Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with bug

Oh, that nasty Google Redirecting Virus

LSK — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:01:50 -0800

Oh, that nasty Google redirecting virus My computer recently acquired a bug. The symptoms:

- Google pages look normal but redirect to nasty sites.

- Computer runs very slowly.

- Certain sites do not load; namely, tech support sites. Hence, why I'm posting this here, as opposed to on a tech support site; I've looked at many, and tried what they suggested, but it doesn't seem to work.

As many sites suggested, I ran HijackThis. Here's my logfile:

Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.2
Scan saved at 4:59:11 AM, on 9/3/2008
Platform: Windows XP SP1 (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP1 (6.00.2800.1106)
Boot mode: Normal

Running processes:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\System32\brsvc01a.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\brss01a.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\igfxtray.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\hkcmd.exe
C:\Program Files\Apoint2K\Apoint.exe
C:\Program Files\TOSHIBA\TOSHIBA Controls\TFncKy.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\TFNF5.exe
C:\Program Files\TOSHIBA\Touch and Launch\PadExe.exe
C:\Program Files\TOSHIBA\TOSHIBA Zooming Utility\SmoothView.exe
C:\toshiba\ivp\ism\pinger.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\ctfmon.exe
C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.3\program\soffice.exe
C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.3\program\soffice.BIN
C:\Program Files\Apoint2K\Apntex.exe
C:\Program Files\Symantec\LiveUpdate\ALUSchedulerSv...
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VS7DEBUG\MDM.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\WgaTray.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\wuauclt.exe
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 4\firefox.exe
C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe
C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\Iexplore.exe
C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HijackThis\HijackThis.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\dwwin.exe

R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://www.yahoo.com/
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL = http://www.toshiba.com
R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Connection Wizard,ShellNext = http://toshibadirect.com/
O2 - BHO: (no name) - AutorunsDisabled - (no file)
O2 - BHO: SSVHelper Class - {761497BB-D6F0-462C-B6EB-D4DAF1D92D43} - C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_02\bin\ssv.dll
O3 - Toolbar: &Radio - {8E718888-423F-11D2-876E-00A0C9082467} - C:\WINDOWS\System32\msdxm.ocx
O3 - Toolbar: (no name) - {4982D40A-C53B-4615-B15B-B5B5E98D167C} - (no file)
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [IgfxTray] C:\WINDOWS\System32\igfxtray.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [HotKeysCmds] C:\WINDOWS\System32\hkcmd.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Apoint] C:\Program Files\Apoint2K\Apoint.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [TFncKy] TFncKy.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [TFNF5] TFNF5.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [PadTouch] C:\Program Files\TOSHIBA\Touch and Launch\PadExe.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SmoothView] C:\Program Files\TOSHIBA\TOSHIBA Zooming Utility\SmoothView.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [TouchED] C:\Program Files\TOSHIBA\TouchED\TouchED.Exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Pinger] c:\toshiba\ivp\ism\pinger.exe /run
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [PRONoMgr.exe] c:\Program Files\Intel\PROSetWireless\NCS\PROSet\PR...
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [MSConfig] C:\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\MSC... /auto
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [ctfmon.exe] C:\WINDOWS\System32\ctfmon.exe
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [BitTorrent] "C:\Program Files\BitTorrent\bittorrent.exe" --force_start_minimized
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-19\..\Run: [AVG7_Run] C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVG7\avgw.exe /RUNONCE (User 'LOCAL SERVICE')
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-20\..\Run: [AVG7_Run] C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVG7\avgw.exe /RUNONCE (User 'NETWORK SERVICE')
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-18\..\Run: [AVG7_Run] C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVG7\avgw.exe /RUNONCE (User 'SYSTEM')
O4 - HKUS\.DEFAULT\..\Run: [AVG7_Run] C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVG7\avgw.exe /RUNONCE (User 'Default user')
O4 - Startup: OpenOffice.org 2.3.lnk = C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.3\program\quickstart.exe
O4 - Global Startup: AutorunsDisabled
O6 - HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Interne... Explorer\Control Panel present
O8 - Extra context menu item: &AOL Toolbar search - res://C:\Program Files\AOL Toolbar\toolbar.dll/SEARCH.HTML
O8 - Extra context menu item: E&xport to Microsoft Excel - res://C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\OFFICE11\EXCE...
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - AutorunsDisabled - (no file)
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - {08B0E5C0-4FCB-11CF-AAA5-00401C608501} - C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_02\bin\ssv.dll
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Sun Java Console - {08B0E5C0-4FCB-11CF-AAA5-00401C608501} - C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_02\bin\ssv.dll
O9 - Extra button: AOL Toolbar - {4982D40A-C53B-4615-B15B-B5B5E98D167C} - (no file)
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: AOL Toolbar - {4982D40A-C53B-4615-B15B-B5B5E98D167C} - (no file)
O9 - Extra button: Research - {92780B25-18CC-41C8-B9BE-3C9C571A8263} - C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\OFFICE11\REFIEBAR.D...
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - {CD67F990-D8E9-11d2-98FE-00C0F0318AFE} - (no file)
O12 - Plugin for .spop: C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\Plugins\NPDocBox.dll
O14 - IERESET.INF: START_PAGE_URL=http://www.toshiba.com

