Spybot 2
By
Call Me Awesome,
Posted on: 2011-11-09 14:16 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
I have a few ideas.
First thing is to verify files. R-click COH in the launcher and click Repair (consistency check)
Consider the possibility that the spybot2 was in impostor program and that a trojan may have been installed or was already on the system. Also consider that some trojans can disable certain antivirus programs like Norton. Try MalwareBytes Anti-Malware and Avast antivirus, or Ad-Aware and AVG antivirus, or all of the above.
What's the error screen? The details would probably mean nothing to me, but someone might get an idea.
Can you disable Norton and get the game to launch? I'm not a big fan of Norton or McAfee. Their popularity could work against them. If a rogue programmer can make the virus immune to a single virus scanner, it would probably be one of those 2.
I'm not really a tech person, but I hope this helps.
Jer
Question: Did she make sure of the HOSTS file blacklist? It's possible that is what's causing some of the malfunctions.
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Originally Posted by Paralaxis
Hi all, I'm not sure where to post this as the Spybot forums seem dead.
My girlfriend installed the latest Spybot 2 beta on her system and ran some of the immunizations that came with it. Today a number of webpages were blocked and after I quickly fixed that, we noticed that CoH will not load. When she hits play now there is an error screen. She uninstalled Spybot so we can't undo the problems, and for some reason she says that system restore only shows today as the only restore point. I'm sure this is something to do with windows and or Norton blocking the .exe but I can't find out where I can disable it. I just need some ideas so I can help her out. Thanks all. |
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Ugh. I had tried the beta version of Spybot 2 on a computer at work. The system was in worse shape after installing that version than before. All restore points were wiped out by, apparently, Spybot 2. Undoing the changes didn't undo all of them. Uninstalling the program left several files on the computer and it was still virtually unusable.
I wound up having to re-image the computer to get everything to work right. Luckily, that one was using a basic image with only 2 additional programs installed.
Good luck in trying to get this working. A format/reload may be in your future. 
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
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Yeah, all her restore points are gone. She is freaking out because of all her school work is on the system. |
Originally Posted by Texas Justice
Ugh. I had tried the beta version of Spybot 2 on a computer at work. The system was in worse shape after installing that version than before. All restore points were wiped out by, apparently, Spybot 2. Undoing the changes didn't undo all of them. Uninstalling the program left several files on the computer and it was still virtually unusable.
I wound up having to re-image the computer to get everything to work right. Luckily, that one was using a basic image with only 2 additional programs installed. Good luck in trying to get this working. A format/reload may be in your future. |
I really REALLY hope she didn't need to do a factory restore.
She installed spybot 1.6 and found like 20 Trojans so I hope HOPE! that is was that causing the issue.
@ SeedyXX: Yeah I can't stand norton either. She did find a bunch of viruses so I hope that was the issue. I'll try the fix you mentioned.
@Hyperstrike: I'm not really sure what you mean. If you are asking if she checked if Spybot blocks CoH then no, she didn't. And she uninstalled Spybot before we were able to use the repair ability.
I just really need to get her system up and running fast, and without a full wipe.
I haven't tried the 2.0 Beta because I don't want to beta test anti-malware software. Still using 1.6.2 but only as a weekly scanner along with SUPERAntiSpyware and MalwareBytes.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
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Okay, her system SHOULD have a file called HOSTS on it. Essentially the first place the OS checks for websites BEFORE going out to DNS is the HOSTS file.|
Originally Posted by Paralaxis
Yeah, all her restore points are gone. She is freaking out because of all her school work is on the system.
I really REALLY hope she didn't need to do a factory restore. She installed spybot 1.6 and found like 20 Trojans so I hope HOPE! that is was that causing the issue. @ SeedyXX: Yeah I can't stand norton either. She did find a bunch of viruses so I hope that was the issue. I'll try the fix you mentioned. @Hyperstrike: I'm not really sure what you mean. If you are asking if she checked if Spybot blocks CoH then no, she didn't. And she uninstalled Spybot before we were able to use the repair ability. I just really need to get her system up and running fast, and without a full wipe. |
So, one way to block "bad" sites is to add them to the HOSTS file and have them point to your local machine.
