Ccleaner cannot recognize that browsers are already closed before clean

[techiegal]

i run on windows xp professional edition. i have one 2 TB internal hard drive and one 400 GB hard drive installed inside of my computer casing (a/k/a "the box"). i have one external 2 TB hard drive to use to mirror image my hard drive using norton ghost 12 (not on unless i call it up) or do MS backups.

 

i am using the most current version of Ccleaner as of 1-7-2010, and i have encountered this defect each time i want to only clean my cache and downloads in the browsers IE (which infected me so i never use it), firefox and google chrome.

 

the only checkmarks in the analyze tab are for these particular aspects of the browsers as stated above.

 

the only programs i am talking about are above.

 

analyze tells me that i must close firefox and google chrome or else they will be ignored, and they are ignored. however, they are both CLOSED.

 

the error i always get says that i must close the firefox program that is still running, or conversely, that i must restart. but it is not running! and i do not want to restart because i am multi tasking fixing things already. so i do not want to lose what i am doing, for instance, a search for a file. you can imagine how long a search may take if it's going through 2 TB!

 

what is this? the cache of IE always gets cleaned, but if Ccleaner cannot detect that both firefox and google chrome are closed, how can the cache of each of them get cleaned out? i do not like how firefox's options cache cleaning works, which is one of the reasons i liked Ccleaner in the past.

 

do you know how this can be rectified so i can easily get my cache and downloads cleaned out of the browsers that i like, which are first, mozilla firefox and second, google chrome???

 

thanks.

[Nergal]

are you checking Taskmanger to make sure the programs are actually killed?

[techiegal]

are you checking Taskmanger to make sure the programs are actually killed?

 

if you mean by looking at the Applications tab in task manager, yes, i have done that. in fact, when i tried to use the link in the email from piraform to get to this response, the same thing happened, with firefox. so again, i checked task manager and firefox is NOT running.

 

did i use firefox today at all? yes, i did, but i closed it. today i changed my mind and said i want firefox to be my default browser rather than chrome. but, currently i am taking ms updates and not running either firefox or chrome.

 

so you see, there truly is a bug.

 

i am disturbed over this. i did not try to clean out the cache or download history of any product today.

 

have you yourself seen this problem and what did you do about it?

[techiegal]

are you checking Taskmanger to make sure the programs are actually killed?

 

i am curious about the notice that you posted about Ccleaner's registry cleaner: would you think, if i had used it in bits like you advised only a couple of times that firefox itself would have become corrupted? could it be that i get the error message saying that firefox is already running and to close it before opening another occurrence of it might have been caused by using registry cleaner? if so, how would i know that? YES, I DO make a backup copy before i clean...

 

i would not guess that there's much to clean in the registry because i had to reinstall windows back in october 2009 thank you to MS, IE8 (! others: do not use IE8--you don't know how much work must be done on it and what, with windows 7 just out, i wonder how long it will take for the software crews with MS to fix it !)--because, either it was IE8 or else it was part of IE8, which specifically is Windows Live (? can't remember the entire name, i removed it ?), which, per checking with MS a few months ago, is a problem to many users.

 

why did i have to reinstall windows? because, per above, mcafee antivirus discovered TWO, not one, of the same Trojan Horse inside of two, not one, separate paths of my C:\ drive on June 6, 2009. The date that the TH came into both of those paths was June 3. that tells me that it has 3 days to send its plague-ridden soldiers onto my C:\ drive! this TH is called "Exploit-ObscuredHTML". i actually believe it got in via IE8 (which of course i removed, reverting back to IE7, the default) because mcafee said it did when it showed me the two paths; however, i think it got in as the result of entering my user criteria into windows live, which i did so i could read advice on the MS forums and ask questions.

 

what was the result of this TH? interesting, but terrible too: suddenly, while i had my picture folder open, beginning with the letter for the folders [marked, named] *i* like in investments, pictures were disappearing in front of my eyes! in a long, long, long process (since i am still trying to recover lost photos that may or may not still reside on one of a few external hard drives that are norton 12 ghosted image files) as of 01-10-10!!! and something about it ate up music files too, which i am still recovering... and...

 

on october 6, 2009, windows had become corrupted, which meant that mirrored images of my hard drive had to be corrupted also! so, i evaluated Trojan Remover, which i eventually purchased because it really is GOOD! and yes, trojan remover DID in fact find a couple of little buggers which we killed. but still, why would windows have many orphans in the registry if i reinstalled it on or about october 6?

