"the Scan Task Is Already Running"

Hello Oatmeal,

Could you tell us what task is it about?

And what exactly do you mean by "every morning"? Does it happen when you start up your computer, or your computer stays open at night and you notice those messages when you start using it in the morning?

Cris.

I can't tell you what task caused this because all I see is a summary of the antivirus scan and an error message.

The name of the scan task is written on the final scan window (marked with RED in the screenshot below).

Also, you can open the scan log (by pressing View log in that last scan window) and in the log it's written the task name.

I didn't change any of the installation defaults other than disabling Active Virus Control and excluding the Photoshop Elements 5 folder because BitDefender kills it.

Could you give a little more details about this? What do you mean that BitDefender kills Photoshop? Does it detect a virus in it, or Active Virus Control reacts to it?

BitDefender's default setting to update Antivirus signatures is every hour (?) and that could be part of the issue.

By default, BitDefender will not perform any updates during a system scan. So if you didn't change that option, it shouldn't cause any problems.

To check that option, go to BitDefender Security Center -> Update -> Settings and make sure the option Don't update if scan is in progress is checked.

I can't find an antivirus log listing in BitDefender (is there one?) but I think the post-scan log stated it took a few hours to finish.

There are multiple ways to see BitDefender scan logs.

First, you can go to BitDefender Security Center -> Antivirus -> Virus scan, right click on the desired scan task and select View logs. You will see a list of scan logs which you can open by double click.

Alternatively, on the BitDefender Security Center main window, at the lower right corner, there's a button named View logs, where you can see all logs related to BitDefender activity. Open it, select the Antivirus category, and you will see 2 lists: one for Realtime Protection, one for OnDemand scans. Scheduled scans will appear under OnDemand Scans. Double clicking an entry will show details. Details about an OnDemand scan also include a button to open the scan log.

This morning I rescheduled the anti-virus updates to run once a day (But I can't specify the time it is run?)

No, you can't schedule a specific time to update. Updates take place regularly, once every X hours (X being the number set in Update Settings).

However, there's no need for such changes since, as I told you, BitDefender can be set not to update during system scans.

Also, you can view/change scans schedule by going to BitDefender Security Center -> Antivirus -> Virus scan. There, any task that has a schedule has a clock icon:

Clicking on that icon opens the schedule settings for that task, where you can edit/remove the schedule.

Any other task can be scheduled by right-clicking on it and selecting Schedule.

Bottom line: please check what task is set to run, and check it's schedule settings. Also, check the logs to see if any error was registered.

Please post back the task settings and schedule settings to see if I can reproduce the problem.

Cris.

Everything looks perfectly normal in your screenshots and in the attached PDF. So since it doesn't appear to be a configuration problem, the only thing that's left to try is to see exactly when that message appears.

For this, you should reschedule that task sometime when you are in front of your computer, to see exactly how it reacts. You can set it to run at low priority so it won't use too many system resources (Antivirus -> Virus scan, right click on the task and you will find there an option called Run the task with low priority).

Also, before doing any schedule changes, please find this file:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\BitDefender\Desktop\Profiles\tasks_system.xml

(this is the Windows XP path, but if you copy it in Explorer Address Bar in Vista, it should redirect you to the correct path)

Attach that file to your next post so I can take a look at it.

Cris.

You can try to see if it happens when you manually start a task.

But it also might be a glitch of the scheduler, so you should also test with scheduled scans.

The file you attached also looks OK.

Cris.

I scheduled a scan this afternoon. The "scan task is already running" warning did not appear.

When you made this test, did you re-schedule the System Scan task, or you made a new schedule for a different scan task?

If you scheduled a different task, try to re-schedule the System scan task (remove the schedule, reboot your system, and make the schedule again), maybe it will work this way.

Cris.

I have been seeing some of the same problems since upgrading to BitDefender AntiVirus 2010: (1) just about every day I get the message about "The scan task is already running. Please wait for it to finish...", (2) occasional grey system tray icon saying BitDefender not available and asking me to fill out a trouble report.

Any more information on what's causing this and how to fix it?

WEG

I rescheduled the existing task and it continued to pop up. I did not delete the task, reboot and add it again as you suggested here.

Even though the problem is not solved you can lock this thread. I was checking out the trial to see how BitDefender would work and it had too many problems. I have since uninstalled BitDefender.

The problems were:

1) This problem

2) Outlook 2003 not closing, probably because of the BitDefender add-in.

3) incompatibility with Photoshop Elements 5

4) unable to update the past few days

5) rare greyed out system tray icon saying BitDefender was not available

I also have the same problem on several client computers, including my own, since upgrading to Bitdefender Antivirus 2010. On some, but not all computers, I get the follwoing message displayed on the screen every morning after the daily 2:00am virus scan.

"The scan task is already running. Please wait for it to finish"

In addition, the BD 2010 system tray icon is greyed out.

Has anyone found a solution?

