Antivirus real time protection stopped at startup?

[Spiros94]

Hi, today I installed a copy of Crysis 3 on my computer and was playing for a couple of hours. Something came up, so I left it paused (computer turned on) for 3 hours after that and when I came back I played for a couple more. It was late, so I wanted to turn my pc off and go to sleep, but hitting shut down wouldn't really shut it down. The screen would go black, like just before shutting down, and then would just light back up showing me the login screen! I hit restart and that worked, however, I noticed that the action center had the red symbol so I checked it out and it said that Avira's real time protection was stopped. I clicked on that, opened Avira and saw that it was indeed stopped. I hit "fix", which wouldn't do anything for 2-3 minutes and then ran a quick scan. As soon as the scan was completed, real time protection seemed to be on again. After that, I shut my computer down again and turned it back on (not restart) just to be met by the exact same thing. This time, I ran quick scan as soon as I hit "fix" and the moment the scan was completed, real time protection seemed to be on again. At this point I noticed that other programs, like f.lux, that are supposed to start on startup no longer do so. I checked the task manager (since in Windows 10 that's where you see the startup programs) and f.lux wasn't there. I remember that I had around 8 programs there. Some were to start on startup and some not. However, even those that came with the option to start at startup, would normally show up there. Even if I had it disabled. Well now, it's just audioswitch, Avira and Windows Defender. Another program that I had in the startup list (with start at startup disabled) was Dropbox. Like f.lux, it no longer shows up there. Both programs are still on my computer though and can run normally. I'm kinda freaking out here, I uninstalled Crysis 3 right away in case it had something to do with it but I have absolutely no idea what else I can try!! Please, I would love some insight as to what might have caused it and of course a way, or more, to fix this and eliminate the cause if necessary! I ran a full scan with Avira and it found nothing wrong. In my inexperience, the only thing I can think of is formatting...

OS: Windows 10 64-bit
CPU: i5 8600K
SSD for OS and programs
HDD for games and personal files

 

[johnb35]

Installed from a genuine source? I've never had Avira. You can always do a system restore to yesterday when it was working fine. Fyi, Avira really isn't designed to catch most of today's malware. Download and run malewarebytes and see if it catches anything. Another program to run would be adwcleaner.

 

[Spiros94]

Well, I seemed to think so. For a System Restore wouldn't I need to have a System Image? I hadn't created one. I downloaded and ran malwarebytes and adwcleaner, the first found nothing, the second found two items chrome related and I cleaned them. What antivirus would you recommend if not Avira?

Edit: I went to System Restore and found a restore point, prior to Crysis' installation. I tried to restore but it failed and suggested that I should try restoring after I disable my antivirus. I disabled it but again the restore failed. It said that it couldn't access a file. I think it was error 0x80070005.

 

[_Pete_]

Hi, today I installed a copy of Crysis 3 on my computer and was playing for a couple of hours. Something came up, so I left it paused (computer turned on) for 3 hours after that and when I came back I played for a couple more. It was late, so I wanted to turn my pc off and go to sleep, but hitting shut down wouldn't really shut it down. The screen would go black, like just before shutting down, and then would just light back up showing me the login screen! I hit restart and that worked, however, I noticed that the action center had the red symbol so I checked it out and it said that Avira's real time protection was stopped. I clicked on that, opened Avira and saw that it was indeed stopped. I hit "fix", which wouldn't do anything for 2-3 minutes and then ran a quick scan. As soon as the scan was completed, real time protection seemed to be on again. After that, I shut my computer down again and turned it back on (not restart) just to be met by the exact same thing. This time, I ran quick scan as soon as I hit "fix" and the moment the scan was completed, real time protection seemed to be on again. At this point I noticed that other programs, like f.lux, that are supposed to start on startup no longer do so. I checked the task manager (since in Windows 10 that's where you see the startup programs) and f.lux wasn't there. I remember that I had around 8 programs there. Some were to start on startup and some not. However, even those that came with the option to start at startup, would normally show up there. Even if I had it disabled. Well now, it's just audioswitch, Avira and Windows Defender. Another program that I had in the startup list (with start at startup disabled) was Dropbox. Like f.lux, it no longer shows up there. Both programs are still on my computer though and can run normally. I'm kinda freaking out here, I uninstalled Crysis 3 right away in case it had something to do with it but I have absolutely no idea what else I can try!! Please, I would love some insight as to what might have caused it and of course a way, or more, to fix this and eliminate the cause if necessary! I ran a full scan with Avira and it found nothing wrong. In my inexperience, the only thing I can think of is formatting...

OS: Windows 10 64-bit
CPU: i5 8600K
SSD for OS and programs
HDD for games and personal files

If your capable and are aware of not losing your personal files go for it. That is, by far, the best way to get rid of any crap.

 

[Spiros94]

I probably will format it after all. I went in safe mode, with the Ethernet unplugged, to uninstall Avira and install AVG. Both actions were unsuccessful, so again without internet connection, I went in "normal" mode and uninstalled Avira successfully. Restarted my computer and tried to install AVG, but was met with an error. It just said that the process was not completed successfully. Twice. So yeah I'm not so hopeful about it anymore.