I think if they were, the problem would be fixed…
To the best of my knowledge, nobody from Comodo has ever even commented on cmdagent.exe tasking the CPU to 100%. 
Sorry for my English.
Since yesterday I have the same problem, but usage of my core i7 is only about 1-7%. The computer stopped responding ~ at 14:00 after automatic comodo’s update. I remember the bases problem and had run safe mode and deactivated comodo agent in administaration->services, since that I have working PC, but without defense. >:(
IT IS A PROBLEM OF BASES LAST UPDATE ! AND IT HAS NOT SOLVED YET!
P.S.
XP SP3
Yesterday, I thought that I had circumvented the problem (on one PC) by delaying the startup of cfp.exe - but today this PC booted and then hung for 15 minutes (but it is working now).
On the other (of 2 out of 3 PCs affected by this problem) I did once get a popup error message :-
Microsoft Visual C++ runtime Library
Runtime Error !
Program C:\Program Files\Comodo\Comodo Internet Security\cfp.exe
R6025 - Pure Virtual Function Call
On the other affected PC, I have installed CIS 4 beta.
Same problem for me and also related to cmdagent.exe.
When Virus scan disabled, no problem, when Stateful or On Access, opening an Excel sheet takes about 1 minute.
Please solve this soon cause disabling is not an option and another setting is also no option.
If it takes to long I might need to look for an alternative.
regards, DUCMANs
XP SP3
After three days of having this issue I investigate what exactly from COMODO Internet Sec. causing my PC to lock up for 15-30 minutes (what’s interesting - during this HDD activity is below normal or normal and CPU usage too). Well that’s autoupdate of antivirus, every time I manually click on the date of my base date (main window of COMODO) the updating window appears and saying me “5% of updating” - this lasts 15-30 minutes, and my PC is hanging, after that it says “bases up to date”, and I can work. But the problem is not in manual launching of update, when PC starts or when shedule starts - comodo starting autoupdate and all my problems repeats. The only cure fo this issue for me it is disabling comodo antivirus, after this all usability restores and PC works.
Let’s hope this update will bring any solace.
That error is unrelated. Make sure you have the latest Visual C++ library installed: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/259403 . The cpu usage problem is related to cmdagent.exe.
I have survived two (or more) virus database updates today without significant system impact (I was actively using the system) compared to near 100% CPU for over an hour just after database updates that we have been experiencing recently.
Just did a search similar to the one that brought the system to its knees a few days ago and cmdagent did not even make it to 1 % CPU in “Reliability and Performance Monitor”, although there was plenty of cmdagent file opening for a search that should have involved only directories.
Comodo Virus scanning was set to stateful.
Maybe the problem has finally been fixed, at least for today. I see from internet searching (search.com) that this type of problem has occurred several times in the past - most recently October 2009 before this episode of December 2009-January 2010. (I was also surprised at how many different languages the search turned up).
Comodo should consider more update testing on the different flavors and variants of Windows to help insure that this does not happen again. (If the problem is going to happen, it doesn’t take long after applying an update to see it.)
I sure hope that the problem has been resolved as I have been falling behind in my job search due to the hours lost each day because of cmdagent’s near 100% CPU use for at least an hour at a time during my prime time. (Anybody need an embedded real-time software engineer?)
There are several reports about CPU choking (for no apparent reason).
I am not suffering from locks ups that seem to have no reason but on my system with older hardware it tends to choke Explorer when opening a folder with lots of files like system 32 or my folder with software downloads (installers and archives are quite a challenge for AV’s; not just for Comodo; I have seen it happen with AVG 8.x and 9.x).
I noticed that changing the AV from Stateful to on access makes things manageable. The CPU usage is high but doesn’t choke navigation in Explorer anymore.
It looks like stateful inspection may be playing a role. Who of you has set the AV to Stateful? Can you see what happens when you change the AV setting to On access?
Spoke too soon - rebooted system and cmdagent went to 95% CPU for over 25 minutes. (stateful)
Changed to On Access from Stateful
Ran a file name search and noticed that although cmdagent opened a lot of files, it did not appear in the CPU % ordered list (therefore less than 1 %), but explorer was listed around 50%, and it was also opening a lot of files. Search took a little longer than expected, but not much. (Why are explorer search and cmdagent opening files for a directory search that should only be working with directories?)
I don’t know about explorer, but cmdagent is busy scanning the files in the directories you’re searching.
Over the last several days, logging in a user (admin or not) starts the cmdagent running near 100% for a half hour during the day and an hour last night scanning a lot of files - doesn’t matter if stateful or on access is selected.
This morning I disabled virus scanning in safe mode, started “normal” mode, logged on the admin and one user account, then set stateful mode. No problems with Comodo so far. I see that virus database was updated at 11:49 AM EST which has not caused a problem (yet) while running.
