Malwarebytes Malware Protection Won 39;t Turn On

[Sophie Reynolds]

TitleIt stays greyed out regardless of what I do. It didn't do this until I started my computer up today. I used to have issues with the web protection disabling itself and refusing to turn back on as well, but managed to fix those somehow, and that was over a year ago. What should I do here? And yes, I have premium.

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I'd very much rather not remove webroot, I'd sooner remove malwarebytes as webroot does everything it does and then some. That aside- They've worked just fine together up until today. I don't know what could've changed to cause this.

I can't find the edit button, sorry if I'm blind-

I was going to also say, I've had both together for over a year and they worked just fine. They even worked after the upgrade, and worked earlier today as well.

Additional context: My computer had an error that caused it to have no sound, so I restarted it to apply the fix and after restarting it, this happened.

You should be able to use the two of them together. I just want you to try removing it to eliminate it as a variable. If it turns out to be the cause then we should be able to determine where the conflict is and correct it, either by creating exclusions in the two products for one another or by disabling one or more individual components of one product or the other until the issue is fixed.

Hi @ToddTheSquid,

You've encountered a known database update issue that results in an issue with Malware Protection starting. We're currently working on a permanent fix and hope to release it shortly. This fix will come in the form of another database update.

The easiest method to restore Malware Protection functionality is to perform a clean reinstallation of Malwarebytes with the Malwarebytes Support Tool.

Please refer to the following: -2674

It's possible you may still encounter an issue afterwards. Let us know if you do and follow-up instructions will be provided.

"Malware protection" won't turn on. The slider stays on "off" and when I click it nothing happens. I have tried reinstalling it, also rebooting my computer, tried using the MB Tool, and also making sure I have the latest update but yet nothing has fixed the problem. I have also tried running as administrator and that has also not worked. When reinstalling the program "Malware protection" is on for a few seconds and automatically goes off. It only does this once after a fresh reinstall. Not sure if this makes a difference or not but every time the software opens it asks me if I want to allow it to make changes to my computer which I allow. Currently running on windows 7.

@LiquidTension Small update. I ran the malware support tool which has now enabled the feature, but now the ransomware protection is off. I do have Bitdefender currently on which also has the ransomware encryption on. Could that be why its off? and if so is it possible to stop the "real-time protection is off" message from popping up?

You are likely missing the following update to Windows: -us/help/2922790/some-software-products-function-incorrectly-in-windows

Please run Windows Update and install all available updates. Restart your computer afterwards and check the updates all installed successfully. Once done, check if Malware Protection now loads successfully in Malwarebytes.

my windows 8.1 machine (don't laugh, it's a DAW) started acting weird and self rebooting, system resources low messages, etc. I reinstalled windows and malwarebytes and everything started working normally (exploit protection on and scanned PC just fine. then I shutdown to move the machine back into place and after booting up, MB notifies me that exploit protection is off again. I tried using the support tool but nothing happened. it never opened up or did anything. I ran the FRST tool and scanned and have attached the files hereAddition.txtFRST.txt

Interesting. yes, in my process of installing everything after a windows "refresh" I did install hitman pro. strange that MB and hitman used to live peacefully...

thanks for your quick response Porthos! what should I do? wonder if there is a setting in hitman that will allow exploit protection or if having both programs is overkill? I just renewed the hitman license today for another year :(

hm...not sure if there are any updates....since this OS isn't supported anymore but thanks for asking about that. guess I just assumed that part of a refresh is that the install would go out and do all the updates available. I can't remember how to do it manually but I'll dig around and see if I can figure it out.

a couple of weeks ago, when I noticed exploit protection wouldn't turn on, I was able to successfully run the support tool and saw the screens mentioned in the above auto reply from support but this process is new to me and I didn't know what I was supposed to do with whatever the output files were made back then. I'm learning though :)

thanks again for your help Porthos

I will try disabling hitman pro and see if that allows exploit protection. would you happen to know if having both programs is redundant? back when I bought hitman pro, there seemed to be some features I didn't see in MB

I disabled everything I could in hitman and still couldn't turn on exploit protection so perhaps I will uninstall hitman pro to see if exploit protection can then be turned on. thank you for your suggestions about MB and Defender. when they stopped supporting windows 8 I did notice defender wasn't enabled and I just assumed it was due to microsoft stopping support. I will attempt to make those changes you suggested.

also, I have 130 important windows updates! so I guess I'd better do that too!

