[Aardwolf]

Today has been a bad day.




When I first logged in today, I got a nice big "Avast most make an update" dialog.

Then I ran a program of mine, and noticed the window had a 1- or 2-pixel red border around it. A few seconds later and the window closed mysteriously. Then I tried to run it again, and got a "system service exception" BSoD.

I restarted, and told Avast to scan my computer. It said it was at about 10% progress after an hour, even though it had scanned 50% of the used hard drive space. Weird measurement or something.

While that was going, I decided to do some more coding on my FPS. I went to test some of the new code I wrote, and the build process took way longer than normal (it delayed on the first step), and when it finally ran the game window had the same sort of red border around it... and then closed. I tried again, and the same thing happened.

I tried to run Firefox from the task-bar (or possibly from the desktop icon?)... IIRC at some point it told me it couldn't because an instance of firefox was already running but not responding. This I'm not entirely sure when it happened.

So I tried looking through the Avast UI for settings that might be relevant. The UI became non-responsive. I tried to ctrl+alt+delete it, but the ctrl+alt+delete screen wouldn't appear! I tried to close MSVC so I could see my desktop, but MSVC was unresponsive. I tried to run Firefox from the start menu, but then  the start menu/taskbar (and presumably all of explorer.exe) became unresponsive.

Ultimately I had to restart by holding the power button for 5 seconds.




Help me, HLP!

[yuezhi]

I tried to run Firefox from the task-bar (or possibly from the desktop icon?)... IIRC at some point it told me it couldn't because an instance of firefox was already running but not responding. This I'm not entirely sure when it happened.

i'm not insane after all! Anyways this problem doesn't make sense since there can be multiple windows at on time.

"Avast most make an update"

you trust these guys?

[LHN91]

First thing to try would be to see if you can get into Safe Mode and uninstall Avast. I use Avast, and the updates have gone fine for me; but that red border is avast running your program in sandbox mode, which shouldn't happen unless you told it to.

[Bobboau]

make a copy of everything you don't want to lose.

[Aardwolf]

I tried to run Firefox from the task-bar (or possibly from the desktop icon?)... IIRC at some point it told me it couldn't because an instance of firefox was already running but not responding. This I'm not entirely sure when it happened.

i'm not insane after all! Anyways this problem doesn't make sense since there can be multiple windows at on time.

I know, it makes no goddamn sense! Same for Pidgin (except it's usually better about it).

"Avast most make an update"

Paraphrased.



I figured out part of it. The thing that was putting the red border and closing my programs was indeed Avast. It has a "feature" called "auto sandbox" which puts an app into sandbox-mode so it can't hurt stuff. Turns out the feature has an option to "Ask" instead of "Auto", but when I set that it just went away entirely. Maybe some "ignore from now on" checkbox I hit eons ago?

[MP-Ryan]

The "Firefox is already running" bug is a documented, known bug in Firefox.  It occurs when you close Firefox normally (or terminate it abnormally) and it fails to release from system drivers or services.  The only documented way to resolve this is by a system logoff/reboot as the process no longer appears in Task Manager.  It is not related to having multiple instances of Firefox running.

I've noticed it rarely happens on my home Win7-based systems, but I get it weekly if not daily on my work laptop.

[Rodo]

make a copy of everything you don't want to lose.

Cause you can never have enough good advises.

[Aardwolf]

The "Firefox is already running" bug is a documented, known bug in Firefox.  It occurs when you close Firefox normally (or terminate it abnormally) and it fails to release from system drivers or services.  The only documented way to resolve this is by a system logoff/reboot as the process no longer appears in Task Manager.  It is not related to having multiple instances of Firefox running.

I get it after I've closed Firefox normally. Task manager shows that the process is still running (i.e. the window closed but the process is taking its sweet time), and task manager can kill it (although maybe this is "not recommended"?).

make a copy of everything you don't want to lose.

Mmm. I got my FPS on google code, but I guess I should back up my 3d models, my other projects, and probably some other stuff...

And let's not forget about my folder full of funny pictures I downloaded from the Internet!

[LHN91]

Personally, I don't think making backups is particularly necessary in this case, at least not yet. As far as I can tell, it looks like avast went and sandboxed something it shouldn't have. I mean, it never hurts to do backups, but I think it's probably repairable in this case with a disable/reinstall of avast wiping out avast's settings.

In fact, if I think about it, Firefox loading in a sandbox may very well have prevented it from releasing the system drivers or services; or at least exacerbated it's usual tendency to have that bug show up. It's one of the reasons I've more or less switched entirely to Chrome or versions thereof.

[Aardwolf]

I would use Chrome, but afaik it doesn't support NoScript?

Apparently there are plugins called "NotScript" and "ScriptNo", but no "NoScript".

[Nuke]

The "Firefox is already running" bug is a documented, known bug in Firefox.  It occurs when you close Firefox normally (or terminate it abnormally) and it fails to release from system drivers or services.  The only documented way to resolve this is by a system logoff/reboot as the process no longer appears in Task Manager.  It is not related to having multiple instances of Firefox running.

I've noticed it rarely happens on my home Win7-based systems, but I get it weekly if not daily on my work laptop.

ive never seen that happen where i couldnt kill the process with the task manager.

[newman]

Same here. When it happens to me I just kill the firefox.exe process and it works.

[Davros]

opera has a similar problem to firefox

[Dragon]

Yes, it has, but I noticed that the process shuts down after a short while, at least in the version I'm running.

[Ghostavo]

Depends on how many tabs you have open.

If you have say.... between 100 and 200 tabs open, it seems to take a while. Probably something to do with Opera Link.

[Rodo]

100 tabs? why the hell would you need that much?

[Ghostavo]

Both research and TVTropes combined tend to inflate the number of opened tabs.

[headdie]

Both research and TVTropes combined tend to inflate the number of opened tabs.

this is the spawn of the devil for tab related computer slowdown, it is actually worse than wikipedia for link chaining

[Nuke]

ive always found that level of multitasking to be highly inefficient. i miss dos. i should try that freedos web browser one of these days.

[jr2]

I would use Chrome, but afaik it doesn't support NoScript?

Apparently there are plugins called "NotScript" and "ScriptNo", but no "NoScript".

I'd get ScriptNo... apparently Chrome doesn't have the functionality built in to handle things the way NoScript does, but they're working on it.  Until then, use ScriptNo for the same results with a different approach.  (also, there is AdBlock + and Flashblock for Chrome, those are both FTW)


@Nuke:  http://www.browzar.com/   222Kb, seems right up your alley.  Let me know what you think.  EDIT: They have versions for 98 and ME, lol!