WebAdvisor hogging memory

[jtendler]

I did what was suggested and it does not help.  McAfee WebAdvisor and/or Firefox appear to have a severe memory leak.  And WebAdvisor is consuming lots of CPU.  And also appears to be communicating on the network with onlyt 2 tabs open.  It is using 12-13% of the CPU on an 8 logical processor system (4 cores multithreaaded), no disk activity, and sending ~13KB/sec and receiving 12.5 KB/sec to/from dfw06s47-in-f4.1e100.net.  This address is in a Google owned domain.  As time goes on,  memory usage continues to climb for both WebAdvisor and Firefox with memory usage ~2x for WebAdvisor and CPU usage ~10x for WebAdvisor versur Firefox.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[jtendler]

See my post of 9/18 at 6:07 PM CDT for an update.  Bottom line: It did not help.  Problem continues.

[sherrb1158]

I have been having the same problem using Chrome 53.0.2785.116 m Windows 10, 64-bit;  patched to current update level as of 08/29/2106.

The problem has been getting extremely bad the last two weeks.  I have turned off Realtime Scanning, but WebAdvisor keeps starting up and eating my memory, (was just at 83% until I killed it).  I could barely get Task Manager to even come up to kill it.  This has been happening over and over again, along with the disk drive spinning up and running for long periods of time.

I have Malwarebytes Pro running also and have had zero problems found on any of my Malwarebytes full scans, including rootkit option.  McAfee scans are clean also.

[catdaddy]

​,

                         Please be informed that we have brought this topic up for discussion during our weekly Conference Call scheduled for today @ 4:00 pm (EST). During the interim, While Malwarebytes (Free) is designed to work along side your McAfee Software, without causing any conflicts. Due to the fact that you are running the (Pro/Paid) Version with the (RTS) module on.

                           Could you kindly (Turn off ) the 'Real Time Scanning Module' in Malwarebytes (Pro), and turn back on your McAfee Protection?  In return inform us if this makes a difference ? For running (2) RTS modules on two applications, can and could possibly cause conflicts with the McAfee Software/including your McAfee Web Advisor.

Thank You,

All the Best,

Cliff

Moderator

[sherrb1158]

Cliff,

Thank you for your attention in the matter.  I have disabled Malwarebytes Pro "Malware Protection" and "Malicious Website Protection"; then re-enabled RTS on McAfee followed by a system re-boot.  Please let me know if this is the procedure that you intended for me to "(Turn off ) the 'Real Time Scanning Module' in Malwarebytes (Pro)".

I will report back on my observations.

Thanks.

[xboxerj]

I am still having trouble disabling Webadvisor through the Task Manager.  This morning I was playing an online game and the lag was intolerable.  I popped open TM and the CPU was at 99%.  I clicked on Webadvisor and 'End Task' but it would not end.  I disabled it through Firefox, the only browser I have it added to, and restarted.  While it was no longer active in FF it was still showing as an active process in TM.  This time, I was able to end it.  My CPU has been stable and low since.  I hope this is able to be fixed.  My subscription to McAfee ends in December.  The first AV software I ever bought was Norton and I hated it.  I have been using McAfee every since, for well over a decade.  I have always liked the software, but especially with the other thread I referenced in the above post this year's version is definitely causing me more troubles than ever.

[jerryatrick]

Ok, To be totally clear.

1/ I noticed the WA mem leak when my PC would hardly wake from screen save mode (my setup is that only the screens blank after 30 min). Once I was

able to get taskman running, I noticed almost no memory left and that WA had consumed 85% + and was still counting up, consuming more.

2/ Reboot box and wait till fully booted. Checked mem and all was normal. Started FF WITH NO other APPs (programs) running. Surfed various sties (MSN, DailyMail-online,etc).

3/ Went back to taskman, checked mem usage and FF was stable but WA was increasing every sec count. It was "only" at 428k, but that was because I rebooted 15 min earlier.

4/ Used taskman to kill WA process, it killed but was re spawned immediately. Mem usage dropped immediately, but WA started to use mem again increasing every sec...

5/ Reboot again. Once box normalized, I check the taskman. WA was the highest memory use process at 283K was was beginning its up count again. Please note that no other APPs or programs were running, but WA was beginning its "cycle of doom" again.

6/ Lucky for me WA is installed and bundled separately from Mcafee Security Center 14.0 release 14.0.R10 (latest update applied). I removed WA only using the Programs and Features service. and tested. There are now no issues.

7/ No Proxy is used, standard Mcafee FW settings. Also, unlike some postings, my CPU usage was not pinned, just the mem was consumed to such a level the box was on its knees in less than 3 hrs.

8/ There is no doubt many ppl are affected. I typically dont report stuff like this, I just fix or manage as necessary and move on. In this case, the product is free- courtesy of my I'net provider - BUT , I like the Mcafee product and would like this problem fixed - so there it is....

The bottom line is that WA should never for any reason consume 10's of gigs of memory to where the PC will simply mem choke and crash. Thx for your time

[exbrit]

Agreed, there is obviously a memory leak in WA and we must pin it down,

I'll alert a T3 support person.

​ any ideas?

[jerryatrick]

Sorry, forgot to include this in last post

9/ At item 3 in my last post, I did this also.

In FF I disabled WA using the button provided. So the Item 3 test was with WA disabled in FF. As stated, FF mem usage remained stable but WA was increasing every second

[exbrit]

xboxerj wrote:
I am still having trouble disabling Webadvisor through the Task Manager.  This morning I was playing an online game and the lag was intolerable.  I popped open TM and the CPU was at 99%.  I clicked on Webadvisor and 'End Task' but it would not end.  I disabled it through Firefox, the only browser I have it added to, and restarted.  While it was no longer active in FF it was still showing as an active process in TM.  This time, I was able to end it.  My CPU has been stable and low since.  I hope this is able to be fixed.  My subscription to McAfee ends in December.  The first AV software I ever bought was Norton and I hated it.  I have been using McAfee every since, for well over a decade.  I have always liked the software, but especially with the other thread I referenced in the above post this year's version is definitely causing me more troubles than ever.

You can't disable it through TM.  You have to disable it in the browser add-ons.   You could end task in TM though, or end process depending on your OS, but that would only stop it until you restart the system.