I just realized I may have made a mistake posting this in general discussion, so I will post it here in malware discussion.
Once every 30 minutes or so avast warns of 2 threats detected. Scans find them but when I try to move to chest it says ‘error: the system cannot find the file specified (2)’
The other is the same thing except the long number is ‘121031200349’ and it is ‘m.zip’ and ‘m.list’
Obviously I notice the adaware reference- I used to have adaware but deleted it months ago. This just started the last couple of days.
What can I do about this? Avast scans find them but can’t fix them.
Thanks for your help.
Pondus- I am running a Malwarebytes scan as we speak. If that doesn’t work I will look into downloading Adwcleaner.
I already scanned with Spybot and found nothing.
Essexboy- I thought the same thing. But I don’t have a lavasoft toolbar. I deleted adaware several months ago, but obviously some remnant remains that is now causing trouble. Is there a way to find it so I can remove it?
In the ‘search programs and files’ box I type ‘adaware’ and three documents come up that are logs from old adaware scans. Could that be the problem? I don’t see how. If I type ‘lavasoft’ the same three come up plus a piriform ccleaner document from the registry cleaner. These are logs from old documents from months ago.
Thank you both for your help.
Should I download OTL and try that?
I already have hijackthis- in the scan it found something interesting:
04 - HKLM/…/ Run: [Ad-Aware Browsing Protection]
C:\Program\Ad-Aware Browsing Protection\adawarebp.exe
Info button says this is an entry that autoloads when windows starts that can revert info back to a hijacker’s page after a reboot- also a DLL file can hook into the system.
It then gives a list of infected examples- are these general examples or actual examples from my computer?
It says (action taken: Registry value is deleted)
Unfortunately when I press ‘fix checked item’ it goes to a blank screen as if it is fixed- then I press ‘scan’ again and there the adaware line is again. Nothing changed.
Malwarebytes came up empty.
I ran OTL quick scan per instructions from geekstogo.com and got the 2 logs. What should I do now? Essexboy, would you want to look at them?
Thanks for the help- I am afraid to log onto anything important (bank, etc) in case hijackthis description of what it could be is correct.
I wanted to post the reports from OTL quick scan for essexboy or anyone else to see. I tried to copy and paste the 2 reports from OTL Extras.Txt and OTL.Txt but both exceeded the max 10000 character limit so I don’t know what to do.
Thank you for everyone who advised me on this problem. I think I have solved it.
I didn’t realize essexboy had laid out what to do about malware and creating a log from OTL in the thread at the top of the page. Once I saw that I started going through the process.
Along the way I went checking through file after file in My Computer and found one related to adaware. I deleted it and so far there haven’t been any more warnings from avast.
Thanks again to everyone on this forum who offered me help.