More Virex problem reports
MacFixIt receives almost daily reports of problems with Virex 7.5.x. Although this isn't rare for a widely used application, the extensive diversity of the problems attributed to Virex is surprising. Today's report, from reader Jim Weil, covers modem issues apparently attributable to Virex, as well as McAfee's support policy towards .Mac Virex users:
"Virex is interfering with 3rd party Apps, such as PageSender and Jon's Phone Tool, initializing the Apple Internal Modem when Virex is active, even when it's not launched. It is frustrating trying to get Apple to look into this -- so far I have either been stonewalled or they are reluctantly asking me for more info. I have been pursuing this since Nov 11 without any resolution at this point. So far the only workaround is to turn of 'Active Virus Detection' in Preferences. Apple's Internet Connect tool seems unaffected by this problem (i.e., it has no problem initializing the modem with Virex active.) When Virex does interfere with initialization, the entire computer hangs and it requires a hard restart to get the computer going again.
"Also, according to McAfee Technical Support there are two versions of Virex 7.5, the Enterprise version written and supported by McAfee that is for 5 or more computers, and the .Mac version that has been taken over by Apple, now programmed and supported by Apple's .Mac team. That is the 'free' version on .Mac know as 7.5.1. The Enterprise version is sold directly by McAfee to its business customers. McAfee refuses to support .Mac customers. So does Apple, other than via .Mac e-mail. And that support is pretty mediocre. They just love to stick their heads in the sand and recite boilerplate, along with making commitments to providing responses that they do not keep."
In addition, reader Brian Crowe provides a summary of issues that have been discussed on the .Mac and Virex forums:
"I have been closely monitoring and actively participating in the Apple .Mac and Mcafee Virex 6/7 forums regarding a number of problems with Virex 7.5.1. Today, both companies began dialogs with myself and at least one other user to investigate and resolve a number of reported problems, and this is reassuring. Here is a summary of various issues with Virex reported by large numbers (several dozens) of users:
- System Start-up Freezes if 1) Print & Fax system preference to "Receive Faxes on This Computer" is elected, or 2) Smith Micro's FaxSTF X or FaxSTF Pro X is installed
- Inability to successfully register .Mac ID and password in the Virex preferences and automatically download virus definition updates (reported by many users)
- Virex Unexpectedly Quits on scanning some files including MPEG4 files
- Failure to move infected files to the Trash on demand in response to notifications of infected files found
- Conflicts that impact functionality in Adobe Distiller and Illustrator, DigiDesign's Pro Tools, Zinio Downloader, MacroMedia Fireworks and Flash and other applications
- Inability to successfully upgrade from Virex 7.2.1 requiring careful, manual removal of Virex 7.2.1 before Virex 7.5.1 will correctly operate (reported by several users)
- System sound and video defects (reported by several users)
- Networking services freeze, particularly with modem use (reported by several users)
- Significant system slowdowns (reported by several users)
- Kernel panics on start-up and during normal system use (reported by several users)
- Possible corruption of a Mail mailbox when saving an infected attachment reported by one user - this is currently being investigated by Apple
"To rub salt in a user's wounds, Virex 7.2.1 is no longer available on the .Mac website; if a user upgrades to Virex 7.5.1, there is no way to downgrade unless they have retained their old copy of the Virex 7.2.1 disk image. Even though several of these problems can be remedied or worked around with some impact to utilization of a user's computer, one wonders why anyone would rely on Virex 7.5.1 after two weeks of trouble reports from users of this scale."
Resources
The reports of problems with Virex 7.5 have been going on for more than a couple weeks--it began when it was released, in July or August of this year, I think, and the flood hasn't stopped. Last I heard, Virex is essentially owned by Apple now, because McAfee said they wouldn't provide support for it any more, because that was Apple's job now. They may have changed their tune lately, but so far they don't seem to have had much if any success in fixing the problems.
If you look at the list of problems with Virex 7.5 and 7.5.1, it resembles a classic list of problems CAUSED by viruses. It causes far more problems than any OS X virus has caused (if someone can recall an OS X virus that has caused widespread trouble, please remind me). Why keep using it?
To top it all off, here's a quote someone posted from one of the readme files from Virex 7.5.1, as McAfee's "fix" to version 7.5.0's bug of stupidly deleting user's entire email inbox files when a virus was detected (or even when one wasn't, in some cases):
"Features excluded from this release: Scan Contents of Mailboxes--this Preference feature of Virex 7.5.0 has been removed from Virex 7.5.1. This product is not meant to be utilized for scanning mails and mailboxes."
