor, Windows Defender, AVG Antispyware, NIS 2008, Spyblaster, WinPatrol, etc. To my surprise, most of these do seem to get along and cover different aspects of preventing malware from making its way on to your computer.

No matter what combination I have tried, I have been seeing real performance impacts due to teatimer.exe. One of the more surprising things is that it is doubling the boot up time. I have tried to narrow the startup to the core components and still see similar results.

There also seems to be an issue that the longer teatimer runs, the longer the boot ups take. Running several reboots, I found on log off that teatimer memory reference error surfaced. This error and performance become a real issue until you turn off teatimer, reboot and then reenable it again. The interesting thing is that the next boot up after enable it was just over a minute… after a number of boots… the slow boot issue surfaced again. When teatimer is not enable, the issue and performance does not surface not matter how many reboots or what software is being loaded at startup.

Any advice or ideas on how to resolve this and make teatimer stable would be very appreciated as I like this feature of being able to better control how and what is changing my registries and would like to continue to use it.

[129260]

Make sure you are running the latest version. Teatimer over time can take more cpu usage and ram i have found when there are several items in its list. right click teatimer and click settings. click all the x's in the list on every tab and see if that helps. I did that when teatimer was taking alot of cpu usage and ram and now its fine. Note that you will be asked again about any changes that were recorded in the whitelist in the future.

[787Infoquest]

I am running Spybot version 1.5.2.20. Where should I right click teatimer? I have tried various places in the Resident panel and the side menu, but no luck.

[787Infoquest]

Okay... I right clicked the Teatimer icon in the systray and then settings. I went through Allowed registry changes, Blocked registry changes, Allowed processes and Blocked Process. All were empty, though this may be due to my recent clicking and unclicking of Resident "TeaTimer."

Other ideas?

[Greyfox]

..... I have been seeing real performance impacts due to teatimer.exe. One of the more surprising things is that it is doubling the boot up time. I have tried to narrow the startup to the core components and still see similar results.

I have had version 1.5.2.20 running on three different PC's ever since the new version was released, all with IE Browser Helper and Teatimer enabled and I have not experienced any operational problems, errors etc from Teatimer on any of the PC's, and two of them are worked quite hard. (I do completely remove each earlier version before installing a newer one)

Yes, having Teatimer enabled does increase the boot up time. As measured on one PC using Sysinternals Process Monitor (Boot logging on) it increases the total boot time from 42 seconds (All normal startup items enabled except Teatimer) to 68 seconds (All normal startup items enabled including Teatimer), and this is reasonably consistent.

To be fair I could significantly reduce this boot up time if I didn't have AVG Antivirus, or Zone Alarm firewall, or other protection software load either, but I'm happy to trade off the extra 26 seconds boot time each morning for the protection Teatimer gives me for the rest of the day.

[129260]

Okay... I right clicked the Teatimer icon in the systray and then settings. I went through Allowed registry changes, Blocked registry changes, Allowed processes and Blocked Process. All were empty, though this may be due to my recent clicking and unclicking of Resident "TeaTimer."

Other ideas?

1.) i agree with the guy above me with the fact that "I'm happy to trade off the extra 26 seconds boot time each morning for the protection Teatimer gives me for the rest of the day."

Maybe try exiting teatimer and then reloading it. That solved my issue sometimes, i used it as a last resort however for version 1.4, i dont know if this will help at all but its worth a shot. Right click teatimer and click exit spybot s&d resident protection. teatimer is a hidden operating system file found in the spybot installation folder, so once you exit, navigate to C (or whatever drive spybot is installed on) and go to program files, spybot s&d. then click tools, folder options, click the view tab, and click show hidden files and folders AND uncheck hide protected operating system files. click apply and ok. double click the teatimer icon, and wait a bit. it will show back up. See if that helps at all. make sure you go back and undo the changes that u did to see teatimer in the folder. It is highly recommended you hide protected operating system files. if that doesn't solve your problem, I honestly can say I am sorry, I do not have any other solutions. Wait for a team member to assist you.

[787Infoquest]

I agree too.. additional 26 seconds is worth the protection you gain. If we can figure out a way to get there, that would be great! My problem is that the boot up times goes from 1 minute and 27 seconds to over 4 minutes. When I exited spybot s&d resident protection, I ended up getting the following System Setting Protector error (I hope this provides a clue). Should this file still be 1.5.2.16, instead of 1.5.2.2?

AppName: teatimer.exe AppVer: 1.5.2.16 ModName: teatimer.exe
ModVer: 1.5.2.16 Offset: 000042b2

I have followed the steps outlined above and now will repeat my boot test and report back.

[CadScot]

I am following this thread with interest, because on my PC here, TeaTimer still crashes any time from seconds to hours after starting, with the 'big white empty dialog box' except for the Close button.

Am I the only person experiencing this problem?!!

My OS is W98SE and I am on a 200MHz PII processor with a massive (!) 256MB of system RAM, if that helps.
--
BFN
CAD

[129260]

I agree too.. additional 26 seconds is worth the protection you gain. If we can figure out a way to get there, that would be great! My problem is that the boot up times goes from 1 minute and 27 seconds to over 4 minutes. When I exited spybot s&d resident protection, I ended up getting the following System Setting Protector error (I hope this provides a clue). Should this file still be 1.5.2.16, instead of 1.5.2.2?

AppName: teatimer.exe AppVer: 1.5.2.16 ModName: teatimer.exe
ModVer: 1.5.2.16 Offset: 000042b2

I have followed the steps outlined above and now will repeat my boot test and report back.

your teatimer version when you right clicked and clicked about. your says: 1.5.2.16
MINE SAYS version: 1.5.2.0
system settings protector version is: 1.5.2.16
unless thats what you meant....i guess thats what it is lol. drr to me. anyways, when you hit ctrl alt delete, and pull up task manager, go to the processes tab, and click the word mem usage until the highest usage is at the top of the list. Tell me what teatimer.exe is taking. and what cpu usage, and mem usage. Thank you. PLEASE ALSO MAKE SURE SPYBOT IS COMPLETELY UPDATED!
ALSO: If you open spybot and click mode-advanced mode, and click yes, go to the settings spot, click the resident side button, and uncheck use system settings protector. then restart your system. Does the performance of startup any better? Does that give back your couple of seconds booting up? if so, let me know immediately. I have a couple more suggestions. Thanks for any info you provide and your patience, as i can understand this can be frustrating.

[129260]

I am following this thread with interest, because on my PC here, TeaTimer still crashes any time from seconds to hours after starting, with the 'big white empty dialog box' except for the Close button.

Am I the only person experiencing this problem?!!

My OS is W98SE and I am on a 200MHz PII processor with a massive (!) 256MB of system RAM, if that helps.
--
BFN
CAD

with windows 98 I am sorry to say. Please see this thread, this is the thread where people are telling of there issues with spybot running windows 98. IF you post there, that will keep all windows 98 issues in one thread. thanks
see here: http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=24087
post exactly what you said to me here, and that will get it noticed as well. feel free to keep up with this thread, that would be cool if my suggestions solved your issue as well good luck!