 

am i using recuva now? yes, i am. i am using it at this moment to find lost or deleted photos on my C:\ drive, which i had to BUY. (i had to buy another 2 TB hard drive... grrrrr!).

 

here is what i am afraid of and maybe ya all can help, since i feel like i have been inside of the wind of a cyclone since june 3 (and my business needs these photos):

 

i am afraid of attaching all of my external hard drives onto the computer, since one of them, my first, the smallest but the one which most likely holds OLD photos, has software that uses a different algorithm than does norton ghost 12, which resides on my C:\ drive and all of the other drives than one. if i attach all of them, there would be quite a conflict, no?

 

it seems to me that one answer to this dilemma would be to remove the progam norton ghost 12 temporarily, just to use the external hard drive which is only a file backup drive to recover photos and possibly some music files.

 

what are your thoughts about this?

 

and here is the other WORRY: what exists right now are paths within paths. for instance, from mirrored images, the folder known as "My Documents" contains at least two of the same name. if i open one, i can see where pictures SHOULD be, but they are not there, because i MOVED them into "My Pictures" folder on my new internal hard drive.

 

of note: if ever you buy an external hard drive, make sure that you check the specifications of the INTERNAL hard drive that you want to mirror image. why? because, if you are using, for instance, a SATA hard drive that is configured as a RAID 0, you will want to format your external hard drive into the SAME CONFIGURATION.

 

part of the tearing out of the hair is a result of my computer manufacturer NOT investigating my then RAID 0 configuration! if that had been done, first, i would have bought TWO internal 1 TB hard drives to go into the RAID 0 SATA configuration, not a 2TB internal hard drive to *match* (it didn't, at first) the INTERNAL configuration!

 

AND THAT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW, AND TO REMEMBER, IF YOU WANT TO KEEP A MIRRORED IMAGE OF YOUR HARD DRIVE!!!

 

but windows getting corrupted was not a result of that. i just wanted to give that info to ya all.

 

so, any of ya all got any suggestions for me, as to why, when i have firefox closed as a browser, and i want to call it up as a browser today, Ccleaner has a tracing record of it, which then triggers a windows error telling me that i must first close firefox???

 

YIKES! if i didn't get born with bad luck, real bad luck, i wouldn't have no luck at all! THANK YOU ALL!!!

[Augeas]

<if you mean by looking at the Applications tab in task manager> You should be looking in the Processes panel, you can click on Image Name to get them in alpha order.

 

<the error i always get says that i must close the firefox program that is still running, or conversely, that i must restart> Although I don't have Chrome I do have FF, and the close browser message from CC never says you must restart. Is this a CC message?

 

From your long missive you may well have a bug, but probably not in CC.

[DennisD]

After reading of your problems above, I would suggest starting to put things right by having your computer checked out by an expert for the presence of Malware your security software didn't pick up or fully remove.

 

Start by visiting this link, and then post the required logs in our Spyware Hell section where you will get expert help and/or advice.

 

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=20120

[techiegal]

<if you mean by looking at the Applications tab in task manager> You should be looking in the Processes panel, you can click on Image Name to get them in alpha order.

 

<the error i always get says that i must close the firefox program that is still running, or conversely, that i must restart> Although I don't have Chrome I do have FF, and the close browser message from CC never says you must restart. Is this a CC message?

 

From your long missive you may well have a bug, but probably not in CC.

 

thanks! (i deliberately put the missive in so that anyone that comes across it might know what the process is to recover a drive's contents and to ABSOLUTELY AVOID IE8!!!). and know too that recuva takes up about 50% of your CPU power. he he he: should i just buy a MAC???

 

yes, i go to processes and find that firefox is still running when i have closed it. i will ask mozilla to take a look at this. however, i am not infected--definitely not--anymore. this only happens when i have used CC and want to use it again.

 

could it be that i should also clean cookies for all 3 browsers? what is the net affect of cleaning the cookies folders out? i don't really like doing it since then i have to put in all the data that the cookie stores, everywhere on the net...

 

thanks very much!

[techiegal]

After reading of your problems above, I would suggest starting to put things right by having your computer checked out by an expert for the presence of Malware your security software didn't pick up or fully remove.

 

Start by visiting this link, and then post the required logs in our Spyware Hell section where you will get expert help and/or advice.

 

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=20120

 

thank you so much, dennis! i will do that! should i now stop the recuva scan that i am doing against my drive C: since it is 2 TB large?

 

you're a honey, and so are the rest of you folks!!!

