McAfee is telling me my subscription has expired when it isn't...

[colourless_rain]

I have until about the end of the year left on subscription, but my SecurityCenter is telling me that my McAfee has already expired. I have checked other discussions, and somebody was told to go to this link and follow the steps:  http://service.mcafee.com/faqdocument.aspx?id=TS100966

I have done the first 'solution', which hasn't solved anything, and have moved on to the second, but I can't do it.

It instucts me to:

Disable Access Protection:   

1. Double-click the M icon in your taskbar.
2. Click Navigation.
3. Select About. Note the name of your product suite (for example, McAfee Total Protection, McAfee Anti-Virus Plus).
4. Click the X to close the About window.
5. Select General Settings and Alerts.
6. Open the Access Protection drawer.
7. Deselect the option to Use Access Protection.

How am I supposed to select 'General Settings and Alerts', if my subscription is expired? The SecurityCenter will not let me select or click on anything or make any changes to the account, because it thinks my subscription is expired. Is there a way to get around this?

Or, another way to solve this problem? 

Thanks for the help.

[awernham]

I have exactly the same problem.

Back in November, I changed my computer to a multiple license, and had to reinstall to get it to register against the new multiple user license. It has worked fine until now.

Suddenly, it is trying to work off my expired license again, and telling me that I have been unprotected since November. I have checked the website, and that tells me that the computer is registered against the multiple user license, as it should be, but the computer tells me that it is not.

I cannot use the tool to correct this, as I cannot now disable Access Protection, like you.

Come on Mcafee! Get this sorted! It seems like you are going the way of Norton.

What I don't like about this is that many peoiple may have been incorrectly charged for subscription renewals if they have opted for automatic renewals.

[exbrit]

If there's a problem Technical Support is free of charge by phone or online chat and linked under Useful Links at the top of the page.

[exbrit]

The alternative would be to uninstall in the normal manner via Control Panel, then run the MCPR cleanup tool available here:  MCPR

Reboot and if it gave any errors try running it again, once again rebooting.

Go to your online account and reinstall the software.

Are either of you running registry cleaners/optimizers?  This sort of thing is a typical result.

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 13/05/12 10:28:12 EDT AM

[awernham]

No registry cleanup tools in use.

I did run the McAfee Virtual Technician recently, and that made a registry correction. I ran it because I have to use MS Outlook in safe mode, as it sometimes freezes the computer when it downloads messages, and I suspect that McAffee may be at fault, but cannot prove it. It did not fix the problem.

It takes a long time to reinstall everything, and it is a bit galling that it is a McAfee bug that is inconveniencing me. (And one that may happen again).

[colourless_rain · Accepted solution]

I also ran the Virtual Tenchnician, which didn't help.

This has happened to me before, and I unstalled and reinstalled, and that worked temporarliy, but the expired subscription came up again last week.

I found this link yesterday from a similar thread and used this 'McAfee Subscription Repair Tool':

http://us.mcafee.com/apps/mdm/en-us/5.0_asp/getmcsubdbtool.asp?

It seems to have worked for me, but I'm hoping it's not a short time fix like last time...

[exbrit]

McAfee does scan the inbox so yes it could slow things down if there are a lot of messages.  You can turn off email scanning if you wish in settings.

I've used that mcsubdbtool myself and can assure you it works fine and shouldn't be needed again, but as with everything, one never can guarantee that.

[exbrit]

By the subscription repair tool was the last option in the link you posted in the first post.

[colourless_rain]

I realise that, but I didn't use it before, because in the first link I posted, it says to try everything in the order it's written, and I couldn't do the second solution, for the reason I mentioned above.

[awernham]

The original advice was to disable Access Protection and rename files before running the tool, which we could not do.

However, I have just tried running the tool without doing that, and after a Restart, it is working correctly with the new subscription, so the original advice should, perhaps, be amended to tell people not to worry if they cannot disable Access Protection and rename the files.

(Regarding email scanning, my computer does not just run slowly- it totally freezes up without a bluescreen, and needs to be rebooted. I assume that something is in a hard-loop and is not allowing any other process to pre-empt it. Even if I turn off email scanning in McAfee, it still does it (but not for every email download- it is sporadic). I can only run Outlook in safe mode as a result, so that no add-ins are loaded. McAfee is a suspect, but I cannot prove it, as I have no core dump. But that is not the subject of this thead, and I have almost given up trying to sort it out.)