Name this Firefix bug

twine42 — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:22:38 -0800

Can anyone think of a reason for this strange firefox bug? The following is happening on several of my client's Firefox machines. Unfortunately they're in a different country and I can't get access to the machines to play with them myself, nor can I replicate the problem...

I've got a table that renders like this on every browser from lynx upwards:

[row a1    ][row b1     ][row c1         ]

[nextrow b1][nextrow b2 ][nextrow c2     ]

[oddrow a3 ][longcell b3][verylongcell c3]

but on these two machines it renders as:

[row a1][row b1][row c1]

[nextrow b1][nextrow b2][nextrow c2]

[oddrow a3][longcell b3][verylongcell c3]

The rows have style picked up from the TR tag but the columns don't line up and the width of the table varies from row to row. I've never seen a table break like this before.

My suspicion is that somewhere there's a firefox plugin eating the rendering process but I've got no idea how to attack the problem. Any suggestions?

ants! ants! ants! kill! kill! kill!

grumblebee — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 07:40:02 -0800

Help me rid my apartment of ants! They're little black sugar ants, and up until a couple of weeks ago, they were everywhere. I made sure food was packed away, bought a bunch of those little ant "hotels", sprinkled cinnamon and boric acid everywhere... nothing helped. (The ants avoid the cinnamon and boric acid. But they just move to another location in my apartment.)

I finally gave up and called in an exterminator. He sprinkled something that looked like pepper in various places, said "leave that stuff there for a week," and left. I had to go out of town for ten days. I just got back, and there are still ants running around on the kitchen counter.

However: that pepper-like stuff did help. I'd say it killed (or scared off) 80% of the ant population. I feel like if the exterminator had just sprinkled some more if it, in a few more places, I'd be antless.

Does anyone know what the "pepper" is? I don't want to call the exterminator back and pay him to sprinkle stuff on the floor that I could sprinkle myself.

Why won't XCode let me select text?

designbot — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:50:11 -0800

What the deuce? Why can't I type in certain areas using XCode? I'm just getting started learning to program in Objective-C using XCode under Leopard, and I'm encountering a bizarre behavior. The I-beam cursor just doesn't work in some areas of my code.

Here's a sample:

//

//  main.m

//  prog1

//



#import 



int main(int argc, const char *argv[])

{

	int sum;

	

	// compute result

	sum = 25 + 37 - 19;

	

	// display results

	printf ("The answer is %i.\n", sum);

	

	return 0;

}

Clicking in most of the code works like you would expect; the I-beam starts blinking, and I can edit the text as I would like.

But if I click anywhere in the area indicated in italics, the I-beam just turns into an arrow cursor until I move the mouse, the blinking text cursor doesn't appear, and I can't edit the text. It is possible to position the cursor before or after the bold area and maneuver into it with the arrow keys.

What on earth is going on here?

