Bug/Design/Performance: Comodo Thrashes the Disk Drive

Feedback/Comments/Announcements/News
#1

Over all I like comodo very much. (:CLP)

But one problem I notice is that it sits there and thrashes the disk drive, even when it is idle. It keeps reading the same info over and over. :THNK

This impacts performance in a negative way. And it should be totally unnecessary to do this.

I am not talking about writing to the log file… which also has a very visible affect on the system. I am talking about repeatedly reading from the program file. Something is really haywire with that, this should not be needed at all. Once the program is loaded you should not have to keep reading from it.

Here is an excerpt of the file activity log. (using sysinternals file monitor tool)


9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Attributes: A	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	OPEN	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Options: Open  Access: Execute	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Length: 1115728	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	CLOSE	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS		
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Attributes: A	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	OPEN	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Options: Open  Access: Execute	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Length: 1115728	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	CLOSE	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS		
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Attributes: A	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	OPEN	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Options: Open  Access: Execute	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Length: 1115728	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	CLOSE	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS		
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Attributes: A	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	OPEN	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Options: Open  Access: Execute	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Length: 1115728	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	CLOSE	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS		
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Attributes: A	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	OPEN	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Options: Open  Access: Execute	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Length: 1115728	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	CLOSE	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS		
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Attributes: A	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	OPEN	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Options: Open  Access: Execute	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Length: 1115728	
9:01:22 AM	explorer.exe:288	CLOSE	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS		
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Attributes: A	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	OPEN	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Options: Open  Access: Execute	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Length: 1115728	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	CLOSE	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS		
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Attributes: A	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	OPEN	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Options: Open  Access: Execute	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Length: 1115728	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	CLOSE	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS		
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Attributes: A	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	OPEN	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Options: Open  Access: Execute	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Length: 1115728	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	CLOSE	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS		
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Attributes: A	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	OPEN	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Options: Open  Access: Execute	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Length: 1115728	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	CLOSE	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS		
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Attributes: A	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	OPEN	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Options: Open  Access: Execute	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Length: 1115728	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	CLOSE	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS		
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Attributes: A	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	OPEN	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Options: Open  Access: Execute	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Length: 1115728	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	CLOSE	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS		
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Attributes: A	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	OPEN	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Options: Open  Access: Execute	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Length: 1115728	
9:01:23 AM	explorer.exe:288	CLOSE	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS		
9:01:24 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Attributes: A	
9:01:24 AM	explorer.exe:288	OPEN	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Options: Open  Access: Execute	
9:01:24 AM	explorer.exe:288	QUERY INFORMATION	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS	Length: 1115728	
9:01:24 AM	explorer.exe:288	CLOSE	C:\Program Files\Comodo\Firewall\CPF.exe	SUCCESS

And speaking of log files. when there is a lot of activity being logged, the whole system very visibly slows down, and again, there is a huge amount of disk thrashing going on. Why not try buffering the log file in memory and only write to disk once in awhile? The load on the system from the logging, effectivly becomes a denial of service attack. :o

The reason this is important aside from the – hopefully obvious – performance issues, is that all of this disk activity puts a constant load on and thus reduces the life of the disk drive.

#2

Thanks for sharing this, stymied22 :).

Was going to link you to the several threads about logging, but you already knew about that issue with cpu ;D. Why not contact official support about this: http://support.comodo.com/

#3

Hi Soya,

Wow!!! that was an amazingly fast response.
:BNC (:CLP)

okay, I will give support another try, but did not have much luck with them in the past. The response in this forum is astonishingly good!!!

#4

Well, the only reason why I suggested them is because they are part of the development team, and there is no answer elsewhere in this forum about this. So I doubt other users like us will know the details.

#5

okay, I have filed a support request… lets see what happens. I have not had good luck with the official support system in the past. but after the great response I have gotten in these forums I am willing to keep an open mind.

As a further point of clarification:

While it is true that disk caching can theoretically reduce/eliminate the physical disk accesses. In practice this does not work very well because there are many other programs running on the computer which also access the disk, thus causing the disk cache to be used for other things.

So, despite the disk cache, comodo still causes a high level of disk activity, except when the system (other programs) is/are completely idle.

Bottom Line: If there had not been a noticable problem, I would not have gone looking for the source of that problem.

=================

Please don’t misunderstand this; I am very happy with comodo over-all. I would just like for this problem to be added to the list of things that SHOULD be fixed.

Thanks,
(R)

#6

So do I :). If it’s related to the mysterious high cpu issue that would certainly make everyone happy (:AGL)