In other words, the most common way viruses are transmitted--via attachments to email--is no longer checked under Virex 7.5.1. If I'm misunderstanding something here, can someone please better inform me?
The real solution seems simple enough--stop using Virex.
I myself have experienced constant "system failure"s (screen turns black, incomprehensible series of mumbo-jumbo in white chars and a physical restart needed) when attempting to use Virex to scan my disc.
It seems to have developed fairly recently, after one of those numerous System Security Updates Apple orders you to execute without telling you *why* -- my guess is that Panther is ******** than a lambda user like me can imagine.
After a year's experience with Panther I am beginning to wonder whether my next box won't be an XP one :-(
BTW I am getting more and more of the SBOD with every Security update too.
Finally DiskWarrior often finds the directory of my startup disc so damaged that it cannot rebuild it.
Apple certainly does *NOT* force you to install any security updates. And they *DO* tell you what the updates fix. They don't tell you in the software update application itself, but they always put up a post in their Knowledge Base telling you what security problems are fixed with each update.
I received a variant of Bagle virus a couple days ago. The email arrived to a
work related folder and was moved to Junk folder. I did save it to a
Downloads folder on my HD. Virex 7.5.1 immediately checked the file,
deleted it as set in Prefs. But the mbox file the virus arrived in is now empty.
.Mac support is investigating this.
something. Active and background scanning are turned off which may be why
I haven't had any problems.
Don't be too sure...
I had specifically truned off background scanning, and removed Virex from
my account's start-up items. If you check with Activity Monitor, I think you'll
find that Virex is still chewing up processor cycles in the background.
I tried a minimal approach, too. No active protection and I basically adjusted preferences so that I could scan files on demand and nothing else. Virex 7.5.1 still caused problems with Adobe Distiller 6.0.2 and Adobe Illustrator CS, and I experienced a number of inexplicable system slowdowns. All of these problems have gone away since I uninstalled Virex. I wish there were a way to use it just as a plain old foreground application to scan files on demand.
FireWire) has seemed increasingly sluggish. Last night I finally opened
Activity Monitor to investigate. Now, I had turned off (or so I thought) all of
the Virex background activity, and removed it from my start-up items -- the
plan was to just do virus checking "on demand". Despite my previous
intentions, there were several Virex-related background activities happily
contributing about 15% to the processor activity. That was surprise #1.
Surprise #2 soon followed. As I cycled through them, quitting (or "force
quitting") them one at a time, I began to notice that they were restarting
themselves, faster than I could quit them.
I think someone earlier described Virex as behaving like a virus...
Last night, I uninstalled Virex 7.5 and reinstalled v7.2 -- at least v7.2 doesn't
get in the way when I'm not on-line, unless I ask it to.
Someone mentioned that v7.2 is no longer available??? I just downloaded it
12 hours ago from the .Mac section at Apple.com.
Interesting. Nothing referring to Virex (Virex 7.5.1) appeared in the Accounts
pref pane for login/startup items before I deleted all of its pieces with the
help of the "Find" command, Looked there first when I had problems as it
wasn't supposed to even be turned on. Then I killed its dameon (or
whatever) that did appear in Activity Monitor.
Mac OSX 10.3.6, Virex 7.5.1, latest definitions, all downloaded from .Mac
(which is reportedly the version used by .Mac account users. 7.5.1 appears to
be what most (not necessarily all) the problems are related to.
Update on Virex 7.2 becoming available again:
I just received this email from .Mac support as a response to my Virex 7.5.1
issues. I have decided to publicly release it so all that want to revert back can
do it properly. Here is the entire message as sent to me from .Mac support.
Unfortunately I have nothing to add to clarify or explain these instructions
any further as I have not tried them yet. Hope it helps:
-------
Dear James,
We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced with this
issue.
