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N4AOF
Contributor III
Message 1 of 3

WebAdvisor using over 50% of CPU and 5GB of RAM -- plus a total lack of tech support

Well today I had my second experience with McAfee's so-called tech support.  Needless to say I was greatly impressed...  Impressed by the total incompetence of the representative and his lack of knowledge about either McAfee products or computers.

I came to the McAfee website looking for support for what was a new problem for me.  Recently McAfee WebAdvisor has started consuming ridiculous levels of both CPU cycles and RAM -- and doing so when WebAdvisor shouldn't even be active.

I chose the live chat "support" because my hearing isn't great for the phone and I find chat works better, especially if we are likely to need to use a URL or other details.  I was very quickly connected to "Gerald C" and everything went downhill quickly from there.

Right from the start, I wasn't happy with Gerald claiming he needed my "billing address" to verify my account -- which seemed silly when I was logged in with my McAfee account. 

Once we got past that, I explained that Windows Task Manager was showing McAfee WebAdvisor using over 50% CPU and over 5GB of RAM.  His initial response was that this might be perfectly normal because McAfee has no idea how much RAM any of its products use.

I explained that the problem was new, and that WebAdvisor obviously shouldn't be using over half my CPU cycles and 5GB of RAM (out of 8 total) when it really isn't supposed to be doing anything at all -- those numbers were with no browser running and no reason for ANY of my McAfee products to be doing anything besides resting in the background. No scan in progress, nothing being accessed, etc.

His immediate reaction was to ask for a remote control session so he could see where I was getting those numbers.  I declined to give him remote control of my computer and explained: "I'm a bit reluctant to give you remote access because the last McAfee Tech Support representative that used remote access didn't even know what Windows 7 was, couldn't figure out an email program, and messed up several completely unrelated settings while trying to figure out why McAfee's default installation had it blocking all email in an email client that it doesn't support."

I would have sent him a screenshot of Windows Task Manager to show him the numbers, but of course McAfee's chat system doesn't support any sort of files or graphics.
McAfee.jpg

 

His next thought was that the program might need updated.  He suggested that I should download and reinstall WebAdvisor because the "last update" shown in the McAfee dashboard was 7/6/2021.   I asked why that was a problem despite having automatic updates turned on in McAfee and I also used the "check for updates" which caused McAfee to show that it checked for updates, downloaded updates, and installed updates (all without changing the "last update" date shown).  He explained that the Automatic Updates in McAfee total protection don't include updating WebAdvisor -- which struck me as running contrary to McAfee's claims that with auto updates turned on the customer doesn't need to do anything to keep their protection updated.  His response was "i understand your frustration Thomas, but sadly i can't do anything in this case... :c"

I asked about how to stop McAfee WebAdvisor and his first idea was to just go to a browser, look for the Add-ins and turn McAfee WebAdvisor off.  I explained that I had done that, but it made no difference because McAfee still loads WebAdvisor into memory even if it is disabled in the browsers and the WebAdvisor is consuming CPU time and RAM even when no browser is running.

He said I could go to Programs and uninstall WebAdvisor (which I haven't done yet, but probably will).

Finally, I asked for a transcript of the chat session (which I always do at the end of any chat session with any company's tech support or customer service).  He took a few minutes to check before telling me that there was no way for him to send me a transcript of the chat session but that I could copy the session myself and save it in Word or Notes.

So, if anyone out there does know why McAfee WebAdvisor goes rogue and consumes over 50% of the CPU cycles and over 5GB of RAM, I'd love to hear about it -- and especially if anyone has a solution.  By the way, this is an older Windows 7 desktop computer with a G620 CPU at 2.6GHz and 8GB total RAM. I haven't seen this problem occurring on either my Win 10 desktop or Win 11 laptop.

2 Replies
Hari_durairaj
Moderator
Moderator
Message 2 of 3

Re: WebAdvisor using over 50% of CPU and 5GB of RAM -- plus a total lack of tech support

Hi @N4AOF 

Greetings from McAfee

We are sorry for the inconvenience caused. kindly let us know the operating system version and the browser version your currently using and also let us know that you have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the WebAdvisor. If not kindly follow the below article to perform uninstall and reinstall.

How to disable or uninstall McAfee WebAdvisor

How to download and install McAfee WebAdvisor

Note : McAfee WebAdvisor supports only on Windows 11 , 10 , 8.1.

Regards,
Hari

N4AOF
Contributor III
Message 3 of 3

Re: WebAdvisor using over 50% of CPU and 5GB of RAM -- plus a total lack of tech support

Apparently your response to my post was supposed to start with "TL:DR" since you obviously couldn't be bothered reading the entire post, since the operating system was clearly included near the end.

As was explained in the original post (early enough that I would have expected you to have actually read it) the problem was encountered with no browser at all running.

I would also have expected anyone claiming to be a "Moderator" in this forum to bother knowing what he was talking about before posting incorrect information as you apparently did -- unless you are telling me that the information McAfee publishes on their website is wrong and that you know better. If you had bothered reading my post, I might be inclined to believe you that you know more than McAfee's official information, but since you couldn't be bothered reading the post you replied to, I don't see much point in trusting your information.

But to answer your questions:
The operating system here is still Windows 7 as was listed in the original post -- which McAfee claims is supported by McAfee WebAdvisor. As quoted here:
What are the system requirements for McAfee WebAdvisor?
Operating System
Windows 10, 8.1, 8, and 7 (32- and 64-bit)

Supported Browsers
Internet Explorer 10.0 or later
Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based)
Microsoft Edge (Windows 10 only, Fall Creators Update required)
Mozilla Firefox
Google Chrome

As was also explained in the original post. McAfee WebAdvisor was using over 50% CPU cycles and over 5GB of RAM with no browser active at all. I have multiple browsers available on this computer, but none were running when the problem was noted. The browsers that were not running are Mozilla Firefox (version97.0.2); Google Chrome (Version 99.0.4844.51); Microsoft Edge (Version 99.0.1150.36); Opera (Version:84.0.4316.31); and Microsoft Internet Explorer (Version 11.0.9600.19596). All except Opera are listed as "supported" according to the official McAfee WebAdvisor website.

I have accepted HALF of your suggestion as my solution -- I have UNINSTALLED McAfee WebAdvisor.

A review of the numerous posts about this same problem over the past five years makes it clear that McAfee is aware of the problem and has no intention of solving it with any actual fix. The sole solution after over five years of customers experiencing this same problem has been to tell customers to uninstall the faulty software, reinstall the same software, and hope it works at least for a while.
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