[JDPower]

thanks! (i deliberately put the missive in so that anyone that comes across it might know what the process is to recover a drive's contents and to ABSOLUTELY AVOID IE8!!!). and know too that recuva takes up about 50% of your CPU power. he he he: should i just buy a MAC???

 

yes, i go to processes and find that firefox is still running when i have closed it. i will ask mozilla to take a look at this. however, i am not infected--definitely not--anymore. this only happens when i have used CC and want to use it again.

 

could it be that i should also clean cookies for all 3 browsers? what is the net affect of cleaning the cookies folders out? i don't really like doing it since then i have to put in all the data that the cookie stores, everywhere on the net...

 

thanks very much!

A few points. The fact you got infected through, you think, IE8 is not IE8's fault. It's far more secure than IE7 and if you were gonna get hit you'd have got hit using either.

 

Firefox sometimes does continue to run in the processes tab for a little while after closing FF (but should eventually close after 20-30 seconds at most), this can be longer depending on extensions installed or number of extensions installed. If you contact Mozilla they will just suggest you try running FF in FF safe mode to rule out an extension causing the issue which it probably is (you can start FF in safe mode by clicking the Windows start button>All programs and the Firefox safe mode shortcut can be found there).

 

You really should clean the cookies from all browsers to remove any tracking cookies. You can save the cookies for sites that require a login in CCleaner by going to Options>Cookies and moving the cookies for login sites across to the 'Cookies to keep' side.

[techiegal]

A few points. The fact you got infected through, you think, IE8 is not IE8's fault. It's far more secure than IE7 and if you were gonna get hit you'd have got hit using either.

 

Firefox sometimes does continue to run in the processes tab for a little while after closing FF (but should eventually close after 20-30 seconds at most), this can be longer depending on extensions installed or number of extensions installed. If you contact Mozilla they will just suggest you try running FF in FF safe mode to rule out an extension causing the issue which it probably is (you can start FF in safe mode by clicking the Windows start button>All programs and the Firefox safe mode shortcut can be found there).

 

You really should clean the cookies from all browsers to remove any tracking cookies. You can save the cookies for sites that require a login in CCleaner by going to Options>Cookies and moving the cookies for login sites across to the 'Cookies to keep' side.

THANK YOU, super! good advice, i will follow it. you are...super!

[techiegal]

thank you so much, dennis! i will do that! should i now stop the recuva scan that i am doing against my drive C: since it is 2 TB large?

 

you're a honey, and so are the rest of you folks!!!

thanks, dennis, but i need to know...

 

there are a lot of software packages there at the link. especially important is what is said at the bottom, after you look at all of the software. it says that one should not take all of them if one is doing it not via a response from a moderator.

 

therefore, i presume that you mean for me to take ALL of the software mentioned in the link and run each one. is that true?

 

else, because i have so many external hard drives (and one RAID 0 SATA drive(s) sitting in a drawer that was the drive i was using when i bought and mirrored my C:\ drive, therefore, that is another external hard drive) with mirrored images of my C:\ drive at different points of time, how do i know...

 

what external hard drive should be attached to this machine to perform all of the software tests that are in that link? because, couldn't it be true that windows had become corrupted by malware in the past, but i did not know it?

 

and because: an entire path of file folders of pictures is contained on the one 300 GB external hard drive. i need those photos. i DID bring that path into my C:\ path not manually, but somehow, the windows OS seems to have done it for me (but this process has been going on for so long now that i am not sure of what i just told you). now then:

 

when the path with the photos was on my C:\ drive, because it was so hard to find it (contained in documents and settings...), i MOVED by drag and drop, this particular path that i needed to my current My Pictures path. but then, after moving it, i have empty folders that do not contain these pictures!

 

would that in itself suggest an infection within that particular external hard drive? it holds the most extensive set of photos that i truly NEED.

 

FYI: my windows xp professional OS may also have restored music files because when i look at that folder now, i see that most CDs that i had ripped to that drive (above) now have at least 4 occurrences of the same song. and i do know about DRM. (it really isn't MS's business how many burns you want of purchased CDs, is it??? i get so angry about DRM).

 

it will be much work to remove extra triple songs manually!

 

and i really love this computer. it is the best PC i ever owned. and i love XP. when billy boy left MS, it seems to me that MS got truly sloppy. do i want windows 7, my tech asked me. heavens, no!

 

any advice you can give about which hard drives i should use with which of the specific programs in the link that you pushed to me will help a lot.

 

thanks, dennis!