Due to customer feedback such as yours we have made Virex 7.2.1 available
for download again. Virex 7.2.1 and Virex 7.5.1 can be downloaded from the
.Mac website
<http://www.mac.com/WebObjects/Tools.woa?
destination=antivirusdownload&lang=en&cty=US>
We advise that you fully remove Virex 7.5.1 prior to installing Virex 7.2.1. To
remove Virex 7.5.1, follow these instructions:
1. Open the Virex_7.5.1.dmg file, if you have delete this file, please download
a new copy from
<http://www.mac.com/WebObjects/Tools.woa?
destination=antivirusdownload&lang=en&cty=US>
2. To uninstall Virex 7.5.1, do the following:
- Double-click the Virex Uninstall Command icon.
- This will open the Apple Terminal application located in the Applications /
Utilities folder.
3. Enter your Administrator password and press Return
Note: It's normal for the password characters you are entering not to appear,
this is a security feature, just enter your correct Administrator password and
then press return to enter your password.
4. When the script is finished running, the following text will appear:
'Virex 7 has been removed from your system. You may now close this
Terminal window.'
5. Quit Terminal. Virex is now removed from your system.
Correctly completing these steps will remove Virex from your system. After
removing Virex please use the Mac OS X Disk Utility application to repair the
hard disk itself and then repair permissions. After you have repaired the hard
disk and volume permissions feel free to install either Virex 7.2.1 or Virex
7.5.1.
You may wish to refer to the following knowledge base articles for assistance
with troubleshooting Mac OS X with Disk Utility:
Mac OS X: How to Test and Repair a Disk:
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61352>
About Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions feature (Mac OS X 10.2, 10.3):
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751
Sincerely,
The .Mac Support Team
Access a wealth of technical support information by visiting the .Mac Support
website at
<http://www.apple.com/support/dotmac/>.
To learn more about using .Mac, visit the .Mac Learning Center at
<http://www.mac.com/learningcenter/>.
a .Mac window also open so checked it. It's in same download area as 7.5.1.
Why anyone burned with 7.5.1 would want it I don't know.
Have my own 7.5.1 story I'd rather not tell. Too many to keep up with all of
them and I hate to be redundant (finding a new one at this stage may or may
not prove to be difficult).
What I have found is that Virex is very sensitive to where it is installed. It
must be installed and left in the Applications folder. If it is moved out
Applications folder or to a subdirectory within it, Virex updates will not install
correctly and error messages will occur. Hope this helps.
<i>(English or Japanese)</i>
<b>English version at...</b>
http://mac.apple.com.edgesuite.net/Virex_7.2.1.dmg
zino and restart several times to get the mag. Have cable modem and
usually
takes a sec or two. I turned off Virex and "scan background" and I still had to
open and close the app.
Emailed Zino and asked for help[
Any suggestions and or Help?
"Virex" and you will see the choice to download 7.2 instead of 7.5
local iDisk would fail to mount. The error message reads "Creating the iDisk
on your computer failed (Could not open the iDisk on your computer)" Up
until last week it worked fine. The problem seems mostly to occur when I
restart or start-up after a complete shutdown (naturally enough as this is
when the iDisk is accessed). If I then open the .Mac Preference pane and
select iDisk, switch from Automatic to Manual sync (or vice versa depending
on current status), close System Preferences it will then (sometimes) mount
the iDisk. Most often this works. Sometimes I then get the error again. If I
turn off local copy altogether my old iDisk appears as a .dmg file and I can
recreate the local idisk from scratch (which is very annoying). Usually I will
lose the local copy again within a few startups after recreating. The only thing
I had changed was to install Virex 7.5.1 off .Mac. Gone through all the usual
Mirror agent stuff. Uninstalled Virex 7.5.1 and now iDisk is working again...
Makes sense in that the problem first occurred AFTER I upgraded Virex but I
can't tell what the incompatibility is. As it stands, Virex is OFF my system
until I hear more.
virus, nor heard of anyone else getting a virus. As far as I know there are no
viruses for the Mac. So my questions again is... Why Virex? Why any virus
protection program? Or is this like the lions in front of the library that keep
the elephants away.
my system comes back up but with in 5 to 10 miniutes, my system goes into
kernel panic mode! I can reboot then 5 to 10 mins, it happens again, removal
of the 7.5.1 fixes the panic issue. this never happened with 7.2.1!
Any ideas on how to get 7.5.1 to work?
- by pkcrew January 5, 2005 11:13 PM PST
- I too am having recurrent kernel panics with Virex 7.5.1. How do I safely
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(20 Comments)uninstall the program if I have downloaded the .mac version and don't have
the Virex CD with the uninstaller?
Thanks.