McAfee update causes blue screen crash?

[Loucetius]

I really does not want to quit Mcafee as I have 2½ year left on subscription.

I will download one 30-day trial from a competitor and hope that Mcafee fixes this issue within this time period.

All you guys that do not want Mcafee to upload and install new updates you can set the settings to only do this if you approve of it. No need to shut down computer.

For me, I rather have a a secure enviroment and can't wait for updates to work properly.

/L

[paulm]

It has been a week since the McAfee Technician who I paid 10 bucks told me to wait a week and the patch will be available. For more detailed background i have a Dell Studio XPS 435T running Windows 7 Ultimate-64bit, 12G of memory, and an Intel Core i7 CPU 920 @ 2.6GHz.

So, as instructed, I waited a week and downloaded the software as instructed (BTW, I never got the email they said i would get verifying my problem).

As before, I re installed McAfee and before reboot, the computer operated fine. Upon reboot (as required by the installation), the login screen appeared for 2-3 seconds, then BLUE SCREEN AGAIN! That makes 5 attempts. I am a little distrubed by all these Monitors to this thread that say they are not having any issues when clearly my machine is a high end one and very new, just a few months old and being rendered non-operational. I think those comments are irrelevant and in poor taste belittling those of us who are experiencing legitimate problems, even verified by the McAfee Technician I spoke to.

So, I booted in safe mode, yet again returned my computer to an earlier state, removed McAfee once more. Computer worked fine. Rebooted, computer works fine. Then I went to Norton and downloaded their security suite and it works GREAT!

I have four McAfee licences, and I will push hard on customer service to give me a refund for them, so I can convert all my computers to Norton. These computers are very important to my family, work, homework, etc., to our lives. I have used McAfee for more than 15 years, and it is too bad the quality of the company has gotten this bad. I can't as many people on this thread and others in this forum just turn something off that we rely on for our well being and wait for McAfee software people to get their act together.

Until I am able to get my refund I will continue to monitor this thread in hoping that magically a fix will appear, but I won't bet on it.

paulm

[MoxieMomma]

By the time anyone at McAfee (corporate, not volunteer forum mods) showed any "real" interest in my issue, it was too late to "collect logs".

Over 1 week of advanced trouble-shooting, including extensive hardware diagnostics, had revealed serious damage to the OS that created ongoing problems with booting into Windows.

Whether the root cause of this disaster after the McAfee update was an "OS" issue or a BIOS compatibility issue or hardware or something else was never determined, because no one at McAfee offered anything beyond repeating the process a 3rd time or installing a "beta" software version, "to see what happens"!!!

Given that problem and the fact that I needed to have a functional computer with a viable security suite, I had no choice but to restore the OS from the recovery partition, remove McAfee and get on with my life. (Thankfully, I had another computer to use and my data were backed up, or it would have been even worse.)

I tried through TS to send them any relevant logs or data from the system before restoring the OS, but never found anyone interested in or capable of doing so.

By the time they showed any interest, it was too late.

IOW, McAfee's interest in diagnosing and solving the problem was more than a "day late and a dollar short" -- perhaps those who still have their systems "as is" with this problem can provide their "logs", now that McAfee might actually do something with the info.

As I reluctantly suggested back in my original thread

https://community.mcafee.com/thread/26998?tstart=0

I knew that my case would only be the tip of the iceberg, and so it has been.

Moreover, the few of us who have been able to directly attribute our problem to the McAfee update likely represent only a few of the many, many (Dell and other) computer users whose computers were rendered inoperable.  Many/most non-computer-savvy folks who ended up with a busted computer for reasons unknown to them likely have sought other remedies and are not represented here at the forum.

The expense of forfeited subscription fees hardly scratches the surface of my month-long-plus agony of having a ruined computer (7 months old and otherwise perfectly stable) that required hours and hours to trouble-shoot, repair, restore and get back to full function.

It has been more than a month, and the reports continue to filter in.

At least some at corporate now acknowledge that there is a serious problem.

Since it doesn't rise to the level of crashing down nearly every Win XP computer on the planet (a la the 5958 DAT debacle), it appears to be low-priority for the company.

I, too, will monitor these threads, but seriously doubt a real solution will be forthcoming.

Even if it were, I lack the time, computer engineering expertise and $2500 for a spare/expendable system to "test" McAfee software.

So I cannot envision a time when I could EVER go back to McAfee.

MM

PS Sorry to hijack this thread, I suppose I could have posted to mine, or the mods could merge them, since they really address similar issues.

