Screensaver Lockup

This system stays on continually, but with a screensaver activated. Although the monitor and speakers are turned off if the system is going to be left unattended for long periods, the screen saver is still enabled. Since installing BitDefender 2010, occasionally when attempting to restart my session I am completely locked out. The screensaver shows on the monitor, but no amount of moving my tablet pen, repeatedly hitting the Esc key, or repeatedly clicking the Crtl-Alt-Delete key combo has any effect. All I can see is an hourglass icon overlaid on the sreensaver image. I've left it on for a half hour like that with no change, just the hourglass frustratingly sitting there.

I thought it might be my defragmenting program getting hung-up by BitDefender, but I have no way of knowing. All I can do is hit the reboot button on the computer box. Is there some way to log what is hanging at the point of the reboot? How do I keep BitDefender from locking up my system this way? If it happened all the time, it might be easier to figure out, but the system can exit the screensaver program normally for days at a time, then — Poof — locked out. I've used the same screensaver with the same system (XP Pro sp2) for years with no problem, so it is not the screensaver.

Tony

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Alex Stanciu

Hello Spurred On,

Please open BitDefender in Expert Mode, choose the Antivirus module and under the Shield tab click on the Advanced Settings button. Temporarily disable Active Virus Control and let us know if the same sittuation occurs. Also, please let us know if you are using a Windows integrated screen-saver or you have installed it. Also, a download link for it, if is the case, will help us in reproducing this sittuation .

Thank you .

Spurred_On

Thanks for your reply Alex.

It would be hard to know if disabling Active Virus Control will work or not right away as the problem only arises periodically. Today it has not locked up at all, for instance, although the screensaver has activated many times, including overnight. I will let you know.

The screensaver was created by Thore Berntsen of Norway and released through his company Fractal Laboratory, which no longer exists. The last version dates from October 2003. Fractal Laboratory released a screensaver via Microsoft as part of Microsoft's introduction of Windows 95. When Windows XP was introduced, I downloaded and installed the first version of my present screensaver. It and the later version have worked without incident since then. I've attached a copy of the screensaver file for you to work with.

I still wonder if it is some other program that begins running while the screensaver is running, and that program creates a reaction with BitDefender, which in turn locks the screensaver. That's why I was wondering if there was a way to log what programs are running at the time of the system lockup just before rebooting.

Tony

Spurred_On

I uploaded a copy of the screensaver with my last post. Don't know if you've had a chance to explore it yet.

Today (Sunday) the lock-up happened again, for the first time in days. This time without the screensaver loading, although it was setup to load. Something blocked it from loading. When I switched on the monitor the normal screen was shown with its wallpaper, icons, Start toolbar, etc. The cursor arrow moved around the screen as I moved by digitizer pen. However, double-clicking on any icon had no effect. I could not open any program or open the start menu. The system was completely locked up (except for the ability to move the cursor) before the screensaver loaded. The effect of clicking the keyboard Esc key or the Ctrl-Alt-Delete combo had no effect other than to lockup the cursor arrow.

Tony

yannis2701

Same problem here, on a computer with XP SP3 (and Bitdefender TS 2010). I'm not even using a special screensaver, but the "built in" black screen screensaver.

System freezes, cursor still moving, the taskmanager appears when clicking alt+ctrl+delete, and you can work with the taskmanager as long as it is "in focus". Everything else is totally unresponsive!

The only way to get the computer running again is by restarting it!

Shutting down Active Virus Control is in my opinion no solution, since this error seems to occur every now and then, as Spurred On already stated above. And I'm not about to switch off an important security function of Bitdefender for an undefinit amount of days!

Yannis

Alex Stanciu

Hello Spurred On and yannis2701,

Spurred On : If possible, please upload the executable file of the screen-saver that you are using and send me a PM with the download link. You asked me about a log that can determine what exactly caused this issue. Please open Control Panel, then access Administrative Tools . Here open Event Viewer and check if there are any any information's about the system freeze that occurs in the Event Viewer logs.

yannis2701: We need to know if the Active Virus Control is causing this issue and that is why we have asked you to temporarily disable it . Please try to keep it disable for a period of time and look if the same sittuation occurs.

Thank you .

Spurred_On

Thanks for your reply Alex.

I tried to upload the screensaver file on October 9th, but I'm not sure how that works. I never saw the attachment appended to my message. I'll try again with this message. It's the original Zip file that I downloaded years ago from the Fractal Laboratory site, which no longer exists. The Zip file contains two items: the sceen saver, whith the file extension scr, and a Readme file which explains that "Installation is very easy. Just copy the file "Fractal Laboratory.scr" to the \WINNT\SYSTEM32 if You are using Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP." There is no exe file.

If the attachment does not upload this time, please let me know how to perform the upload properly or pm you a copy.

