Base Filtering Engine error

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I recently encountered a Base Filtering Engine error on my Win 8.1 system. Not sure how it happened, but I have run multiple virus and malware scans from different companies and all confirm that my system is clean. I have read as much as I could on these forums and elsewhere, so I am now pretty knowledgeable about the basic strategies and tools for addressing the problem. Nevertheless, nothing I have tried will work (registry cleaners, memory checks, hard drive checks, manual fixes, etc.). I was about to do a clean uninstall of Avast and then try again, but having recently paid to go Pro, I thought I’d try here first.

Some info: I first noticed the problem a week ago when I couldn’t get on the internet. That led me to noticing my Firewall was not running. I was able to manually get that fixed (set /localhost or something like that). BFE is located in Services but when I try to manually run it, I get Error 5. I’ve attached my FSS log. Running Services Repair by Eset did nothing (log shows no changes).

Thanks in advance for the help!

FYI – This batch file that I found somewhere also does nothing:

sc config MpsSvc start= auto
sc config KeyIso start= auto
sc config BFE start= auto
sc config FwcAgent start= auto
net stop MpsSvc
net start MpsSvc
net stop KeyIso
net start KeyIso
net start Wlansvc
net start dot3svc
net start EapHostnet
net stop BFE
net start BFE
net start PolicyAgent
net start MpsSvc
net start IKEEXT
net start DcaSvcnet
net stop FwcAgent
net start FwcAgent

2

http://blogs.technet.com/b/networking/archive/2011/06/08/the-windows-firewall-service-fails-to-start-introduction.aspx
http://tinyurl.com/cmbanq9

3

I visited those sites and most of the sites they link to. Since the links all refer to earlier operating systems, some of it did not apply, especially the specific tweaking that was OS dependent. I discovered:

  • Some of the registry permissions differed slightly from what was recommended, so I changed them.
  • secpol.msc is not on my computer.

On one of the sites, someone with a very similar problem discovered that secdrv.sys was corrupted. I am leaning toward trying to replace that next, if I don’t hear of any better sounding solutions. If any more logs are needed or any other info, please ask. Thanks again.