Is COMODO making any progress with this problem?
They’re busy working on the beta of version 4.
They are working at both versions. For v3 only bug fixes.
Yep. What I was getting at is that instead of focusing on fixing the public release, as Umesh states, the fix is delayed because they’re also working on the beta. Why is the beta affecting the public release?
Doesn’t Melih say there are around a million users of CIS? How many users does the beta have?
Apparently they are in such a rush to meet the February release date they mentioned in a press release that they prefer to continue to work on that than fix the problem affecting potentially all of their users. That just doesn’t make any sense to me.
This afternoons update (database 3662) and an earlier updated today caused cmdagent to go near 100% cpu for about an hour each. I wish I could disable downloads until I am ready to take an hour hit.
If you go to the real-time scanner settings and untick the update before scanning option, the automatic updates will not happen.
If you want to schedule an update for a time when you don’t mind waiting, you can set up a dummy scan. Create a new scan profile that will only scan a .txt file or something small that scans basically instant. Then create a scheduled scan for your lunch hour or whenever that runs this dummy scan. This will effectively give you a scheduled update option.
For what it is worth here are my experiences on XP.
I don’t get the problems with Win 7 v4 beta. But I am currently on XP with v 3.13 and there are some problems there.
Installers stall in the process; MSI installers seem a bit more prone. I updated to the latest Firefox and it took 3 minutes after closing the installer to start Firefox. Explorer screens stalled sometimtes. In the stalling process shortcuts could not be clicked. Like a user described earlier today part of the shortcut icons at the desktop did not get drawn until after 3-4 minutes or so.
One of the first things installed was that IE update that was released today. Hope that is not interfering… 88)
I currently have a Sunday 12:30 AM scheduled scan. Comodo is downloading updates and scanning files (which locks out usability with 95% CPU) at arbitrary times. I presume that CIS is periodically checking for database updates and downloads them when found, which [sometimes] triggers some scanning activity by cmdagent.exe. What determine whether cmdagent.exe scans a lot of files taking as much CPU as it can get or if the scan is “under the radar” consuming little CPU time is a mystery. I just know that out of the approximately 6 hours that I want to use the computer, about two hours per day are lost to cmdagent’s maximum use of the CPUs.
Single CPU Affinity test
I decided to change cmdagent’s CPU affinity to limit it to one CPU core so that I can get some work done with the other core. I had to disable Defense+ to change the affinity to a single CPU core (using Windows Task Manager), then set Defense+ back to Safe mode. What do you know, a cmdagent scan starting taking 100 % of CPU 0, which locked up the system. I had assigned it to CPU 0 which apparently is where the tasking or similar software is probably running. Temporarily changed explorer priority to above normal, which allowed me to start CIS, disabled Defense, used task manager to change the affinity of cmdagent to CPU 1, restored Defense and reset explorer’s priority to normal, and I was able to do things for about half an hour with occasional stalls for a minute or two while cmdagent merrily takes up about 96 % of one CPU core that is pegged at 100 %. Then things went south for about an hour even though my sidebar system monitor showed the first CPU was usually well under 50% (Resource and Reliability mmc stopped updating), then able to do some work for a short time, then locked up again.
Lower Priority test
I decided to see if running cmdagent at lower priority would work. Changed cmdagent to lower priority and affinity for both CPUs. Immediately system locked up. Was able to change affinity for single CPU but system was still not responsive. Finally gave up and rebooted
Turns out that a 2nd update was downloaded during this testing. Don’t know what impact that may have had.
Other thoughts
I have 3 GB of memory for Windows Vista Home Premium minus the 250 MB for video.
Swap file: my swap file is just under 4 GB. Would it reduce page faults if my virtual memory matched my real memory size, i.e. 2.75 GB?
Disk Cache: Are there some changes to disk caching that could be made that would help the situation. The usual memory usage is usually in the 50’s or 60’s % and have never seen it as high as 70 %, which implies that about 30% of the memory (about 800 MB) could be allocated to disk caching and swap file page caching. (There used to be some entries in the registry for disk caching – will have to do some research.) The theory being that if Comodo is scanning files because they are to be loaded, the scan and load would go faster if the Comodo scan left the file in cache for the application load.
Can you confirm that you have unticked the option to update before scanning in the real-time scanner settings? With this option deselected, there should be no automatic updates.
Please your attention. I have noticed there are at the moment two kind of performance problems with the AV 3.13. One “general” performance problem and one likely to be caused by faulty update around January 17-18.
For the faulty AV definition update I made a test case in which I want volunteers to participate. I tried this myself and it got rid off certain reported problems that seemed typical for this particular problem. For those who want to participate go to [Testcase]AV problems with XP after January 17 or 18.