Maple Story disables On-Access Protection

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Every time I start Maple Story under Windows XP x64, my Avast Home (up-to-date) gets the On-Access Protection disabled and the icon on the traybar gets a sign of forbidden.

What should I do?

2

Can you check which and how avast services are loaded?
Start > Control Panel > Administrative tools > Services

3

If you open the Task Manager and check the running avast! processes (ashSometing.exe or aswSomething.exe) before and after starting Maple Story - is there any difference? I mean, does any of the avast! processes terminates when you run the game?

4

I have the exact same problem. Also after this happens, many of my applications don’t work normally. For example, Firefox/IE will not work. I would have to turn off MapleStory then open up Firefox/IE a few times before it works correctly.

Also, many applications that I close doesn’t terminate completely after this. I think it may be related. I will get an error messege after I close an application, but the process of that application will still be running. For example: FIREFOX.EXE - Application Error “The exception unknown software exception (0xc0000005) occured in the application at location 0x458aac18. Click on OK to terminate the program”

Avast Processes Running before running MapleStory:

ashDisp.exe
ashMaiSv.exe
ashServ.exe
ashWebSv.exe
ashUpdSv.exe

Avast Processes Running after running MapleStory and having my On-Access Protection disabled:

ashDisp.exe
ashMaiSv.exe
ashUpdSv.exe

I am also running Win x64 pro and have the latest updates for avast.

5

Here’s what it says in Services under Adminstrative Tools in the following order:
Name, Status, Startup:

  1. avast! Antivirus, Started, Automatic
  2. avast! iAVS4 Control Service, Started, Automatic
  3. avast! Mail Scanner, Started, Manual
  4. avast! Web Scanner, Started, Manual

Also, after I run MapleStory, “avast! Antivirus”'s Status isn’t labeled as Started anymore, it is blank instead.

If anyone can help, I would greatly appreciate it. If there are any questions, I will definitely answer them because I hate having to turn off my antivirus all together to keep avoiding these problems.

6

Hummm… Hope someone from Alwil take a look on this…

spiriteternal, did you test the AntiKill feature of avast?
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=22184.msg184340#msg184340

7

I haven’t tried it yet. Will this work for a 64 bit OS even though it says 32-bit versions only?

[i]System Requirements

Windows 2000 or Windows XP (32-bit versions only)[/i]

8

  1. AntiKill currently only works with 32-bit Windows

  2. Are there any files with name like unpXXX (XXX is a random number) in the \data\log folder? If so, please send them to my email address.

BTW It may actually be that Maple Story is intentionally stopping the avast service.

Thanks
Vlk

9

I have 4 of those files. There might have been more before, but I recently reinstalled avast hoping that it would solve the problem.

I’ll send those right now.

10

Intentionally? :o :o

11

OK, I was able to simulate the problem on one of our test machines.

It really seems they are killing our processes intentionally.

Let me explain that in a bit more detail: MapleStory uses software called “GameGuard” (http://eng.nprotect.com/nprotect_gameguard.htm) which is supposed to prevent cheating in the game. However, this software seems to be very aggressive, as it keeps injecting its DLLs to all other processes and killing whatever it doesn’t like (that’s what I call anti-cheating ;D). It also uses a number of rootkit style methods to hide its processes etc.

I have contacted GameGuard’s authors, asking them for an explanation and a workaround.

Thanks
Vlk

12

Okay cool. Did you run into any of the other problems that I mentioned? Such as difficulties using Firefox/IE or having processes continue to run after a program errored out?

Anyway, thanks for looking into this. I guess we can only wait now.

13

Silk Road Online and Hero online use game guard too, but I haven’t noticed a problem with avast while playing. hmm

14

I’m sorry not to have written anything in the meanwhile so as to help you to work out the problem. Only my brother plays Maple Story and I’ve been out of home last few weeks. Now that I saw these replies, I’ve seen that Avast team work in this issue is done since Maple Story has already been contacted so as to build a workaround for this problem. So, thank you very much.

15

I’ve experienced the a problem with Maple story recently after my avast home edition 4.8 has updated the latest definition virus files. When I open maple story, I see this message and there’s error. For gameguard, it’s error 114-could not start.
http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/1268/73174888st7.jpg

For the time being, terminating the avast protection and switching it back on during gameplay help but it’s troublesome. Need help.

16

Can you send us the mentioned file (dump_wmimmc…) - preferably in a password-protected ZIP or RAR, to virus@avast.com ?
Don’t forget to include the password, and possibly a link to this thread.

17

Thats because avast! 4.8 can’t be killed just like that anymore.

18

I’m not that sure if I’m mistaken but today’s definition update for my virus causes maple to start nicely already. No error msg shown above. :slight_smile: