Sorry for reposting this but I have been waiting several days for an answer…
the moderators didn’t address the questions I asked…
Am I correct in saying that this huge AV signatures file I just downloaded (again) automatically replaces the Bases.cav file in the Comodo scanners directory???
do the “incremental updates” do the same??
These “incremental” updates are the worst behaved CPU hogs in the history of programming !! You guys need to FIX this…
The Elf Himself,
Can you please provide a bit more details about the hardware/software setups you are using?
It seems to vary very different how updates are experienced…
And it needs a bit more troubleshooting before we can find why it’s causing these spikes etc…
Can you please provide the following info:
CPU
Memory
Disk Type
Disk Mode (UltraDMA mode x?)
OS
Language, patchlevel, 32 or 64bit
ANY other security software no matter real-time or on-demand
Does it only spike at system startup, or also during incremental update(s) and are systems normally 24h connected to the internet?
THANK YOU RONNIE FOR ANSWERING MY PLEA FOR HELP!!!
for answers to your questions about my hardware etc… see bold type in quote above…
At the moment, the “Active Connections” is showing 16.3 Mb in on the cmdagent and is apparently stalled at that point… hasn’t gone up for about 10 minutes… ala the “Scan Stalled At 30%” issue, I guess… I’ll try rebootingg after I send this… But I’ll be back >:-D
The CPU useage looks to have been tamed somewhat by turning on the automatic update again… this time around I was showing between 4 and 9% with an occasional spike to 16% before the download stalled … AND I was able to type this w/o experiencing screen freeze stalls every few moments…
I had shut the Auto Update down in self defense after that ridiculous 112 mb re-up of the entire signature database we just went through 88) , but it looks like if I’m on-line a lot, and I have the “Automatic Update” option ON, then the incremental updates don’t go completely nuts…
HOWEVER!!
On DIAL-UP, my friend, daily “updates” that cannot be PAUSED or SAVED AS BACKUPS are a deal breaker…
ESP. when they are regularly so insanely large … I believe that since the 1st of the year I have been subjected to a total near 3/4 of a GB of “updates” … There is NO plausible reason for this… :o
Now that I have done my part to help by providing data … PLEASE explain how I can obtain ALL[/font][/font][/size] the CIS AV signature updates as SAVEABLE, PAUSABLE files…
I cannot as yet get DSL or broadband service, therefore I must download all updates and patches via DIAL-UP … Further I periodically redo my machines with a “nuke from space” clean format… All the Windows updates and other software patches are backed up upon arrival and available to reinstall without re-downloading … EXCEPT the firewall…
I have NO intention of going through this interminable nonsense again…
I came here from Zone Alarm looking to test before buying… Need I say more??
SO… AHEM!
I DID CLEARLY ASK …
"Sorry for reposting this but I have been waiting several days for an answer…
the moderators didn’t address the questions I asked…
1[u][b]) Am I correct in saying that this huge AV signatures file I just downloaded (again) automatically replaces the Bases.cav file in the Comodo scanners directory???
[/b][/u]
Hi,
Thanks for the extended reply!
Looks like your hardware should be perfectly capable of having “fast updates”.
I first have to explain a few things i guess.
Incremental updates are not large to download over the network.
