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jo-25
Contributor
Message 1 of 13

Real time scanning causing Office 2013 files not open

After last update of mcafee, excel and word files will not open, lower left corner saying running virus scan. When i turn off real time scanning the files open,what is the fix for this?

12 Replies
GaneshR
Moderator
Moderator
Message 2 of 13

Re: Real time scanning causing Office 2013 files not open

Hi @jo-25 

Sorry for the inconvenience caused. McAfee security software for Windows or macOS, such as LiveSafe or Total Protection, allows you to exclude individual files from being scanned for viruses by the product's Real-Time Scanning feature. When you exclude known, safe files and apps from being scanned, you might see performance improvements as you use your computer.

Please go through the attached Article and update us the status

Regards

Ganesh Raju R

jo-25
Contributor
Message 3 of 13

Re: Real time scanning causing Office 2013 files not open

I read the article and it suggests excluding each file individually. That is not at all helpful since i hundreds of word and excel files. Are there any other solutions, why is mcafee preventing files from being opened 

GaneshR
Moderator
Moderator
Message 4 of 13

Re: Real time scanning causing Office 2013 files not open

Hi @jo-25 

Thanks for the quick reply. McAfee provide end to end protection for all your devices currently protected. In order to prevent your device from vulnerability McAfee will initially scan for any virus on your devices. That is as per the design.

You can exclude McAfee from scanning your office 2013 files by adding it in exclude list. You don't want to add all files instead add word and excel execute file from Microsoft folder and check for the status.

Regards

Ganesh Raju R

MXI
Contributor II
Message 5 of 13

Re: Real time scanning causing Office 2013 files not open

Where do I find the Office 2013 executables?

I located WINWORD.EXE and EXCEL.EXE under C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\

I added them to the exclude list, yet I have the same issue (opening Word or Excel locks up)

The only solution working for me is temporary shutting off of scan or opening a blank Excel, Word before opening my file. 

 

Peacekeeper
Message 6 of 13

Re: Real time scanning causing Office 2013 files not open

Today's update of Virusscan fixed so a poster said the excel not opening issue ie is Visusscan build 24.7.157

Re try and see if your issue fixed

MXI
Contributor II
Message 7 of 13

Re: Real time scanning causing Office 2013 files not open

8/29/21 update appears to have resolved my Office excel / word issue but I still have *.exe in the exclude file. I can remove those and re-test. Thank you letting me know of the new build post.

MXI
Contributor II
Message 8 of 13

Re: Real time scanning causing Office 2013 files not open

I removed the excel.exe and winword.exe from exclude list, restarted pc, opened excel, saw "running scan" message and worksheet opened to display expected results.  Word opens document but there is no status message bottom left indicating a scan is running.

Peacekeeper
Message 9 of 13

Re: Real time scanning causing Office 2013 files not open

Glad it is fixed. The scan will show when finished and usually the Mcafee shield show a symbol on it when scan running. Not near PC now so cannot check .

OK they dropped the scan symbol on the shield that is new one to me.

agmkhl
Contributor
Message 10 of 13

Re: Real time scanning causing Office 2013 files not open

I am here,

 

https://forums.mcafee.com/t5/VirusScan/Mcafee-Real-Time-Scanning-not-allowing-Excel-amp-Word-files-t...  

 

https://forums.mcafee.com/t5/Consumer-General-Discussions/Real-time-scanning-causing-Office-2013-fil...

 

 

 

The truth needs to be known about this issue!  Mcafee case # 1-82055231

 

**Thu**, 08/26/2021 16:50 CST: using Microsoft Home and Business 2013, my client called me and said when she opened up Excel or Word documents nothing showed up on the Excel screen – the status bar in the lower right corner of the Excel window said “running virus scan…”  The customer (“Donna”) runs McAfee Total Protection.  Donna felt compelled to restart the computer each time this happened prior to calling me – you can see this in EXHIBIT A below. 

 

I observed this Excel behavior and as an experiment, I disabled the McAfee real-time protection and the problem went away.  I told her to restart the computer and I would show her how to disable real-time protection as a work-around when it rebooted. The computer would not reboot

 

It went to a solid blue screen just before it would get to a login screen and then restarted with the BIOS POST and back to the blue screen.  It did this in an endless loop.  She was taking a day off Friday and I suggested we would need to get a replacement computer for disaster recovery  when she came in Sunday to check on this desktop.  I told her perhaps, so long as she had a network connection, McAfee or Microsoft would see the issue and perhaps patch it, if she was lucky.  The computer is very healthy under my care for several years. 