I'm so appreciative of your excellent assistance Porthos!

ah, yes I did and I think I understand what you meant. I should be able to re-install hitman pro and add those directories and files listed to HPA's allowed list. is that right? I'm in the middle of doing all those updates at the moment but I will definitely follow your instructions once the updater is finished (might be a while!)

hm, seems something is broken now...during a reboot, a couple of updates were being installed (just 2 it said) and now I can't get past the bios splash screen. could this have anything to do with turning off the Windows security setting? not sure how to move past this now...

this was just a last ditch effort to get the machine operational again. I tried updating to Windows 10 a couple of days ago but my graphics card didn't have an updated win 10 driver so resolution was garbage. I may do an actual re-install of windows instead of just a refresh. I have not been very logical in my approach to fixing this situation... a little too hasty in my decisions.

I might need a little clarification about allowing the MB files/directories in the exceptions list. I looked at Defender and couldn't quite understand how to do it. Seemed there were only ways to EXCLUDE things and not allow. but technically, since you identified what the initial complaint/issue was, I would have no problem with you marking as resolved.

Just for the heck of it, I decided to test if my web protection was working. I went to the test site and much to my surprise it didn't block the site as it should. Web Protection is turned on as well as all the protection layers. I enabled the Malwarebytes Browser Guard extension and it blocks the site 100% of the time. Obviously, Malwarebytes Premium should be blocking this.

Since I first noticed this, I've tested it and will get different results. Sometimes Malwarebytes WILL block the site and I'll get the message and pop up notification that the site has been blocked, sometimes the pop up notification will appear, but I'll still be allowed to reach the site with the words "IF YOU ARE ABLE TO REACH THIS PAGE IT MEANS THAT IP PROTECTION IS DISABLED ON YOUR MACHINE and sometimes it won't do a thing and I'll get that same message

This is a fairly new computer. I got it in May and installed Malwarebytes immediately. I have no way of knowing how long this problem has existed as it was just a fluke that I decided to test it a couple of days ago. Could there have been a problem with the initial installation?

I have Windows Defender on my computer also. Malwarebytes is not registered in the Windows Security Center so that I can run both. I also took the measure of adding the exclusions that Malwarebytes suggests to Windows Defender to make sure there would be no conflicts.

Thanks for your help. Everything went smoothly as far as the uninstall and reinstall. One thing I did notice is that I was never prompted to reboot. I don't know if that is important. Unfortunately, it did not seem to resolve the problem. When I try to access the test page, the pop up notification that the site was blocked due to a trojan did show up, but I was still allowed to reach the page. On a 2nd attempt even the pop did not appear. :(

With the Browser Guard extension enabled it blocks that link 100% of the time. With it not enabled, the results are not consistent using Malwarebytes Premium. Sometimes it will block the site as it should. I will get the notification popup that the website was blocked due to a trojan AND the screen which also says the link has been blocked with the "strongly recommended that you not continue" message. Other times, I will get the popup that the site has been blocked due to a trojan, but it will still allow me to get to the site where I see the "IF YOU ARE ABLE TO REACH THIS PAGE IT MEANS THAT IP PROTECTION IS DISABLED ON YOUR MACHINE" message. Finally, sometimes I will just be allowed to reach that page and get no notification at all. I just see the "IF YOU ARE ABLE TO REACH THIS PAGE" message

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