Ad Aware not scanning

Dogboy73 · 28 Nov 2007 at 20:47

I was using Ad Aware 1.06 but I've just tried a scan & it froze half way. I decided to update to Ad Aware 2007 FREE but the same thing seems to be happening! What could be causing this?

mattyfez · 28 Nov 2007 at 21:05

Could be malware, have you tried running ccleaner or spybot also?

Dogboy73 · 28 Nov 2007 at 21:20

I'll try those.

It's getting stuck on something called 'zl_priv.htm'

tonys · 28 Nov 2007 at 21:24

It could be a Zone Alarm file if you have it installed

Dogboy73 · 28 Nov 2007 at 21:26

I do have ZA installed. Should I disable it & try re-scanning?

Dogboy73 · 28 Nov 2007 at 23:52

Disabled ZA. Ad Aware still get's stuck. This time on 'desktop.ini' but I don't think where it's stopping has much relevance. It just randomly hangs up. Not good. Everything is going wrong today!! Sometimes, I just want to throw my PC out the window

Tried running Spybot S&D. That dug up a couple of things, which I got rid off.

mattyfez · 29 Nov 2007 at 00:10

I was cleaning up a laptop for a friend the other day and spybot wasnt scanning properly, so I installed and ran ccleaner, which did its thing, then I re-ran spybot and it picked up all sorts of carp!
I gues some nasty was blocking the correct operation of spybot.

So my advice is to attack from a few angles and you should be able to get rid of the prob. also uninstall adaware and re-install it afterward.

Dogboy73 · 29 Nov 2007 at 09:37

I'll give ccleaner a go I think. I don't have that at present.

Dogboy73 · 29 Nov 2007 at 10:43

Ran ccleaner & then re-installed Ad Aware. Still get's stuck. Left it running whilst I went to the Post Office. It was still in the same place when I returned an hour later. I'm unable to stop the scan & have to close Ad Aware. If I re-launch & try to scan again I get a message saying 'scanner is busy'.

mattyfez · 29 Nov 2007 at 21:02

Weird....Spybot and ccleaner will be fine to use if you ditch adaware, but its a bit strange that adaware hangs.....suspicious....I'd be temped to dig deeper with hijackthis to see if theres anything interfering with adaware.

Is tyhe pc running ok apart from that? virus scanner clean and up to date?

Richdog · 29 Nov 2007 at 21:03

Dogboy73 said:
I was using Ad Aware 1.06 but I've just tried a scan & it froze half way. I decided to update to Ad Aware 2007 FREE but the same thing seems to be happening! What could be causing this?

What security software is installed on your PC? List all of it.

Dogboy73 · 30 Nov 2007 at 12:26

I have Zone Alarm running (which I tried disabling during the scan to no avail) & AVG free.

Dogboy73 · 30 Nov 2007 at 17:16

Ad Aware works in Smart Scan mode. But when I try to run a Full Scan it gets stuck everytime.

Not sure if I mentioned already that exactly the same thing happened with Ad Aware SE 1.0.6. That's what prompted me to update to the 2007 version.

Dogboy73 · 2 Dec 2007 at 17:28

Someone has suggested 'a-squared' as an alternative to Ad Aware. Anyone tried that? Is it any good?