Virex 7.5 conflicting with fax activity

We've received a number of corroborating reports indicating a conflict between Virex 7.5.x and Mac OS X's built-in fax functionality. In many cases, the issue starts with general system slow-down or freezes when attempting to use fax functionality, and evolves into a scenario where Mac OS X will not startup or other applications are adversely affected.

MacFixIt reader Rich Love describes his typical case:

"I recently installed Virex 7.5.1 on my Dual 2 GHz G5 Power Mac. It causes the G5 internal modem to hang the entire Mac when you try to do anything with the modem (dial with OS X, change fax answering status, dial with a terminal emulator. It is a very hard freeze that requires powering off the Mac to get going again. It is also very consistent (happens every time).

"Another intermittent symptom is that the Mac will not boot. It gets stuck in the final stages of booting. While looking at the progress bar, it stops at the networking setup (file sharing or Internet stuff) I tried the suggestions about using uninstallers to remove old Virex versions but that did not help.

"I uninstalled Virex 7.5.1 and everything is back to normal."

Another reader writes:

"Today I got an endless spinning beach ball and not just on the fax software, but on absolutely every program I tried to use. What was really odd is that each program would let me move a window a little at most and then lock, like the programs weren't actually locked until I attempted to do something with them. When I rebooted, I got the spinning beach ball right at the log-in screen. I figured that the problem was linked to the fax software, but the computer would freeze before I could do anything. I eventually had to do a reboot in safe mode to figure out what the problem was. The culprit appears to be Virex 7.5.1 which I had installed shortly after I had originally tested the faxing capability. Fitting that a program designed to keep a computer running smoothly by detecting and deleting malicious code should cause the worst headache, I have ever had on OS X, which is saying a lot considering I was a early adopter.

"The quickest fix for this problem appears to be booting into safe mode and then uninstalling Virex, and/or deleting all the pending faxes by sending another fax to open the fax monitor program and then deleting all the faxes."

MacFixIt reader Desiree obtained confirmation of the issue from Apple's support department:

"Called the apple support number and they told me it was actually a problem with my newest security update from Virex. I unchecked send/receive faxes (system preferences > print and fax > faxing), restarted, and everything works smoothly.

"Just sign on with safe mode and either uncheck that OR if you want to keep your faxing option, return back to an older security version of Virex.

"Apparently the new firewall update does not not agree with fax transactions, hence the freezing during "waiting for printing services" or "internet services"

"Hope this helps. I was pretty surprised to find out it wasn't 10.3.8... but yea, yours might be the same since it sounds identical to what happened to me yesterday."

Logging in in safe mode to uninstall Virex As indicated above, a number of readers have been able to restore normal Mac OS X functionality by booting into Mac OS X's safe mode then removing Virex.

First, boot into safe mode. This is accomplished by holding down the "Shift" key while your Mac is starting up.

In the Virex install package (if you still have it handy), there is an item called "Virex Uninstall.command." This is the easiest way to remove all traces of the application.

Alternatively, you can perform a search using the Finder's "Find" command for any file containing the term "Virex" and delete the resulting items.

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