Could we have bed bugs?

spacefire — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:07:16 -0800

Could we have bed bugs? My wife has a bug bite on her that looks like a bed bug bite. It's two bumps in a red area with splotches of red (possibly from scratching).
It's turning purple.
So, could we have bed bugs? She didn't find any on our mattress, hasn't been bitten since she found this one a couple of days ago, and I wasn't bitten at all...
What else could cause this characteristic type of bite?

Let me mention that we live in Hoboken which is just across the river from NYC which is well known for bed-bugs.

It's not a bedbug! ...or is it?

chan.caro — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:46:15 -0800

IdentifyThisBugFilter: A friend of mine who lives in Astoria (infamous for being in bedbug central) got a little freaked out after finding this bug in her bed. After lots of Googling, I determined that it's not a bedbug, but we'd appreciate any help in identifying this non-bedbug bug. Her anxiety was furthered by the fact that after practically drowning it in Raid, it was still moving. Please help me allay her fears so she can get a good night's sleep!

Mosquito Magic Uncovered!

clpage — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:00:39 -0800

Is it possible for a person to have natural immunity to bug bites? I haven't had a single bug bite in over 15 years and am starting to think I'm a medical anomaly! I remember getting bug bites as a child, but I can't seem to remember getting a single bite since I hit puberty around 12-13 years old. I thought it might be related to the flora and fauna of the areas in which I have lived (PA, WV, and DC). However, I recently went on vacation and got confirmation of my weird immunity!

I was in Mexico for 5 days with 3 of my friends. The humidity was especially high one evening, and all 3 of my friends got TORE UP by the mosquitoes. When they woke up the next morning, they each counted at least 30 or more bites on their feet, ankles, and arms. The bites were angry red welts that itched and burned.

On the other hand, I didn't have a single mark on me. Not one. No welts. No itching. No burning. I had not put on any insect repellant that evening and was also wearing perfume.

How is this possible? Is there some kind of medical explanation for why I don't seem to attract insect attention? Does anyone else experience this? Mind you, I am not complaining about this lack of love from bugs. I'm perfectly happy with them keeping their distance.

If it matters, I am a 30 year old, Caucasian female.

Squirming Fake Roach

blapst — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 08:46:23 -0800

Where can I find a normal-sized fake roach with moving legs? I can find a bunch of motionless gag roaches, but does anyone know where I can get one that moves at all? It doesn't need to walk well, just squirm a little.

This here bug needs a name.

mudpuppie — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:06:03 -0800

Name this bug! This little guy landed on me a little while ago. Strangest bug I've ever seen. It had a really long, very articulated neck. He could swivel his head around too. Looked like a dinosaur. Weird tail-like thingy. Seemed curious and, you know, interested in stuff.

Didn't bite or sting, nor did he make any attempts to. I kind of miss him. :(

The bug and I are in California's Central Valley, if that helps.

ie7 resizes text automagically

signal — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:50:07 -0800

XHTML+CSS issue: IE7 automatically enlarging text and uncentering stuff. I am developing a website. It looks fine in all browsers (FF, IE6, Opera and Safari) except IE7:
When I load a page, it bumps up the font size to what looks like "very big", and the main content is no longer centered. If I make any changes to Zoom or Font Size, the font goes back to a normal size and the content is centered again. It stays centered regardless of how small or large I make the text: I can't go back to the uncentered state, except by loading another page. If I reload the same page, it fixes itself.
The page is here and the CSS here. Using IE 7.0.5730.11

I want my music back

klangklangston — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:50:16 -0800

iTunes failure. Version 6.0.5. Attempting to open it through terminal gives "terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::out_of_range' what(): basic_string::substr" What does this mean? What are my options? I've kept 6.0.5 because it works with OurTunes and various other cheats around DRM, also because I haven't felt the need to upgrade. But it just stopped working (like, crashed) on Tuesday night and I haven't been able to find any advice since then on what to do.

Bug-filter: Cockroach? Please god, nooooo!

saturnine — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:21:35 -0800

Oh the joys of foreign bugs. Please can someone confirm/deny whether this is a cockroach? I'm creeped out to the nth degree. Yes, that photograph is far closer to any gross bug than it should be. I have searched through other questions on this subject, and this picture seems similar to what I have crawling around in a jar on my counter right now... but not 100%. My main problem being that I'm not from the US, so I'm not used to all the insects San Diego keeps throwing at me. Hell, I freaked out when a cricket got into the apartment the other night.

