Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: REDACTED on September 07, 2017, 01:14:55 AM
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Subject say's it all.
They both run perfectly fine as standalone, but when I try to run them as Sandbox they simply crash. They also leave an instance running which cannot be terminated from Task Manager; requiring a machine reboot.
Would use SafeBrowser, but that is not available on one of the machines - which is weird, both at same version level. One has option to enable the other does not.
Sandbox is working fine, I have tested this using Notepad.
Any ideas?
TIA
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UPDATE:
I notice that in the background, Chrome loads a "Profile error occurred" screen and a "Page Unresponsive" page.
I am unable to switch to them, as it is stuck loading the original tab. Task manager shows four instances of Chrome running alonside Chrome Crash Handler.
Doing some more tests.
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Sorry forgot to add ;D
Avast Internet Security
17.6.2310 (build 17.6.3625.0)
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Hi,
Chrome in sandbox is working perfect for me.
How do you started it? What it says protection/sandbox?
What is your OS version?
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Now bizarrely, it is working fine.
When it was originally failing, I notice that there were four instances of Chrome set off. Three dialog windows, one complaining about profile (even though I do not use Chrome profile). I manually killed the profile session from task-manager, and then Chrome fired up. So killed all the sessions and tried again, this time no extra window for Profile.
This time everything worked fine, and even Firefox loads up fine. I think Firefox also tries to load a profile initially as well when starting up.
So not sure what it was, unless a rogue Chrome instance which had locked out a file and thus stopped the other's working.
So none the wiser, but will keep an eye out in case it returns. Got a 3-PC licence, so I can test this out on the other PC's when I install Avast on them.
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Well. I´m glad it´s working.
If the problem reapears tell us about it.
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Hmm, come back again.
Firefox is no longer working in Sandbox.
Behaviour is that it loads OK, and the sandbox appears to be set up correctly. Then when you try to go to any site (even the router homepafe), Firefox simply hangs (busy circle in the tab).
You can exit Firefox, but the instance still remains running. Even if you try to close app / close all via the sandbox page in Avast.
When I look at the instance, it has one single thread. It is consuming 15-20% CPU for the thread, there is no disk activity or network activity on the thread. All the classics of an hung thread. When I try to kill the thread I get an "Access is denied" message - which seems to indicate some other process has got hold of the thread.
Only way to kill is to reboot the machine.
Thoughts?
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Same here with Firefox in sandbox, not Chrome (it´s working fine).
Try disabling every extension in Firefox. In my case it worked.
One catch, between trying Firefox with the error and now, Windows decided to upgrade itself so i don´t know for sure what worked (the upgrade or the disabling of the extensions)
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Well. I enable every extension and it´s working. I don´t know.
Please, you try with the extensions to see if that works for you. Thanks.
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Confirmed !
Both Firefox and Opera ( Chromium based ) won't work in the Avast Sandbox.
While they both run fine in Sandboxie https://www.sandboxie.com
I will put this forward on Avast Slack.
Greetz, Red.
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Bizarre thing is, it did work and then stopped.
Not sure what changed, I have tried to experiment but not getting it running at all now in a Sandbox.
So previously it did work with all the various extensions.
I am going to try a fresh install of Firefox, even though it is up to date, in case this removes something.
Also notice, that EXCEL is having problems with the Sandbox as well - but I suspect that is down to new update from Office. If I open the EXCEL file directly off my physical device it works but when I use a file on OneDrive EXCEL is trying to connect to the URL and I suspect that this causes a problem with the Sandbox - as EXCEL simply shuts down.
Sandbox is a nice concept, but darn difficult to get it working intuitively :-\
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Hmm - OK, done another test ;D
Ran the firefox installer again, no clean up just run installer.
Installer run's OK, takes about a minute. As it is install over existing, all extensions, bookmarks maintained......
Fire up firefox in sandbox - and now it is working.
Did a test prior to this, to confirm it was not running and was looking at network connections and whilst it looked like firefox was trying to connect to a site there was something else stoppping it. However, once I ran the installer again, it is working.
This would seemingly rule out any issue with the extensions.
I will have to run some Sysinternals tools to see what is happening here ::)
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An Avast Senior Developer / Researcher is on it :)
Greetz, Red.
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It´s working for me now. I will use it for a while to see what happens, if the problem reappear.
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And I am back to now working again ;D
If I spot anything with Sysinternals, will let you know, buu I am sure your guys will get to it quicker tracing the code.
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It´s still working ok for me. I´m using it right now with Firefox.
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Hi,
I'm sorry that I opened a new topic on the same issue before finding this one, but I would like to ask the OP and guillermo220 a question. Have you tried, now that Firefox is working fine, to virtualize the history and the bookmarks to see if the changes made on both are dropped after you close the sandboxed app? In my case Chrome works perfectly in the sandbox until I run Firefox in it. Firefox will always fail to connect to the internet and I have to restart the PC to clear the sandbox. After that, Chrome will also fail in virtualizing the history and the bookmarks.
Thank you very much.
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Hi,
Apparently no. Bookmarks and history remains. A new tab open in sandbox was closed when I closed sandbox. Then when I reopened Firefox without sandbox the tab was gone. I don´t know if that´s a feature or a bug. :D
I will try with Chrome.
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Well Chrome it´s the same as Firefox. Bookmarks and history remains once closed sandbox.
I have no other problems about it.
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Thank You,
in my case, even if I specifically selected the options to virtualize bookmarks, history and cookies, the changes made in the sandbox are transferred to the non-sandboxed version of the browser. This is very annoying because it makes me think that the sandbox is not working properly also for other, more important, functions.
Regards.
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Yes, that´s my case also.
Did you try downloading a file to see what happen? I think this is more important because that can prevent several threats to the system.
But everything can be a feature not a bug.
What is your threat hypothesis? (don't know if the wording is correct)
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Hello Guillermo220,
thank you for your support. I tried to download a file, and the sandbox, in this case, seems to work fine. I am not a security expert, so I do not have a real hypothesis on what could go wrong if the sandbox does not work properly. Since the options that I selected were made to adapt the level of security to one's needs, it bothers me that they do not work as expected because I don't know what other functions could be bugged and allow a threat to escape the sandbox.
As explained before, though, the sandbox works fine until I launch Firefox in it. Then it stops working correctly and all other browsers are affected. Have you tried reinstalling Avast to confirm or deny this behavior?
Thank you again.
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Hi,
At one point, in security software, you can only have faith that the company behind it knows what it´s doing and that it´s doing it right.
The alternative is open software which is no guaranty at all (and needs the same amount of trust than a closed source software), or "do it yourself" and be responsible for your owns mistakes.
And no software is perfect and no security mesure is unbreachable.
Right now I can´t reboot the system to try first Chrome and then Firefox to see if that change the sandbox behavior. In a couple of days I will and I´ll tell you my experience.
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Thank you for your support.
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Hi ssstefanooo,
I´m sorry to say that Chrome kept history and bookmarks before opening Firefox, using sandbox. Not tabs.
I don´t know if this information helps you or not.