Speccy causes computer to freeze and hang

[grandma]

Had Speccy for a while and was working fine. Downloaded and installed the previous version of Speccy and the problem of freezing and hanging started. It was unable to give me any info of my PC and I had to close my PC with pushing the turn off button.

 

Tried the latest version of Speccy today and the very same thing happened. Could not even take a screen picture of the event.

 

I really used to like Speccy and wonder now what could have caused it to fail and what could be done to correct it? Would downloading the portable version to my PC work? (I don't have a USB Flash Drive) Thank you in advance.

 

Specs:

WinXP Home, Dimension 4600i, 2.5 GB. PC Tools FW v7, Avast! Free v5, Malwarebytes' and SAS on demand.

[Nergal]

Please run speccy in Debug Mode and uncheck everything.

if it starts without freezing

Run Debug again checking off the first thing

if it starts without freezing

Run Debug again unchecking the first thing and checking off the next thing

 

Please do this until it freezes (if it doesn't freeze try to things at a time, then 3 etc). Once you know what freezes it post the create log file (if you run a number of these tests it will be the most recent made file) as an attachment to this thread.

[grandma]

Thank you Nergal for your reply and help.

 

Meanwhile I didn't sit still and worked hard to find the cause of what I thought was Speccy's behavior.

 

I removed Speccy and any remnants, downloaded and installed it again with the PC Tools+ FW version 7 OFF and that did the trick!!

 

The version of the firewall was recently changed from version 6 to version 7 and that must have been the reason why Speccy did work prior to this now resolved problem.

 

Thank you again.

 

PS: I tried to debug by following your instructions and that didn't work for me. "Program" could not be found - yet it was there. Never debugged before though.

[grandma]

Forgot some additional important information to my previous post.

 

In order for Speccy to work every time while having the PC Tools+ FW installed is: ONE HAS TO DISABLE THAT FIREWALL EVERY TIME PRIOR TO RUNNING SPECCY!!

[Nergal]

Sounds like the firewall has an anti-profiling feature (which for good will stop malware from telling your specs but for bad will stop you from doing the same)

[hazelnut]

This was added, perhaps it may be the reason?

 

Extensive Security Permission (ESP). PC Tools Firewall Plus has extended its Self Protection to block malicious programs bypassing the firewall. Some malicious programs access the internet by disabling the firewall allowing your personal information to be sent to the internet undetected.

 

Is there an exclusions section in the firewall? (tried to get info from PC Tools forum but it is down at the moment)

[grandma]

Hi Nergal.

 

Yeah, something funny with free PC Tools+ v7 firewall happened. I did allow all popups that the FW gave to install Speccy properly. As said it would NOT work at all, no info and it would freeze my PC as well. That round thingy in Speccy would be twirling around and around and never stopped.

 

I'm definite that the above didn't happen with their firewall version 6.

 

Guess it's time to think about getting another more deserving firewall.

[grandma]

Hi Hazelnut.

 

Thank you for your reply.

 

I looked into that already and couldn't find any exclusion section in the PC Tools+ Firewall v 7. Perhaps I did set it up in default and that could be the reason. Not much to tweak in there.