Message was edited by: MoxieMomma on 9/12/10 3:07:25 PM CDT

[Peacekeeper]

I am or rather have made this an issue to discuss on our call tomorrow. Really as far as I know we have not been informed of a cause being found. That does not mean it hasn't thus my query tomorrow. My PC and Ex_Brits dell Alienware PC are very high level extreme 975 cpus large Hds and ram and high graphics but we cannot reproduce this ever.

Both us use 2010 downloaded from Mcafee are any of you not doing this ie only using the version supplied by Dell?

Seems it never rains but pours here nice to get a rest as 1 issue fixed another pops up.

[hannenberg]

I just want to add my experience to the list.  I too am running a dell with windows 7 64 bit and experiened a BSOD following a McAfee total protection update on 9/7/10.  Rolled back to a previous state and was OK until McAfee updated again - and again experienced a BSOD.  Contacted tech. support by chat, but was put into long queue.  I have uninstalled McAfee (now using AVG) and have no problems.

I do not plan on reinstalling McAfee even if there's a patch to fix the problem.  I would like McAfee disclose the problem on its' website and offer refunds to customers.

[BlueSky]

I'm in the same boat.  I have a Dell XPS 9000 with Core i7-920 and 8 Gb RAM.  I have been having this problem for about 3 weeks, each time McAfee asks for a reboot to complete the update, I get the BSOD and have to recovery back to a previous version.  I spent the time today with Chat support.  They acknowledged the problem and that the Tech Team was working on it.  No suggestions of what to do in the meantime and they had no way of telling me when the problem would be fixed or how I would find out when the problem was fixed.  Thanks all for the suggestion of going over to Norton.  Great!  Now I can move on and chalk up the wasted 8 hours spent on this, to experience.

[pondviewer16]

I've got a Dell Inspiron 546 MT with Windows 7.  Last week's McAfee update resulted in the same blue screen crash after next re-boot, accompanied by hair-raising sound effects.  After trying Virtual Technician, and then 'Restore' (which worked until another update), I contacted Chat.  First experience: after waiting about 15 minutes I was told 'session expired'.  Tried again next day: after 18 minute wait was connected with Basil, who must have been working with a number of customers as there were long (i.e., 3-5 minute) pauses between his questions.  The good news: about 40 minutes later, after Basil remoted my machine and downloaded some software, I was back in business.  So apparently McAfee have discovered the problem and are now equipped to repair it.  Moral: stay patient!

[MoxieMomma]

"...accompanied by hair-raising sound effects."

Did you get that horrible grinding noise from the HDD, too?

When this happened both times for me (after the "in-place" upgrade and even after the clean install), I was forced into lengthy hardware diagnostics. (Fortunately, I have a paid contract for premium, N-Am-based tech support with Dell.)

Fortunately as well, everything checked out OK, hardware-wise.

But TMAVLSS, I ended up needing to restore the OS b/c of the damage...

I would have been "happy" for a bootable computer with non-functioning McAfee, or even a BSOD.

But I got a system that wouldn't even BOOT, except into basic safe mode.

(Normal boot --> black screen, no boot, no BSOD; safe mode with networking --> BSOD, no boot.)

CPU, GPU, PSU, OS, BIOS, DRIVERS.... I don't know what the root cause was.  No one from McAfee cared enough to find out in an expert or timely manner.

All I know is that the "2009" McAfee that came bundled on the system in Feb 2010 worked fine.

The 2010 upgrade was an unmitigated catastrophe from Day 1.

That was more than a month ago -- if the svchost.exe thing for XP is any indication, it will be many months before a "solution" is devised.

I, for one, could not wait that long, since I depend on my computer for work.

MM

[hannenberg]

Pondviewer - I am happy to hear your problem has been resolved by McAfee technical support.

I guess I have a different moral interpretation from the story - simply put, don't use McAfee products anymore.

My expectation of what McAfee should have done is to:

1.  Prominantly post the problem on their website so that customers would not have to have the same experience waiting for technical support that you had.

2.  Post a link to any/all patches for the problem - with instructions.

3.  Post a link on forums like this one acknowledging the problem and directing customers to the appropriate site for a remedy

Given the competitiveness of the market for home computer protection it's hard for me to see why I (or anyone else) would continue to purchase McAfee products.

I think the combination of continued technical issues, e.g., updates that disable computers, combined with the poor follow-up to customers advesely affected is completely unacceptable.

[pondviewer16]

The 'hair-raising' noise I reported was purely electronic, and did not involve the HDD; sounds like I was 'lucky'(?)  My machines have always had Norton; this Dell (purchased Feb. 2010) came pre-loaded with McAfee.  Since I never had anything like this with Norton, and had my McAfee 'experience' 6 months into its use history, I can understand the comments about a poor history of performance and service.  I agree with hannenberg that the quality of my service experience should have been many levels higher than it was.