 

**Sun**, 08/29/2021: Donna arrived in the afternoon and good news: the computer was prompting her for a login.  I remoted in and captured the event logs and could see what happened 3 days earlier:

 

EXHIBIT A:

08/26/2021  15:56:05  restart:Multiprocessor Free event log message indicates restart

08/26/2021  15:49:32  restart:Multiprocessor Free event log message indicates restart

08/26/2021  15:47:11  restart:Multiprocessor Free event log message indicates restart

08/26/2021  14:39:36  restart:Multiprocessor Free event log message indicates restart

08/26/2021  14:20     AppCrash_MFEAvSvc.exe_6a23f9a3b8954ae6e5 mcafee

08/26/2021  14:19:54  restart:Multiprocessor Free event log message indicates restart

08/26/2021  14:18:22 "DCOM got error ""1115"" attempting to start the service SecurityHealthService with arguments ""Unavailable"" in order to run the server:

08/26/2021  14:17     AppCrash_MFEAvSvc.exe_6a23f9a3b8954ae6e5 mcafee

08/26/2021  14:16:59  restart:Multiprocessor Free event log message indicates restart

08/26/2021  14:15:09  restart:Multiprocessor Free event log message indicates restart

08/26/2021  13:47:22  restart:Multiprocessor Free event log message indicates restart

08/26/2021  11:11:09  restart:Multiprocessor Free event log message indicates restart

08/26/2021  10:02:05  restart:Multiprocessor Free event log message indicates restart

08/26/2021  09:37:59  restart:Multiprocessor Free event log message indicates restart

08/26/2021  09:21:14  restart:Multiprocessor Free event log message indicates restart

08/26/2021  09:19:37 "DCOM got error ""1115"" attempting to start the service SecurityHealthService with arguments ""Unavailable"" in order to run the server:

08/26/2021  09:18:08  restart:Multiprocessor Free event log message indicates restart

 

None of the DCOM or AppCrash_MFEAvSvc had ever occurred before on this machine.

 

I was afraid to uninstall McAfee or restart the computer and told Donna to wait until I spoke to McAfee.

 

*Wed*, 09/01/2021 I spoke to Mcafee case # 1-82055231 at 8:10 AM CST.  The Level 1 Tech stated all of the following (I’m sure there are recordings to confirm this):

[1] it was a known issue from an update pushed out 08/26/2021

*[2]* it affected **ALL** McAfee products

*[3]* it affected every version of Office Word/Excel

[4] the engineers were working on it and did not have a fix and did not know when it would be fixed.

 

The Level 1 Support person said she was instructed to escalate me to her supervisor who then said the same things and added:

*[5]* McAfee would call me when there was a fix.  Note as of 09/09/2021, (14 days after it occurred) noone has called me.

[6] She advised me not to restart the computer.

 

I thought this was 100% disingenuous and very crippling. It’s unreasonable to expect people not to restart their computers. Given [2] and [3] above, I do not believe McAfee is capable of calling hundreds of thousands of users as stated in [5]. Also, if it were that widespread, many people would be talking about this.  Instead, there are a smattering of reports from the far past and this site has the most reports, but still a paltry 21 messages.

 

**Thu** 09/09/2021 – now the customer has determined that an Excel spreadsheet she updates daily has become corrupted (formulas not working and missing cells) sometime between prior to 08/26/2021 and today.  We found multiple versions in Carbonite and saw the issues coincidentally or otherwise occurred *AFTER* the 08/26/2021 “blowup”.  We can’t prove anything and don’t know any next steps without McAfee being more honest and forthright.

 

We are in dire straits because we are concerned the update on 8/26/2021 had far-reaching consequences that McAfee **perhaps** does not want to disclose.  They need to be fully transparent, immediately. The support response and that of the supervisor to say [2] and [3] above is very sad.  All of that was stated on 09/01/2012 on my first call and again today 09/09/2021 when I called back a second time.  This time they would not let me speak to the supervisor but said they would call me in less than 2 hrs and they did not.  The level 1 technician said nothing has changed.

 

Sad, sad, sad.

 

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