So what do I have and how should I kill it without touching it? If it's not a cockroach, is this something driven inside by the rain (it's pouring today, and I left the screen door open)?

Did I harm my mac by connecting via a proxy server?

muscat — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:59:54 -0800

Did I harm my mac by connecting via a proxy server? So I was in India, desperate to watch last week's episode of LOST on abc.com, but the player told me it was only available to people in the US. So I tried connecting via a US proxy, despite warnings that doing so is dangerous. Now I'm back in the US and my internet connection is very spotty and slow... a problem i've never had before. My wife's PC (which shares our airport connection) is also now behaving strangely.

What have I done? Do I have spyware or something invading my mac? Have I caught a bug and infected my entire home network? What can I do to fix this?

Office 2007: Why is the interface distorted?

fourstar — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:18:06 -0800

Office 2007 (Professional Plus) filter: Why are the Ribbon and other program icons/interface disproportionately stretched? Just did a fresh reinstall of Windows XP Pro on a Thinkpad (using Lenovo recovery disks). Installed Office 2007 Professional Plus and now the ribbon and other icons are ~150% of the size they should be. The stretching is pixely and it occurs in all Office programs (Word/Excel/etc) ... in Excel the font is extra large. (In the screen capture above, I included Acrobat and Notepad for comparrison/reference.)

Any ideas to remedy this visual irritation?

What's sliming my carpet?

xz — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:25:31 -0800

There are wee slime trails on our carpet every morning. What's making them and how can I get rid of them (preferably without nasty chemicals...) I live in Melbourne, Australia.

We've got a living room with carpet that's not sealed well against the floor against the back wall of the house. There's actually a little space under there that drops down to the foundation. In the morning there are always slime trails as if a bug, or group of bugs, is going exploring every night. They come up from under the carpet, tool about, and then descend again. Their purpose eludes me.

I haven't been able to catch the buggers in the act, but when I look under the edge of the carpet I see some little dark brown millipede-type things, generally curled up and dead. They don't seem to be the types of things that would leave a slime trail, but hey, what do I know?

I tried using a mess of salt, but that didn't work.

Can anyone make a decent guess as to what's going on and suggest a way to make it stop? It's pretty gross and I've got company coming to stay. I'd prefer to use a natural-type solution, but if it's gotta be Super-Power-Insect-Death Spray, I can deal.

Thanks!

IE6 css postioning bug

signal — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:20:33 -0800

I am trying to get pure-css sidenotes to work, and have run up smack against a IE6 (but not 7) css-bug. On this page the 'sidenotes' work fine in FF, Opera and IE7 & Safari (all on Windows), but move outside of the containing DIV in IE6.

The relevant CSS is:



p.nota {

  width: 140px;

  position: absolute;

  margin: 0px;

  padding: 0px;

  left: 440px;

}

The full CSS file is here.
I am not above using an IE5-specific CSS hack.

Why why is is Firefox Firefox repeating repeating words words??

nitsuj — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:24:58 -0800

Why does Firefox occasionally repeat the right-click spellcheck suggested words? This is perhaps easiest explained in a screenshot: BAM!

Ocassionally, after spellchecking a few words in Firefox, the words start to repeate themselves which makes my right-click menu super long and annoying. Any clues as to why this would be happening, or how to fix it?

Windows Vista Home Basic, Firefox 2.0.0.11

Help me with a weird FTP bug.

lazaruslong — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 14:22:34 -0800

Weird bug with ftp / php5, details inside. Okay. So a friend has this client and she is trying to use Transmit to access her website files. When she attempts to drag photos into the "Gallery" section of the site, it refuses to do so.

Then, some random folders get created that look something like "PORT XX,XXX,XX.. with the X's being numbers. After this happens, she loses priveleges, like deleting and renaming folders.

She's on a brand new MacBook pro running Leopard. My friend can't reproduce it on his MacBook, and I can't on mine. Any ideas?

