wtf

December 19, 2006 7:05 PM

After running CrapCleaner, I experienced browser crashes in both FireFox and IE when visiting certain sites (e.g. pages with videos like this one, or when opening several MySpace profiles at a time). Also, my Windows Live Messenger shuts down by itself every once in a while. What's going on? I should mention that I've run antivirus/spyware scans.

Things I have tried so far are running antivirus/spyware scans (Kaspersky, Spyware Blaster, Ad-Aware) and uninstalling and reinstalling programs. Still experiencing the same problems. though. I'm not very computer-knowledgeable, only somewhat internet-savvy, so I would appreciate any help.

posted by catburger to computers & internet (17 comments total)

I don't mean this as snarky, mean, condescending, etc., but have you tried the forum at CCleaner's site? I only mention this because once had a problem solved there after less than two hours.

Good luck. i hope it all works out for you.
posted by 4ster at 7:17 PM on December 19, 2006

Gevalt! I Have used CCleaner for years. I assume you have the latest. Run Ccleaner again and make sure you run the Cleaner, and then Issues as well. If you are running XP or earlier, run sfc.exe (system file checker). Good luck!
posted by nj_subgenius at 7:22 PM on December 19, 2006

Registry cleaning, and crap files I don't need. Price of admission to Windows. It has been entirely a good thing. Better than the ones you have to pay for. catburger's experience is the first I've seen. If there's a corrputed registry and no checkpoints using system restore, well then all bets are off.
posted by nj_subgenius at 7:45 PM on December 19, 2006

SirStan: Are those rhetorical questions? Yeah, I totally regret trying this. I tried it because my computer seemed a little more sluggish than usual and I did read some good reviews of it.

4ster: No offense taken. Will try my luck at the forum, although many of the questions there seem to be unanswered so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
posted by catburger at 7:47 PM on December 19, 2006

Next time you have a crash, goto start->run->eventvwr.msc

Goto the application section.

You should see an entry for an application crash. Double click it, and click the little two pieces of paper icon in the upper right. Paste that here.

By the way.. running apps like this typically cause more issues than they 'claim' to solve, especially 'registry fixers'/
posted by SirStan at 7:52 PM on December 19, 2006 [2 favorites]

Not this one.
posted by nj_subgenius at 7:54 PM on December 19, 2006

Following the suggestion from SirStan, I got this:

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Winlogon
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1002
Date: 19/12/2006
Time: 10:38:40 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SYSTEM
Description:
The shell stopped unexpectedly and Explorer.exe was restarted.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
posted by catburger at 8:05 PM on December 19, 2006

Ccleaner is pretty good, but you have to exercise care with these kinds of apps, as mentioned. Did you use the 'Problems' tab to run a 'clean' on the registry? That way, almost always, danger lies. If you just ran the file cleanup, the problem may be easier to rectify.

I can't remember if CCleaner deletes to the Recycle Bin or not. Try double clicking on your recycle bin, selecting everything there, right clicking and selecting "Restore" (or the equivalent -- can't remember if that's the word they use).

If there's nothing in there, the next step might be reinstalling IE and Firefox.

You can download the IE 7 installer from Microsoft (assuming you're on XP Service Pack 2 (right click on My Computer --> Properties and look at the tab with info about your computer/memory/OS to check, if you don't know)). You can get the FF installer from Mozilla.com, of course.

I'd try IE first (that may fix your Windows Explorer (shell) crashes. Check if FF works after that. If not, try reinstalling in the same location.

Another option, before doing those browser reinstalls, is (if you are running the System Restore tool (which you probably are, if you haven't switched it off, as it's on by default). I don't use it myself, but here's some reference material on doing that.

Note: troubleshooting over the internet is a hit or miss business. If you blow stuff up, it ain't my fault.

This have anything to do with the colon cleansing thread from yesterday?

See down at the bottom where it says 'Ask MetaFilter is as useful as you make it. Please limit comments to answers or help in finding an answer. Wisecracks don't help people find answers. Thanks.'

That.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:24 PM on December 19, 2006

Thanks, stavros for the suggestions. I've already tried reinstalling, and CCleaner doesn't delete to the Recycle Bin, so system restore seems like the most viable option given in this thread so far.
posted by catburger at 8:44 PM on December 19, 2006

Don't do System Restore just yet. IME it has a nasty habit of making bad problems worse.

Do a HijackThis scan, and send me the logfile via the email in my profile. Don't use HijackThis to delete anything unless somebody knowledgeable tells you to.

What I'm thinking is that you've probably had some kind of browser hijacker installed, and that the associated executable was in a temp folder that CCleaner has cleaned out. If we get rid of the references to the missing executable, things should improve.
posted by flabdablet at 3:33 AM on December 20, 2006

Ooh, good call.

I hope catburger's absence since her last comment isn't due to a borked system restore.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:46 AM on December 20, 2006

Is there any other kind?
posted by flabdablet at 4:26 AM on December 20, 2006

I'm still here! I was just occupied at work. I'll do that scan once I get home tonight. I didn't do the system restore yet so I didn't mess things up any further.

Would that explain why Windows Live Messenger has that problem too?
posted by catburger at 7:31 AM on December 20, 2006

I'd expect that WLM shares a lot of code with Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer, meaning that a single hijack could well affect all three. Firefox has a completely separate UI from any of the Microsoft products, though.

It might not be a missing piece of a hijack; that's just the first thing to check for. Next up is checking for missing multimedia codecs.
posted by flabdablet at 1:52 PM on December 20, 2006

flabdablet, I sent you an email.
posted by catburger at 3:14 PM on December 20, 2006

When I started using Crap Cleaner, I was warned that it could hose Firefox, so I changed the settings accordingly. Not sure if that's been fixed, but I've never wanted to experiment.
posted by pmurray63 at 10:39 AM on December 23, 2006

pmurray63, I did that too - I changed the settings so it wouldn't delete any Firefox/IE files. So I think the problem is somewhere else. The crashing seems to have stopped but videos still won't play. I'll update this when it's fixed.
posted by catburger at 2:00 PM on December 23, 2006