I forgot about the Event Viewer Log. The last time the system locked up was on October 11th, and I posted to this forum upon rebooting. Looking at events for that day, under System there are quite a few Information entries. However, there is one X entry, which reads, "The Pplpdsdwuhh service failed to start due to the following error: The system cannot find the file specified" Previous to that there were 4 ! warnings over a period of about 15 minutes, all of which read: "Intel® PRO/1000 CT Network Connection Link has been disconnected." The last one was followed by an Information stating that, "Intel® PRO/1000 CT Network Connection Link has been established," after which I left the office for about four hours and 20 minutes prior to the X notation.

The two immediately preceding Informations to the X notification state: "Microsoft ® Windows ® 5.01. 2600 Service Pack 2 Multiprocessor Free." and "The Event log service was started." These entries were less than a minute before the X notification. That was at 1:18, which must have been when I returned to the office and found the system frozen. I rebooted, then posted my note here at at 2:06.

For the same period, at 1:19 p.m. the application log shows that the programs that load at Windows boot-up were begun, which is when I must have rebooted. The next previous application log entry is for the previous day.

Nothing in the log shows me what locked up the system.

Tony

Spurred_On

Well, I don't see any notation that an attachment was part of my previous posting. In My Controls the entry under Recent Attachments shows "No recent attachments to display". What am I not doing?

Tony

Alex Stanciu

Hello Spurred On,

Unfortunately you cannot upload any other files besides text or pictures files(JPEG, BMP) . Sorry that I forgot to mention that . You will need to upload the screen-saver on http://www.sendspace.com/ then send me a PM with the download link .

We are looking forward to your reply .

Thank you .

yannis2701

Alex,

My problems got worse. My computer was freezing on and off with random tasks, e.g. deleting a file, opening a folder, copying tasks etc. Disabling Active Virus Control made no difference whatsoever!!

Creating dumps like you suggest to a lot of other people elsewhere in this forum is useless, since the only way to get the computer running again is by a cold reboot. Afcourse no useful information whatsoever is retained after that!

Since I had lots of other issues with Bitdefender TS 2009 and 2010 as well (for instance the USB problem mentioned elsewhere on this forum, terrible slowdowns of the system etc.), I decided to deinstall Bitdefender, reformat my system disk and do a total fresh OS install. I took the opportunity of upgrading from Win XP SP3 to Windows 7 Ultimate x64. Upon installing the appropriate Bitdefender TS 2010 version, I immediately ran into problems again. First of all, my licence key was not recognized. Second, running in trial mode, the firewall function has totally disappeared!

When I logged into "My Page" on www.bitdefender.com, I saw a lot of evaluation statusses mentioned. However, I evaluated neither TS 2009 nor 2010, since I had a valid licence key. I have already contacted customer support about that before, got an answer from someone that clearly did not understand my problem, and after my mail explaining the problem in detail (for the second time) customer support went totally silent! No mail, no removal of the evaluation accounts, nothing!! Looking at the account information at this moment, I see three expired evaluation accounts (!!!) which where not generated by me. Only one evaluation version was generated by me, the current one, and this out of pure necessity because bitdefender would not accept my key! Even more baffling is that, while I had TS 2010 up and running before, it shows up now as expired, leaving TS 2009 as the only valid account.

It suffices to say I'm getting rather fed up with this piece of software! At this moment I'm feeling more like a beta-tester of the bitdefender software than a paying customer. I've spent days trying to get TS 2009 and 2010 to run on my system, but it seems that the successors to Bitdefender IS 10 (which I have been using without a problem for the last 3 years until it expired) simply do not agree with my system.

Since I use this computer for legal work, I need to be able to trust it. Unfortunately at this moment not only do I not trust it with Bitdefender on it, but I've hardly been able to get any work done on it because of all the problems, and had to resort to a laptop.

I know you're doing your best at helping out people with their problems on this forum, and I thank you for your efforts, but seeing as things are I'm afraid I have to apply for a refund. I am not willing to go through another week of trying to get Bitdefender TS to work, only to run into problems again!

Thanks,

Yannis

yannis2701

Alex,

I (finally!!) seem to have a running Windows 7 Ultimate with Bitdefender TS 2010!

It's to early to see if I'm free of bugs yet, but for the time being I have to get used to the new OS, so if anything strange pops up related to Bitdefender I'll report back to this forum.

For the time being however, my problems are resolved. Thanks for your efforts,

Yannis

Spurred_On

Alex — I haven't had a screen lock-up in so long that for me this subject can be closed. I hope you enjoyed the fractal screen saver.

Tony

Alex Stanciu

Hello Spurred On,

We are glad to notice that the issue you contacted us about has been solved. Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback to us.

Thank you.