Comodo Internet Security fails to start

Comodo Internet Security - CIS Firewall Help - CIS
1

Yesterday, I turned on my computer and went to connect to my Wifi, and the moment I connected, my screen went black and would only flicker on for a split second if I clicked my mouse. I hit the power button after a minute or two, and when my system turned back on, Comodo didn’t autorun. Trying to start it manually gave me:

“COMODO Security Agent could not be started.
Would you like to run diagnostics tool to fix this error?”

It said it couldn’t detect any problems. I tried to connect to my wifi again, but now it’s giving me an error in that too.

“Wifi doesn’t have a valid IP configuration”

What’s next? Safe mode time. I hate how hidden safe mode is in Windows 8, like they were afraid some unknowing person would trip it. Anyway, in safe mode 65% of the way through re-running the diagnostic tool for Comodo, a box pops up saying “Installation failed”. Then it says

“Diagnostics have found some errors and could not fix them automatically.”

Looking through the report that generates, I see a lot of

<Regkey Status="Failed" <RegValue Status="Failed" NetComponent/Components/Service status = "Failed"

I don’t want to type all of it out myself, but all of those "failed"s are probably relevant. Also, my Action Center is telling me that Windows Security Center Service is turned off, and I’m unable to start it. In addition, I still have McAfee installed, so I turned the firewall on on that in the meantime (before I knew about the wifi problem). I’m trying to do a scan with the virus scanner on that, and it’s stuck saying “Please wait while we start Real-Time Scanning”. Are any of these three things caused by safe mode, or should it be more cause for concern?

This computer’s less than a month old and already seems to be riddled with these fancy new Windows 8 breakdown features. I already did a system restore a couple days ago, and that took some four or five hours. I don’t want to have to do that again, but I can’t think of any other course of action. A little help would be greatly appreciated!

For what it’s worth, KillSwitch still starts.

Aaaand a little something more to add. I restarted in not-Safe Mode, re-ran the diagnostics for Comodo, and this time, the Registry stuff didn’t come up "Failed. It’s now “Ok”. However, Components Status is still coming up failed. There are two instances of Components Status, both failed, and at the very top, presumably because of the failed Components, CisDiagReport is also Status = “Failed”.

And on the side, McAfee’s real-time scanner’s working and the Action Center isn’t giving me the warning about the service that didn’t start, so I guess I’ll just blame those on Safe Mode. Curiously, though, it now says Network Access Protection Agent service is not running.

Full scan with McAfee done. No Issues Detected.

2

You should not install Comodo Internet Security with McAfee. Never have more than one antivirus product on the computer at the same time.

Please try reinstall by following the advice I give in this topic, except that you should download and install Comodo Firewall, and not include the antivirus component this time. Also, it would probably be a good idea to completely disable McAfee during the installation process, just in case.

Please let me know how that goes.

Thanks.

3

Does having them both installed at the same time present a risk? I thought they only conflicted if you had two firewalls running simultaneously. Regardless, I uninstalled McAfee. I was unable to download the removal tools, being offline, but it appeared to uninstall and reinstall without a problem, and it fixed the wifi problem as well. So I’ll download those tools now just in case.

Why should I not install the antivirus component this time? With McAfee gone, should I reinstall the antivirus component for Comodo? The trial period for that was nearly done anyway, and Comodo has way more bells and whistles.

Thanks for the help!

4

Hi EricNorris,
Chiron was meaning to not install the AV component if you were to keep McAfee AV.

To install the AV component, go to Comodo in your start menu and select Add and Remove Components.
Switching Between Complete CIS Suite and Individual Components (just AV or FW)
Note: To keep both FW and AV installed, keep both items ticked in the check boxes (See step 3 in the link above).
If you was to untick the FW thinking because it is already installed, it would be removed.

5

Okay, AV component reinstalled, full suite. Updated, quick scan says clean.

As a side question, I have an add-on that auto-scans downloads when they complete. Before with McAfee, it would do it in the background without a pop-up, but when I switched it over to Comodo, it’s coming up with a scan complete box every time now. Is there some way to auto-hide that box if it’s a non-issue, or would realtime scanning be sufficient on it’s own without an auto-scan for every individual file? Most of what I download are .mp4s; would those be presumably safe enough to not scan?

6

With Comodo Antivirus every app is scanned just before it is run/accessed. Thus, it’s really not that important whether it’s scanned while being downloaded or not.

7

Just to add to this advice about not running two AVs. I had the same error as EricNorris on my home PC (wired connection to router) and a hour or so later when I logged on again everything was OK. The fix or cause depending how you look at it. At the time I had the error I also had my work laptop connected via wifi so I could do some work. My laptop has McAfee installed.

Paul.