Hello jlenz,

In order to be able to further investigate this sittuation please follow the steps bellow :

1. Open My Computer.

2. Browse to

C:\Program Files\BitDefender\BitDefender 2010

- considering that BitDefender was installed on the default C partition

3. Doubleclick on the supporttool.exe file .(in case you have Windows Vista or Windows 7, right click on the the supporttool.exe file and choose "Run as administrator" )

4. Click on Next, wait a few minutes for the progress bar to complete and then click on Finish .

5. Go to the desktop, upload the report on http://www.sendspace.com/ then send me a PM with the download link or reply to our email with the report attached .

Thank you.

Hello rmrubin,

In order to further investigate this sittuation please follow the steps described in my email and reply back with the file that we have aksed you.

Thank you.

Hi, I also have the same problem.

My system is set to be automatically scanned every 3 days.

When I come back to the computer sometime after the scan, there is this message:

"This scan task is already running. Please wait for it to finish, or cancel it before attempting to run it again."

So something is trying to start a second scan job while the first is running.

My computer:

Win XP pro

Intel 8500 dual core

4 G RAM

Hello Guy.S,

We have sent you an e-mail with some steps you need to take in order to provide us with more information.

Please reply to our e-mail so that we can further investigate this issue.

Thank you.

I'm having the same issue originally raised in this given thread. Please advise.

Thanks.

This same issue is happening for me, and has been for several months (pretty close to the time I upgraded from 2009 to 2010). A few days ago I used the uninstall tool to completely remove any trace of previous BD products, and installed BDTS 2010 again, which was supposed to fix some of the lingering problems users have been experiencing as of late.

OS: Windows XP SP3

BD Product: Total Security 2010

Message: "This scan task is already running. Please wait for it to finish, or cancel it before attempting to run it again."

BD is currently scheduled to run Periodically, every 1 days, at 2:00:00 AM.

I can see under Antivirus->Virus Scan that the last deep system scan completed 2/16/2010 3:56:51PM, and the last system scan completed 2/20/2010 2:30:40 AM (early this morning).

I logged into my computer via remote desktop several times from work today and never saw the message. Then when I got home I logged in around 2/20/2010 6:30 PM, and the dialogue box was up again. So using the uninstall tool and installing 2010 fresh did nothing to correct this issue (one of many I've been experiencing).

I have not manually tried to start a scan, and obviously this wasn't a scheduled scan attempting to run because it starts at 2 AM. Yesterday at 2 AM it completed just fine and did not generate this dialogue box.

BitDefender Support, please assist us in determining root cause for this (and many others) issue, and ultimately providing us with a fix.

Thank you.

At this moment please be so kind as to follow the steps bellow and send us the diagnostic reports:

Hi Carmen

This problem was happening to me regularly, about every 1-3 days. Incidentally, after you posted these instructions to capture data, the problem stopped for over 1 month. I thought maybe a silent update was put out that resolved it. I setup the uiscan stuff on 2/23 per your post, and today on 3/27 is the first time this error has popped back up for me.

I captured the support tool output and have PM'd it to you. If any other information would be helpful in isolating or troubleshooting this error, please let me know.

Thanks!

Hi guys.

I'm also having this "the Scan Task Is Already Running" issue.

Did any of you had a luck and solve that problem?

Please let me know.

The file created is >170Mb in size! I cannot email this to you.

Quick update on this. I was not able to terminate the two instances of uiscan.exe that I noted in my post yesterday. So I rebooted my machine and those two instances of uiscan.exe disappeared. My system scan ran normally at scheduled time overnight, and I only saw one record of scan in the log file. So for now this problem seems to have been corrected by a reboot that terminated two instances of uiscan.exe that seemed to be hanging somehow. I don't normally reboot my machine very often, so these could have be hung for some time.

I see nothing has happened since my last post in February...and I still get the same message each morning when I look at scan results...perhaps BD should go back to the 2009 version which didn't have this problem and start over with whatever upgrades were put in for the 2010 version...as before, the error still does not seem to affect scanning...

Hello RmRubin,

I have sent you an email with instructions on how to further investigate and resolve the scanning issue you encounter. Please check the email address associated with your forum account. Send me the requested log files and you will have my answer back as soon as possible.

Regards,

I guess I better request that email too. I bought BDAV2010 a few months back. But I didn't start getting this problem until a few weeks ago. What worries me is I don't think it's completing a scan due to this message popping up.

I was watching a movie just now (My AV is set to scan at 5AM) and noticed BD fired up. Within a few seconds, the Scan Task is already running window popped up. I clicked ok, and that was all she wrote. No scan or anything.

This bothers me as this means that for the last couple weeks, BitDefender hasn't been protecting my system like it's supposed to.

So if you don't mind, shoot me that email so I can get this problem fixed.

System specs:

AMD 2.6 Phenom

4 Gig RAM

1 Gig nVidia Graphics Card

Windows 7 Ultimate 32 Bit

...Nearly 24 Hours later...No email, no reply to my forum post.

I'm starting to get worried about this purchase.

Ok so a new update. I changed my scheduled scan time. Same error. And now BD has found a trojan and can't get rid of it.

I'm starting to consider a refund on this, since it doesn't appear that the software is doing what it's supposed to. Some tech support would be nice about now

I am having the same problem as everyone else. Please email me the fix for this annoying glitch. The delay in a proper update really make me question BitDefender as a dependable program.