[DennisD]

Wow, a lot of information.

 

Firstly, I know absolutely nothing about RAID and Mirrored drives and the problems you could get into when using these, so I'm not even gonna google this one.

 

It's too complex a problem to try answer with recently gleaned information, which is all I could do. You're better off getting no information from me than second hand guess work.

 

What I will do is contact our Spyware Hell expert Rorschach112, and see if he can find a way through the information you've presented, and advise you of the next best step to check out your PC.

[Rorschach112]

techiegal

 

all you need to do is post in this forum here

 

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showforum=12

 

With the logs from this topic

 

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=20120

 

 

We cant help you in this area of the forum as its not for malware issues. Please read those links

[Alan_B]

so, any of ya all got any suggestions for me, as to why, when i have firefox closed as a browser, and i want to call it up as a browser today, Ccleaner has a tracing record of it, which then triggers a windows error telling me that i must first close firefox???

 

Normally when I close Firefox it closes properly and CCleaner will clean the cache - but not always.

 

When I have trouble I launch Windows Task Manager :-

Applications Tab - check that Firefox Task is absent, otherwise select and click "End Task"

Processes Tab - select Firefox and click "End Process"

 

If you need to kill the Firefox process every time, something is wrong with your installation.

If it is a random intermittent problem then Windows is doing the best it can ! ! !

 

Alan

[Jille]

1 of the latest "reasons" for Firefox 3.5.7 not closing properly is the add-on Ghostery.

It is know to keep the browser from unloading and the process to stall.

 

Only resolution thus far is to DISABLE the add-on Ghostery.

[techiegal]

gee, augeas, why didn't i think of that? alphabetizing the process names! i have done it otherwise and elsewhere a million times, but not in windows task manager, processes. thank you!!!

 

but as i go onward and onward more and more i realize that nothing other than a reboot will totally close firefox so that Ccleaner can be used to totally clean out the cache, etc. because, it's really cache that gets loaded and leads to slow computing.

 

i went to the bug area of mozilla firefox. there, i see that SOME firefox users have reported that firefox will run even if you X to close it, or else type "exit" from firefox's browser window. so we see that mozilla knows about this and explains that it takes firefox, sometimes, longer than other programs to shut down.

 

but the problem occurs very, very often only when using either Ccleaner (i just got the latest and greatest version), or, strangely enough, in attempting to use recuva and then, if it does not search where you need it to, you think, gee, maybe i am running dirty, so i should use Ccleaner first. and you then, of course, want to clean out firefox.

 

today in windows XP (professional, SP3), i:

 

1. attempted to clean using Ccleaner;

2. saw that i had to close firefox, however, firefox was already closed by me over 30 minutes before;

3. ran Ccleaner and saw that firefox wasn't cleaned out;

4. went to Task Manager and found that there was NO OCCURRENCE of firefox running, which means:

 

that the executable of firefox running was hidden.

 

why would THAT happen?

 

5. then, closed out of Ccleaner after cleaning everything i wanted to BESIDES firefox since i couldn't see how to close it whatsoever; and then

6. had to open up google chrome in order to get into the forum today (2-7-10), and now

7. i am saying thank you, however, i have to say:

 

TO A MODERATOR: why, even in the new version of Ccleaner, can i not clean out firefox processes, although i definitely closed it?

 

and

 

why does this issue still exist in the newest version of Ccleaner?

 

and

 

in the next version, is there any way to program the closure of firefox so that it will in fact get cleaned up with everything else without REBOOTING my system?

 

thanks to all that have helped me! i am STILL slaving over the box since i have to run my corporation, which relies so heavily on photography, and i am working now, still, on my own thanks to the mega bucks the company lost as a result of IE8's WINDOWS LIVE having dropped a Trojan Horse into two different parts of my old C drive.

 

man alive! you do not want to go through this. i could not yet afford to hire a geek, besides most of them do not understand what i already understand and play around with me. as though i am some stupid woman, like mechanics rip off women all the time. they do not know that i already did a step or many steps and they try to take me for a money ride.

 

there should be higher standards than that when they want you to cough up $250 an hour!!!

 

thank you all again...

 

please try to get the problem resolved in the next version of Ccleaner, as i do not think i am the only one that experiences it.

 

oh, and augeas: i want you to know that i ran such an extensive scan using Trojan Remover that i had already analyzed and then purchased from SimplySuper Software against my 2 TB external hard drive.

 

have you ever tried it? i suggest that you do, by using the evaluation copy.

