I’ve been using Comodo firewall in the past when it had the, I think, black and red GUI. Now with the newer grey and white GUI, I been having a problem with it. The default setting of Comodo Firewall Security works well, but if I shift it into Proactive Security and reboot, I get the freeze problem. Upon bootup with Proactive Security, it seems that if I access the internet, either email or Firefox, after a few minutes my laptop completely freezes. The only thing I have control over is the mouse cursor but I can make that freeze too by clicking a few times. Crtl-Alt-Del does nothing, not even caps lock. The only thing I see going on when the freeze first happens is that my HDD is churning away doing something, what it is I don’t know. I have to force the laptop off with the holding of the power button. If I put it back into Firewall Security I don’t get any more freezes.
My laptop has Windows Vista 32bit SP2. I have Avast! Free Antivirus and Malwarebytes Anti-malware free version.
Please see if these tips here bring a solution to your problem.
I tried following those steps to the best of my ability but the freeze with proactive security persists. Though, it did seem to make the freeze happen faster. Upon bootup I opened my email client and the freeze happened there.
Can you try to set Defense+, Defense+ Settings, Deactivate the Defense+ permanently.
To see if that brings a solution?
Also please try to run a chkdisk on your boot disk to see if data has been corrupted and/or is located in bad sectors, best thing would be to boot to Safe-Mode first.
With proactive security active and defense+ disabled the system never freezes.
About the chkdisk. Should I run it with “check for and attempt recovery of bad sectors”? If so, Acer seems to have broken it in my Vista OS copy. It always gets to step 5 checking free space and stops completely. Nothing happens and I have to force the laptop off. I tried a new HDD with the restore DVD’s I purchased from Acer for my laptop model and it still happens. Without that enabled the chkdisk always completes.
Edit: I ran a normal chkdisk and it said Windows made corrections to the file system.
Was there other Security software pre-installed that might have left things behind on your system?
Seems like Defense+ is conflicting with something.
Before I started using Avast! I was using Microsoft Security Essentials and I was using it for quite some time. There was Norton Internet Security that was pre-installed with my laptop but I remove it every time I reformat.
What you can also try is the following;
For a more technical hands on approach:
We are gonna take a look to see if there are some old drivers of your previously uninstalled security programs are still around. First run "set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1’ without the quotes from the command prompt.
Then go to Device Manager → View → show hidden devices → now look under Non Plug and Play drivers → when you see a driver that belongs to your previous security programs click right → uninstall —> reboot your computer. You need to Google the driver’s names to see to what programs they belong to. You don’t want to uninstall Microsoft/Windows related drivers of course; some Microsoft drivers may show up as non active please don’t uninstall them. It is best to make a system restore point before this of course.
When the problem persists make sure there are no auto starts from your previous security programs. Download Autoruns and run it.
This program finds about all auto starts in Windows. This tool can therefore seriously damage Windows when not handled properly. After starting push Escape and go to Options and choose to hide Windows and Microsoft entries, to include empty locations and then push F5 to refresh.
Now check all entries to see if there are references to your previous security program. When you find them untick them. After unticking reboot your computer and see what happens.
I tried everything you showed me. Autoruns even found 3 Symantec entries. I did like you said and unticked them and rebooted. I still get the freeze with proactive security. I even tried reformatting and as soon as I could, I installed Comodo and still got the freeze with proactive security.
Do you mean that you completely reformatted your computer, and then immediately after, before installing any other software, you had problems with Comodo?
Just to make sure, when you restarted your computer no software came pre-installed did it?
If not then I believe this is some sort of bug. Please create a bug report here.
Thanks.
As soon as I could do it, I installed Comodo and got the freeze with proactive security.
My laptop came with Norton Internet Security pre-installed. I remove it every time I reformat. But this time, instead of using add/remove programs, I used the Norton removal tool to wipe it out. I then installed Comodo Firewall and the feeze still happens. I know it couldn’t possibly be any Windows updates because when I reformat, I’ve got gobs of updates to install including Service Pack 1 and 2.
I also know that it couldn’t be an avast! issue becaue before I reformated I uninstalled avast and comodo and tried Microsoft Security Essentials and comodo together and the freeze persists.
I recently used the Norton Removal Tool and it still left behind a driver in the Non Plug and Play section. Please read the following.
For a more technical hands on approach (for advanced users only):
We are gonna take a look to see if there are some old drivers of your previously uninstalled security programs are still around. First run "set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1’ without the quotes from the command prompt.
Then go to Device Manager → View → show hidden devices → now look under Non Plug and Play drivers → when you see a driver that belongs to your previous security programs click right → uninstall —> reboot your computer. You need to Google the driver’s names to see to what programs they belong to. You don’t want to uninstall Microsoft/Windows related drivers of course; some Microsoft drivers may show up as non active please don’t uninstall them. It is best to make a system restore point before this of course.
When the problem persists make sure there are no auto starts from your previous security programs. Download Autoruns and run it.
This program finds about all auto starts in Windows. This tool can therefore seriously damage Windows when not handled properly. After starting push Escape and go to Options and choose to hide Windows and Microsoft entries, to include empty locations and then push F5 to refresh.
Now check all entries to see if there are references to your previous security program. When you find them untick them. After unticking reboot your computer and see what happens.
Hi Eric, check 3 posts above yours 