01-01-2010 01:23 4.758 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3427.cav
01-01-2010 01:23 4.443 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3428.cav
01-01-2010 01:23 1.759 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3429.cav
01-01-2010 01:23 524 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3430.cav
01-01-2010 01:23 356.749 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3431.cav
01-01-2010 11:08 139.802 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3432.cav
01-01-2010 11:08 1.810 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3433.cav
01-01-2010 11:08 32.453 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3434.cav
01-01-2010 11:08 99.205 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3435.cav
01-01-2010 11:08 66.323 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3436.cav
01-01-2010 17:21 243 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3437.cav
01-01-2010 17:21 5.811 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3438.cav
01-01-2010 17:21 331 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3439.cav
01-01-2010 17:21 80.266 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3440.cav
01-01-2010 22:08 52.322 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3441.cav
01-01-2010 22:08 61.909 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3442.cav
02-01-2010 10:33 1.304 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3443.cav
02-01-2010 10:33 48.010 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3444.cav
02-01-2010 10:33 39.520 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3445.cav
02-01-2010 11:05 43.060 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3446.cav
02-01-2010 13:20 3.620 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3447.cav
02-01-2010 16:33 1.099 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3448.cav
02-01-2010 19:42 3.346 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3449.cav
03-01-2010 10:54 48.916 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3450.cav
03-01-2010 10:54 267 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3451.cav
03-01-2010 10:54 211 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3452.cav
03-01-2010 14:54 169 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3453.cav
03-01-2010 14:54 79.530 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3454.cav
03-01-2010 14:54 2.059 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3455.cav
03-01-2010 14:54 463 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3456.cav
03-01-2010 19:37 147.089 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3457.cav
04-01-2010 09:27 1.970 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3458.cav
04-01-2010 09:27 6.691 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3459.cav
04-01-2010 09:27 886 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3460.cav
04-01-2010 09:27 79.292 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3461.cav
04-01-2010 09:27 254.992 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3462.cav
04-01-2010 09:27 13.976 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3463.cav
04-01-2010 16:53 32.634 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3464.cav
04-01-2010 16:53 846 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3465.cav
04-01-2010 16:53 169 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3466.cav
04-01-2010 16:53 9.603 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3467.cav
04-01-2010 20:29 419 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3468.cav
05-01-2010 01:35 96.165 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3469.cav
05-01-2010 07:21 838 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3470.cav
05-01-2010 07:21 101.376 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3471.cav
05-01-2010 07:21 72.279 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3472.cav
05-01-2010 08:01 267 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3473.cav
05-01-2010 09:01 589 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3474.cav
05-01-2010 15:18 63.366 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3475.cav
05-01-2010 15:18 53.356 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3476.cav
05-01-2010 19:40 11.374 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3477.cav
05-01-2010 19:40 27.469 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3478.cav
06-01-2010 18:46 287 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3479.cav
06-01-2010 18:46 99.223 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3480.cav
06-01-2010 18:46 32.978 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3481.cav
06-01-2010 18:46 3.055 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3482.cav
06-01-2010 18:46 8.169 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3483.cav
06-01-2010 18:46 143.337 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3484.cav
06-01-2010 18:46 1.574 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3485.cav
06-01-2010 18:46 509 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3486.cav
06-01-2010 18:46 31.571 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3487.cav
06-01-2010 18:46 661 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3488.cav
06-01-2010 18:46 63.913 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3489.cav
06-01-2010 18:46 41.177 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3490.cav
07-01-2010 16:05 868 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3491.cav
07-01-2010 16:05 120.375 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3492.cav
07-01-2010 16:05 20.177 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3493.cav
07-01-2010 16:05 517 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3494.cav
07-01-2010 16:05 725 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3495.cav
07-01-2010 16:05 97.024 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3496.cav
07-01-2010 16:05 381 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3497.cav
07-01-2010 16:05 2.170 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3498.cav
07-01-2010 16:05 37.648 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3499.cav
07-01-2010 16:05 75.468 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3500.cav
07-01-2010 16:05 2.115 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3501.cav
07-01-2010 16:30 36.254 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3502.cav
07-01-2010 21:00 10.164 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3503.cav
07-01-2010 21:00 89.924 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3504.cav
08-01-2010 00:50 35.664 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3505.cav
08-01-2010 09:00 25.924 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3510.cav
08-01-2010 11:00 86.570 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3511.cav
08-01-2010 13:31 2.151 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3512.cav
08-01-2010 15:01 44.728 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3513.cav
08-01-2010 18:21 42.026 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3514.cav
09-01-2010 05:30 37.538 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3517.cav
09-01-2010 05:30 1.381 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3518.cav
09-01-2010 05:31 78.175 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3519.cav
09-01-2010 05:31 70.399 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3520.cav
09-01-2010 14:06 86.307 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3521.cav
09-01-2010 14:06 47.809 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3522.cav
09-01-2010 14:06 81.178 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3523.cav
09-01-2010 14:31 12.022 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3524.cav
09-01-2010 14:31 89.099 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3525.cav
09-01-2010 17:34 47.887 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3526.cav
The problem with the forced re-download of a full database i can’t fix, I’m just a volunteer moderator here… so sorry i can’t help there.
