Base Filtering Engine not starting

Topic

New Reply

My son’s laptop with Windows 7 won’t start the firewall, run Avast AV and takes about 30 mins to load up the OS.
I have scanned the system using Malwarebytes and Bitdefender. Nothing found. I have attempted to restart the BFE manually but it fails. When I run the save mode or partial system startup, it does start up right away. There are so many items that load it’s hard to know what might be the culprit (s), I have also scanned using sfc /scannow and nothing wrong was found. I tried using one of the system restores and it was corrupt and would not go back to it.

How can I get BFE to re-start and thus run the AV software and firewall?

Thanks!
KZ

Reply | Quote

Replies

When you say “partial system startup” are you referring to a clean boot where you disable all items under the Startup tab and all non MS services under the Services tab ?

If I understand you correctly, re-enable one item at a time under the Startup tab until the error reoccurs.

If neither of those is the culprit then after checking the box to Hide all MS services under the Services tab, make a note of the non MS services that are showing as Stopped before disabling them and then re-enable a few at a time of the others until the error reoccurs and then you can disable those one at a time until it doesn’t.

Reply | Quote

I was afraid you’d say that. That will take awhile 🙁 I didn’t see any programs that looked strange at first glance.

Yes, by “partial system startup” I’m referring to a clean boot with disabled startup items.

I’ll work on that and report back.

Reply | Quote

You don’t normally need any programs checked under the Startup tab, but this web site will help if you are unsure what to keep in msconfig.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/

Sometimes a problem can occur when there’s a conflict between two or more non MS services which if enabled just on their own, wouldn’t cause any problems.

Reply | Quote

…Avast AV…Bitdefender…

If the laptop has both Avast AV and Bitdefender AV running at the same time then that would cause conflicts (they are both “resident” and attempting to do the same thing).

Or did you run Bitdefender’s “Online Scan”?

Reply | Quote

If the laptop has both Avast AV and Bitdefender AV running at the same time then that would cause conflicts (they are both “resident” and attempting to do the same thing).

Or did you run Bitdefender’s “Online Scan”?

If it’s AVAST Free, you can run that alongside any other AV as it doesn’t have its own Firewall and that is what causes the conflict when trying to run two self sufficient AV programs.

The fact that BFE starts okay in a clean boot would suggest it isn’t the security programs as they reinstate themselves in that state even when unchecked.

Reply | Quote

If it’s AVAST Free, you can run that alongside any other AV as it doesn’t have its own Firewall and that is what causes the conflict when trying to run two self sufficient AV programs…

My #5 post states nothing about “firewall”.

“If it’s AVAST Free, you can run that alongside any other AV…”. Avast disagrees, see When and why a third-party antivirus software should be uninstalled?:

“If you want to install Avast antivirus software on your computer, please ensure that there is no other third-party antivirus software already installed, including expired or trial versions.
“Having multiple antivirus programs installed on the same computer commonly results in conflicts, including false positive detections, performance degradation and system instability. Therefore it is strongly recommended to uninstall all other previously installed antivirus applications before installing Avast on your computer.”

Bitdefender also disagrees, see Don’t use two antivirus programs at once.

So does Kaspersky, see Why Using Multiple Antivirus Programs is a Bad Idea.

Reply | Quote

I ran the online (in browser) BitDefender. I attempted to install another program and it wouldn’t even start.
With the clean boot, the BFE service would not start along with many other services.
I tried for a long time getting different load configurations where things would run, but no luck.

There was something major going on so I took into my local repair shop 🙁 They are looking at it now, but said that they would have to remove the drive to scan for viruses as that’s most likely what happened. Some virus caused corruption to the system even though it “looks” right.
I’ll report back what they found exactly.

KZ

Reply | Quote

In your opening post you said it did start up in the clean boot, but as it didn’t and that you now say you couldn’t download anything else would tend to point to an infection, as this is a typical symptom.

It helps if you can give us the full and correct info so that we can advise accordingly.

Reply | Quote

Sorry for the confusion. The clean boot loaded quickly and I was able to move around programs, but many of the services didn’t start, even manually. It seemed at first that it was just something loading incorrectly, conflict or issue, but I’m pretty sure it was infected.

Reply | Quote

Sorry for the confusion. The clean boot loaded quickly and I was able to move around programs, but many of the services didn’t start, even manually. It seemed at first that it was just something loading incorrectly, conflict or issue, but I’m pretty sure it was infected.

OK.

It’s unusual that MBAM didn’t pick up on anything (not familiar with the effectiveness of Bitdefender) but hope the techs are able to clean it up for you.

