CCleaner closes unexpectedly while mid clean or in monitor mode

[ArthurGautesen]

I'm using CCleaner professional v5.56.7144 (64-bit) on Win7 SP1 (patched fully)

I've had CCleaner close while doing registry scan for issues, cleaner mid cleaning, and while it was monitoring (minimized to taskbar). I cannot keep it open longer than about 5 minutes or so in /MONITOR, and I cannot find a cause (no malware, checked that from multiple tools, including checking for rootkits).

It just closes, but I'm not able to identify a cause. There is no scheduled task to cause issue, it is not conflicting with any other active task (at least previous versions of CCleaner did not have issues over the last year).

What information can I provide to assist with an analysis.

[Nergal]

What antivirus do you use?

[ArthurGautesen]

at the moment, Microsoft's little green house. I was using Avast. However, Ccleaner was working with both during my transition.

It also has been working with SuperAntiSpyware, Malwarebytes, Winpatrol, RogueKiller, and HitmanPro (which I also use).

[hazelnut]

Are you able to run CCleaner if you boot into Windows safe mode?

[ArthurGautesen]

I can run it (intermittently) in regular mode, but yes it can run in safe mode more frequently without a sudden close.

And yes to the next question, I've already tried it with the other (non-windows) applications running one by one. just to see (it is the intermittent issue that makes individual testing with the other app an issue).

 

[hazelnut]

If CCleaner runs okay in safe mode then your problem with it closing in normal mode is probably due to one of your security softwares.

When testing to see if it is due to one of your security programs, it is not enough to just disable the software as a lot of them keep a driver running in the background.

[ArthurGautesen]

the advantage of safe mode, is that none of the third party drivers load (except teamviewer, but I don't have that running on this computer)

At the moment, only three are active, and I've tested each in safe mode just to see if one or a combination would cause the intermittent closing.

 

is there a way to roll back to a previous version of CCleaner?

[hazelnut]

Only 3 are active? 3 what? Security softwares?

Previous versions of CCleaner are listed and available here

https://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/history/

However it would be good to find out really what software is stopping you running CCleaner. It is usually a waste of time testing security type software in safe mode.

Are Superantispyware, malwarebytes, Hitman Pro all running in real time?

(By the way Win Patrol is virtually abandonware now)

 

[ArthurGautesen]

SuperAntiSpyware is, but the other two are not

[Nicon]

My money on Win Patrol. Remove it. Running x amount of tools does not mean you are not infected by malware.  Not saying you are but you have not trained to analyze a system. 

Using registry cleaners is highly overrated and can be dangerous. Using a cleaner to remove obsolete, invalid, and erroneous entries does not affect system performance but it can result in "unpredictable results". Often. You have no reason to be doing this.

[ArthurGautesen]

Not likely. Mostly Winpatrol alerts the user and allows the user to control what is allowed to install (works great against malware), and allows the user to decide what is allowed to run on startup.

And yes, you are right running x amount of tools does not mean you are not infected, or that the tools may not conflict, unless you have taken the time to identify if the tools will conflict with each other (or not). I've seen malware that attempts to corrupt CCleaner (because of where the malware hides, and how easily CCleaner removes it when you run CCleaner in safe mode), so I do suspect everything when a tool stops working for any reason (part of my day job to be so paranoid). However, in this case, it is unlikely that it is malware.

I did try your link and rolled CCleaner back to v5.45.6611 and the issue has not occurred for the last five hours, but I'll keep monitoring the issue for a few weeks, just in case. Then I'll update Wireshark, and upgrade one version at a time and see if I can go a few days without it suddenly closing again, and if not, I'll step up on the version for another few days, but at least wireshark should catch (hopefully) what causes the closure.

And as for not being trained to analyze a system... BS in Comp Net & InfoSec, MS in DFS. I have some...

 

[Sally Ivy]

I uninstalled the CCleaner and then went into regedit and deleted all of the registries that co-relate with "CCleaner, and Piriform".  After that, I re-installed the current version of CCleaner again, and BINGO! It worked like it was suppose to. :)