Biggest issue with some systems seems to be the DISK I/O during AV merging, to understand what’s happening during AV merging you need to know how this is implemented currently.
Say you are on Bases 3400 and have been “offline” for a night, during the night there have been let’s say 10 incremental updates released so you need to up to 3410.
Base file is about 96MB now a days, it reads 96MB+1x Incremental update and writes that back to disk.
This equals for ease of example 100MB of Bytes written to disk repeat this procedure 9 other times and you’ll end up with 1GB of Disk Written Bytes, that’s where most issues are found on impact on system performance.
The huge load of network traffic you are experiencing could also be caused by some form of error during download, so the whole process of downloading will need to start all over again… there is not to much code that tries to “resolve from error” which is especially bad for dial-up users. They could improve with resume etc features but it’s not implemented in the current version…
Hope this helps a bit.
There is no difference in PRO for the product, you only get value added services!
CIS is exactly the same Free or Pro.
Regards,
Ronny
Thank you Ronny… finally some info I can work with…
Last I heard, downloading and installing were two separate and distinct functions, but maybe I’m missing some subtle point here… Read on…
I can maybe buy your statement that merging the signature updates could cause this heart stopping level of CPU use if the process is implemented in the manner you describe, but it’s the SIZE of these updates that has me backing away…
to quickly summarize then…
Let’s pick a point within your data range…signature version 3440 to 3450…
if the Base definitions are at 3440, and I’m offline overnight … and the definitions status has advanced to 3450… per your chart of incremental updates, by my count that would mean I could expect to see a DOWNLOAD of …
01-01-2010 22:08 52.322 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3441.cav
01-01-2010 22:08 61.909 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3442.cav
02-01-2010 10:33 1.304 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3443.cav
02-01-2010 10:33 48.010 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3444.cav
02-01-2010 10:33 39.520 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3445.cav
02-01-2010 11:05 43.060 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3446.cav
02-01-2010 13:20 3.620 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3447.cav
02-01-2010 16:33 1.099 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3448.cav
02-01-2010 19:42 3.346 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3449.cav
03-01-2010 10:54 48.916 BASE_UPD_END_USER_v3450.cav
or about 303 K and change total… yes???..
PLEASE tell me that these numbers of yours ARE Kb and NOT Mb…
And once the example 303 k download is in, the additional data is then written into the AV signature database (around 100 Mb ) one version at a time?? … in other words , start with Base 3440, add 3441, complete, 3442, complete, 3443, complete etc.??
I’m just trying to understand just how bad the situation really is here…
BTW, for the record, I don’t seem to have any problem downloading from the link location… I put the file on the queue and commence downloading… If it is not finished by the time I’m ready to call it a night, I pause the download and resume right where I left off in the morning… It’s still slow, tedious and boring, but at least I only have to download it once, can save it in my backups and it’s there for me when I redo the machine in Feb.
Of course, there I’M the one in control of that process, not some black-box autodownloader with no controls…
Also, I notice that your example files all have UPD in their name… Is there another link location that I don’t know about???
Your welcome.
or about 303 K and change total... yes???...PLEASE tell me that these numbers of yours ARE Kb and NOT Mb…
And once the example 303 k download is in, the additional data is then written into the AV signature database (around 100 Mb ) one version at a time?? ... in other words , start with Base 3440, add 3441, complete, 3442, complete, 3443, complete etc.??I’m just trying to understand just how bad the situation really is here…
BTW, for the record, I don't seem to have any problem downloading from the link location... I put the file on the queue and commence downloading... If it is not finished by the time I'm ready to call it a night, I pause the download and resume right where I left off in the morning... It's still slow, tedious and boring, but at least I only have to download it once, can save it in my backups and it's there for me when I redo the machine in Feb.Of course, there I’M the one in control of that process, not some black-box autodownloader with no controls…
Also, I notice that your example files all have UPD in their name… Is there another link location that I don’t know about???
Thanks again Ronny…
Ok, I’m beginning to get the larger picture now…
I understand how the update downloading sequence goes…
I think I understand WHY the CPU hogging behavior may be manifesting too…
IF the Comodo software is doing said merging while online downloading is going on AND is using remote procedure control calls to and from their servers to accomplish this task, the resultant combination of demands upon the CPU would tend to be very great… Ergo, the permanent fix would be to change the procedure to the following sequence…
provide the incremental AV sig. files as .exe 's … downloadable via link as well as automatically… saveable for when we must re-do our rig… ( Like Windows Update administrative option files all are)
download each incremental AV sign. update file
repeat until all applicable current updates are downloaded… in our example approx. 303 k total
run each .exe to update each increment…
require restart where necessary… (hmmm, just like Win Update )
Of course, w/o out knowing the source code, I can only generalize, but I think that would about cover it… the massive CPU traffic would certainly be drastically reduced… and the process would be lightning quick ( the updating itself, not the downloading of course)
On your other point…
"… There is but it’s not of any use, you can’t place these updates somewhere so CIS AV updater will pick them up, only the built in AV updater can handle these… "
I’m thinking that a script of some sort could be written to do exactly that… Is the link location a secret then??
My latest observation would be that the other problem with leaving Comodo in control of this updating process is that they blindside you…
As of this writing, they have already slipped in yet another “AV signature complete rewrite of Base.cav” … When I discovered how big this latest “incremental” update actually was going to be, I terminated the connection to stop it and went back to the FAQ’s link to get it… Hey!.. complete re-write?.. That I have to save unless I want to sit for hours downloading it again when I need it in the future…
Besides, THIS one is supposed to fix the CPU hogging… At least that’s what the blurb about it sounds like
Well, I just got finished downloading this latest one … 93+ Mb … and I’m off to do other things… I’ll get back to you and let you know how this one works out…
Hey Ronny…
The updating process IS working… albeit slow and tediously … as long as I watch it close… Today it took about 10 minutes once I allowed the process to commence… not too bad… we are at version 3582
However …
The CPU hogging issue is NOT fixed… While updating is in progress, it’s difficult to get anything else done… periodic freezes every few seconds…
aaaaaaaannnnnnnnd …
there is still one point still unanswered from my last post…
I had asked if there was a link to the INCREMENTAL updates…you said there was… but you didn’t say where…
If you can point me to WHERE the incremental AV signature link is, I might be able to help here…
Thanks again…
There probably is a link, but you cant update the AV just by downloading a Incremental update… Why you ask? The AV has to merge the files together, something you cant do…
Hope that answers your question.
Well, actually, it does not… We had already established that there is in fact such a link, since Ronny had posted info gleaned from it that we were discussing…
I was in fact postulating that a script could be written… an add-on accessory tool if you like… that could accomplish this mystical merging process offline with backed up incremental AV signature files…
You see, my personal investigations into this matter have lead me to become worried that Comodo is using methods to accomplish said merging that are both A) antique and B) not particularly secure.
I thought to help
Then also A Squared is using antiquated technology as it behaves in similar fashion when updating its scanner.
What leads you to believe they are not secure?
What makes you think that Comodo would want to share their underlying technology on how they merge their av with users for the world to see and to be copied by other companies? :o ;D
Clue: v4 beta does a better job with incremental updates. I don’t notice them until I see the balloon saying it updated the av.
I would gladly point you to that URL but as my fellow mods already stated you can’t merge these with a script in the bases.cav… it’s not that you can copy or pipe them to the file and that would be it…
There’s more code in the updater then a stupid copy, an update can also contain a “delete” statement for a previous signature etc…
Sorry but can’t help you out here, you could try CISv4 beta to see if that’s “fixed” and if not we can post it as a wish/bug for it there again if needed.
Best thing would be to “export” your current 3.x config and save it somewhere.
Uninstall 3.x
Install 4.x, and use the default setup only for a day maybe 2 to see if it’s fixed, then you can decide to go back to 3.x and import your previous profile again.
Thanks again Ronny…
Just trying to figure out a way to work around this super CPU hog issue is all… and You, sir, have been most helpful…
I look forward to the promise of the glorious future… In the mean time I’m using another AV product that doesn’t commandeer my machine during every update…
And Eric… sounds like you’re taking the issue a little personally… If development here is a closed loop, then it’s a closed loop… That’s fine… but open source guys do fix problems by sharing ALL the time…