How do I escalate my AppleCare problem?

snarfois — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:19:22 -0800

I'm disappointed with the service I'm getting from an Apple authorised repair centre. Where do I go from here? A month ago on AskMeFi I described a problem with my Mac Mini, 6 months old and still under warranty and AppleCare. As mumkin recommended on that thread, I took the Mac in for repair, especially as it was defeating the computer's main purpose of being a media centre.

I dropped the Mac off 3 weeks ago, with a video I took demonstrating the problem in action (using 2 different remotes and a clean install), and links to websites where 3 other Mac users describe the same problem (without reaching a resolution.)

The people at the repair shop keep telling me they are unable to recreate the problem. I admit it could be difficult: it usually only showed up after the Mac's been on for hours, and not every time. They say that until they can recreate it, they can't fix it. They are unmoved by the thought of me moaning about them, Mac servicing and Macs in general on the web.

Isn't it perhaps time for giving me some benefit of the doubt? It should be clear I'm not imagining the problem, nor doing without my media centre for laughs. If they can't find the problem, they can swap the machine for a new one. I'm just worried that this will drag on for weeks and weeks, I may never get it fixed, and my brand new Mac media centre will end up being a big waste of money. Or am I being unfair?

Duplicate events created in GCal using Firefox 3 Beta 1?

electric_counterpoint — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 10:36:06 -0800

Why has Google Calendar started to duplicate my new events (same day, same time)? This only happens in Firefox 3 Beta 1. Obviously, I’m using a browser that Mozilla hasn't recommended for day-to-day use, so if it bothers me too much, I'll just go back to FF 2 for the time being.

But, has anyone else noticed this? Whenever I create a new event, it shows up twice, side-by-side. It only happens when I click on a day, drag out a duration, and enter in the details from there — it doesn't happen with the Quick Add field. It didn't happen with FF 2, and it still doesn't happen with Safari. Anyone found a fix?

When biting is outlawed, only outlaws will bite me.

autojack — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:00:49 -0800

What's biting me in San Francisco? Over the last few months, I've noticed the occasional itchy bug bite, but never once seen or felt myself get bitten by anything. If I ignore the itchy spot, it'll diminish within a few hours or a day. I'm not even convinced these _are_ bug bites, but I can't see any pattern to foods eaten or things of that nature that might suggest an allergy. I don't think it's bed bugs, because again I've never seen any in my house, and the bites don't appear in clusters. Sorry this is so vague, I'm just hoping someone will reply and say, "Oh yeah that's the infamous San Francisco fog gnat, everyone gets bitten by those."

We've been bugged!

eschatfische — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 11:01:33 -0800

Yep, it's yet another I found this scary-looking bug in the garage question. What is it?

Time Glitch

cometwendy — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:13:57 -0800

How can a digital clock run fast? I have two of these digital clocks, exactly the same, and one has started to run fast. I've set it twice in three days...After about 24 hours it's an hour and a half ahead. ??? I'm already disoriented from daylight savings. What's up?

IE6 Image Display Bug

maxwelton — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:44:41 -0800

In IE6, I occasionally get an image being covered by the background color of the div that contains it. Huh? If I have this (much simplified, both HTML and CSS) structure:

<div>

   <div>

      <div style="background-color: #fff;">

         <p><img src="ie_blows.jpg" width="100" height="100" style="float: left;" />Howdy neighbors!</p>

         <p style="clear: both;">Next paragraph, etc.</p>

      </div>

   </div>

</div>

In IE6, the page lays out as you'd expect, with a space for the image, but the #fff background color will be all you can see. Oddly, if you right-click, you can save the image, or view it in a new window, but it always displays behind the background of its containing div. So it's there but not there. This doesn't happen all the time, so it must be a combination of style attributes that causes this to happen.

I googled, probably not very precisely, trying to find if this is a known bug and what its trigger might be, but didn't see anything. IE7, FF, etc. don't have this problem.

I've tried a few different things but the only thing that actually works is removing the background attribute from the containing div, not a real elegant solution.

What kind of bug is this?

rollo tomassi — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:27:56 -0800

Does anyone have any idea what kind of bug this is? Located in Los Angeles, last night.