Reply | Quote

Yea, BitDefender didn’t find anything.
I was only trying other programs (ie: Kaspersky) to see if it would load once and scan to find anything, but it wouldn’t even load the program.
I was using the free version of Avast and just the Windows firewall. At this point, the firewall wouldn’t even load either.

I should get it back tomorrow and I’ll know.

Reply | Quote

@ Coochin

I was surprised to see users using Avast Free with other AV programs such as with MSE and Norton 360, until I learned that it didn’t have its own firewall.

I use Norton 360 and it won’t even load until another active AV program is uninstalled first, but doesn’t seem to have any qualms with Avast Free, but it seems that in this case, Bitdefender was added for an alternative scan – if I understand that correctly.

Reply | Quote

kzkz says in his #7 post “…I ran the online (in browser) BitDefender…”.

Reply | Quote

kzkz says in his #7 post “…I ran the online (in browser) BitDefender…”.

Never used Bitdefender online scanner – normally use ESET’s – but as it was an online scanner then it shouldn’t have conflicted with Avast.

Reply | Quote

Bitdefender was only a quick one-time alternative to see if it would run and locate anything to eradicate. It ran from the browser, but didn’t find anything.
I have never heard of ESET, but will remember that for next time.

KZ

Reply | Quote

Bitdefender was only a quick one-time alternative to see if it would run and locate anything to eradicate. It ran from the browser, but didn’t find anything.
I have never heard of ESET, but will remember that for next time.

KZ

http://www.eset.co.uk/Antivirus-Utilities/Online-Scanner

Click on Advanced and check all of the boxes except the proxy one then disable your AV program immediately before clicking on Scan.

There’s also a box you can check for its auto uninstall on completion.

I don’t know how long Bitdefender took to run but this one can take about an hour and a half depending on what you have installed on your computer.

Reply | Quote

If all you want to do is restart the BFE – Base Filtering Engine you could try RestoreBFE.exe from: http://download.bleepingcomputer.com…RestoreBFE.exe

Double-click on the downloaded file. It should only take a few seconds to run.
When complete, it will say .. “Done! Please check if BFE service is running now”

Reply | Quote

Got the laptop back. Wow, is it fast now! They found a ton of malware and viruses and installed Kaspersky. Not sure why my programs didn’t find or stop anything. I had Malwarebytes and Avast installed previously. They said that the browser Firefox was not safe at all and said to use IE !

KZ

Reply | Quote

You guys think that Kaspersky is better than Avast?

Reply | Quote

…They found a ton of malware and viruses…Not sure why my programs didn’t find or stop anything…

According to your #7 post the repair shop said they would remove the drive from your laptop and scan it from one of their computers. I do the same thing whenever I suspect a customer’s computer has infections that are hiding from AV/AM programs.

…They said that the browser Firefox was not safe at all and said to use IE!…

I don’t accept that either is any more “safe” (more secure) than the other. IE should be getting updates via Windows Updates, and Mozilla regularly releases updated versions of Firefox.

I prefer to use IE11 most of the time, but sometimes use Firefox. Some websites work best with IE11, but others are better with Firefox.

You guys think that Kaspersky is better than Avast?

From working on customers’ computers I would rate Kaspersky considerably better (i.e.: more effective and less impact on performance) than Avast. I use AVG myself.

Reply | Quote

You guys think that Kaspersky is better than Avast?

While no AV program can be 100% effective because of what is out in the wild, paid for programs can perform better than freebies and Kaspersky is generally rated as top dog at the moment.

At one time Bitdefender had that spot, but has since caused performance problems for some.

Reply | Quote

Coochin, yes they did remove the drive to remove the hidden viruses, etc. then once re-installed to the laptop then they put on Kaspersky.

Sudo15, Kaspersky is running a special for 5 computers, so I might get that. I had always used Avast free or one pc had a paid version of Avast.

KZ

Reply | Quote

Coochin, yes they did remove the drive to remove the hidden viruses, etc. then once re-installed to the laptop then they put on Kaspersky.

Sudo15, Kaspersky is running a special for 5 computers, so I might get that. I had always used Avast free or one pc had a paid version of Avast.

KZ

I always look for the best deals for my Norton 360 and last year bought two (they are valid for 3 years) and used the second when it expired about a month ago – this is a 3 machine licence..

I have yet to pay the full £60 they normally charge.

I don’t know if you have the equivalent of http://www.hotukdeals.com in the US but by the time I found out about their offers for Kaspersky, they had all expired.

You may find something by Googling hotdeals

Reply | Quote