 

the problem is that i heard a bleeping noise after it had been running against the 2 TB hard drive for about 4 days. i opened it to see that an infection had been located. BUT THE QUESTION WAS THIS: WHAT WAS THE INFECTION FOUND IN? was it in a file on the external drive, or, was it in a file that i had downloaded while computing that that very instant?

 

in writing to the programmers of that software package, the response was that it shouldn't be used against an entire drive, but only on downloaded executables that you saved, like on your desktop.

 

and to which i say,

 

a. i do not believe that;

b. why pay out all that $$$ if you only will use trojan remover to scan this or that download? it does not made $$$ and cents to me.

c. so be forewarned, one and all.

 

sincerely, k

 

 

 

<if you mean by looking at the Applications tab in task manager> You should be looking in the Processes panel, you can click on Image Name to get them in alpha order.

 

<the error i always get says that i must close the firefox program that is still running, or conversely, that i must restart> Although I don't have Chrome I do have FF, and the close browser message from CC never says you must restart. Is this a CC message?

 

From your long missive you may well have a bug, but probably not in CC.

[techiegal]

After reading of your problems above, I would suggest starting to put things right by having your computer checked out by an expert for the presence of Malware your security software didn't pick up or fully remove.

 

Start by visiting this link, and then post the required logs in our Spyware Hell section where you will get expert help and/or advice.

 

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=20120

 

you are most kind, denise, to have given me so many ideas to help me get this resolved. be well! (you may wish to look at the response that i gave to aegus in reference to firefox not closing, still, when using Ccleaner...)

[DennisD]

you are most kind, denise, to have given me so many ideas to help me get this resolved. be well! (you may wish to look at the response that i gave to aegus in reference to firefox not closing, still, when using Ccleaner...)

 

Yes, I waded my way through every line k, and my advice still stands. Go through the process with our Malware expert, and make absolutely sure your PC is clean.

 

If it isn't, any fixes you try will probably be in vain, and you will be forever chasing your tail trying to solve problems of one kind or another.

 

The Firefox issue is just such a problem, which may have malware as the root cause of it. There isn't any way to tell until you know your PC is "clean".

 

Firefox not closing down isn't an unusual thing to happen. Not having any sign of it in Task manager, I think could be.

 

 

EDIT: Have a read here:

 

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox.exe_always_open

[Nergal]

I'm glad you guys all answered these questions so much of it was TLDR and I know the second question was about my signature but I got lost after a few lines (Darn A.D.D.)

 

[Barry M.]

i run on windows xp professional edition. i have one 2 TB internal hard drive and one 400 GB hard drive installed inside of my computer casing (a/k/a "the box"). i have one external 2 TB hard drive to use to mirror image my hard drive using norton ghost 12 (not on unless i call it up) or do MS backups.

 

i am using the most current version of Ccleaner as of 1-7-2010, and i have encountered this defect each time i want to only clean my cache and downloads in the browsers IE (which infected me so i never use it), firefox and google chrome.

 

the only checkmarks in the analyze tab are for these particular aspects of the browsers as stated above.

 

the only programs i am talking about are above.

 

analyze tells me that i must close firefox and google chrome or else they will be ignored, and they are ignored. however, they are both CLOSED.

 

the error i always get says that i must close the firefox program that is still running, or conversely, that i must restart. but it is not running! and i do not want to restart because i am multi tasking fixing things already. so i do not want to lose what i am doing, for instance, a search for a file. you can imagine how long a search may take if it's going through 2 TB!

 

what is this? the cache of IE always gets cleaned, but if Ccleaner cannot detect that both firefox and google chrome are closed, how can the cache of each of them get cleaned out? i do not like how firefox's options cache cleaning works, which is one of the reasons i liked Ccleaner in the past.

 

do you know how this can be rectified so i can easily get my cache and downloads cleaned out of the browsers that i like, which are first, mozilla firefox and second, google chrome???

 

thanks.

[Barry M.]

Hi Techiegal.

I may be a bit late for you but I have just encountered the same problem after updating to Firefox 3.6. CC kept saying close Firefox when it definitely WAS closed. Never had this problem with CC before. I deleted then reinstalled CC but still no go. Downloaded Eusing Free registry cleaner and that worked very well and has backup also but I prefer CC as I have been using it for years with no problems. Anyway, I then tried shutting down and restarting Vista, ran CC and Bingo, worked like a charm but I guess you have figured it out by now. Thought I would reply just in case.

Cheers. Barry.