This way if a site tries to direct you to http://www.crappymalwareinstallersite.com, it checks the HOSTS file, sees that there's a rule saying "Look for crappymalwareinstallersite.com at 127.0.0.1 (the "loopback" address saying "look on this machine itself"). It then auto-fails since the stuff isn't there, and the rest of the website keeps loading while you've just dodged a bullet.
1.6 had the tool as an OPTIONAL module and tosses a ton of pre-configured malware provider sites into your system HOSTS file.
I don't know about 2.0b. But it may have done something similar.
If you have the OS install disk, you could try System File Checker. Make sure you use the instructions appropriate to her version of Windows SFC.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
She should be able to access her school data, copy it off the hard drive to temporary media or even CD or something. I would recommend that she do this even if the system doesn't have to be wiped.
There is a reason that computer repair companies opt to nuke and pave so often and so quickly ... it takes so much time to undo the minute details of the damage some programs can do to a computer. Getting the system back to "normal" and "quickly" probably means a factory restore after backing up important data.
Good luck!
Storm
Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm ...
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I've had to do this numerous times... you can spend hours attempting to repair whatever's wrong and come up empty or you can spend hours backing up, reinstall everything and be good to go. Most of the time when something goes bad in a big way I find I'm better off to bite the bullet and reinstall from scratch.
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Originally Posted by PerfectStorm
She should be able to access her school data, copy it off the hard drive to temporary media or even CD or something. I would recommend that she do this even if the system doesn't have to be wiped.
There is a reason that computer repair companies opt to nuke and pave so often and so quickly ... it takes so much time to undo the minute details of the damage some programs can do to a computer. Getting the system back to "normal" and "quickly" probably means a factory restore after backing up important data. Good luck! Storm |
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
According to what I just saw at http://www.safer-networking.org/en/s...eta/index.html, they are "back at the drawing board" for version 2.0 and are not offering either an alpha or beta version at this time.
Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm ...
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Agreed. I hate having to advise people to "back and blast", but from a simple time-management standpoint, it makes more sense.
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Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
I've had to do this numerous times... you can spend hours attempting to repair whatever's wrong and come up empty or you can spend hours backing up, reinstall everything and be good to go. Most of the time when something goes bad in a big way I find I'm better off to bite the bullet and reinstall from scratch.
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Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Thanks for all the help all.
I think we are going to have to nuke it. I'll help her back up everything and she can take it to whomever she has to do the work. (She pays each month for them so why not right?)
So, a word of warning for you all. Stay away from Spybot2 Beta. Tell your friends, that 1.6 is the best way to go still.
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Wow, an ancient page they haven't updated in quite a while or is even reachable through links off their site map.|
Originally Posted by PerfectStorm
According to what I just saw at http://www.safer-networking.org/en/s...eta/index.html, they are "back at the drawing board" for version 2.0 and are not offering either an alpha or beta version at this time.
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On their front page they are on 2.0 Beta 4, current non-beta is still 1.6.2 but I had trouble with it and Ad-aware playing nicely with each other in Windows 7 on my folks' system. I don't use Ad-aware myself due to the large updates it pushes (still on dial-up folks).
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Hi all, I'm not sure where to post this as the Spybot forums seem dead.
My girlfriend installed the latest Spybot 2 beta on her system and ran some of the immunizations that came with it. Today a number of webpages were blocked and after I quickly fixed that, we noticed that CoH will not load. When she hits play now there is an error screen.
She uninstalled Spybot so we can't undo the problems, and for some reason she says that system restore only shows today as the only restore point.
I'm sure this is something to do with windows and or Norton blocking the .exe but I can't find out where I can disable it.
I just need some ideas so I can help her out. Thanks all.