Hello everyone! I just re-installed Calm Sentinel to enable real-time scanning for ClamWin AV that I already have installed and use manually. Since my old desktop lacks a lot of RAM, I haven't kept a real-time scanner on it lately because it is just too power intensive for the small amount of RAM I have. It runs so slow whenever I have any type of real-time AV/antispyware running, but I decided to give Clam Sentinel a shot again. It installed without a hitch, and right after installation, I decided to scan my C:/ hard drive memory with it. I got an Error message after it TRIED to scan: "Error-Malformed database" and it did NOT scan anything. The log reported this error message along with alerting me that no scan had been performed because if it. Anybody know what I should do now and/or what is a "malformed database" and/or how can I fix it so it will scan??? I must add that my ClamWin AV scanner works just fine whenever I use it. Any advice or direction is much appreciated. I really would like to try running Clam Sentinel along with my ClamWin AV to add a real-time scanning function to my anti-virus. Please note that I decided to use ClamWin because it is NOT RAM-intensive since I control when it scans, etc. Every other AV I used in the past tended to make my computer run too slow. Thanks again

Clam Sentinel was designed to use ClamWin--it cannot presently operate by itself. I do not think Sentinel caused your problem.

The ClamWin signature database occasionally gets corrupted, and you will get that "malformed database" message. What you should do is go to the ClamWin signature database directory and actually delete everything in it and then run ClamWin, which will tell you it needs to update the signatures. Choose to do so. You can tell where the signature database folder is on your computer by going to the ClamWin file locations tab.

Read the Sentinel Simple Guide. Be sure to configure Sentinel to Detect Suspicious Files Only in the Monitor System For New Malware setting. Do not use the detect PUA setting--you will get too many false positives from scripts when on the web.

Regards,

This is a response to GuitarBob....thanks for your guidance. I am now on my Chromebook, which has no need for anti-virus scanners, but I intend to execute what you've suggested to see if that works and keeps me from receiving the error message of "malformed database"! What is the difference (if any) between executing a scan of the memory with the ClamSentinel vs. the Clam Win Free program? I now have ClamSentinel turned off until I resolve the issue with the malformed database. I have one unrelated question, GB (hope you don't mind the "nickname", lol): After I log-in, I am alerted that I have 1 new message, but when I attempt to access it, it says "private messages have been disabled on this board"! I didn't disable it and I have looked through my settings, unable to find any reference to private messages. I also was unable to send you a private message! Any ideas what the problem is? Can YOU send and receive messages? I don't understand why I CAN'T!

The memory scan with ClamWin and Clam Sentinel are essentially the same.

The ClamWin private messages have been turned off for the last 6 weeks or so because spammers began taking advantage of them. Hopefully, the problem will be fixed soon and private messages can resume.

Regards,

Thanks GuitarBob...for all your input and assistance.

You are very welcome! Thank you for using the ClamWin and Clam Sentinel AV programs . Be sure to provide suggestions for program improvements via the 2 web sites as you use them on your computer.

Regards,

I have successfully used Clam Sentinel/ClamWin with other ral-time AVs without too much of a system drain. I've done it with Security Essentials, AntiVir, Panda Cloud, and Immunet. It seemed to work best with Security Essentials. Here's what I did: From Security Essentials, exclude the ClamWin program folder, the ClamWin program folder, the ClamWin program data folder, and the clamwin temp folder (on my Win 7 64 bit machine, it's C:\Users\Bob\AppData\Local\Temp\clamav-*). Exclude the following folders from Senntinel scans: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Security Client\, C:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Client\, C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\, C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Microsoft Security Client\, C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Microsoft Security Essentials\, C:\Users\Nan\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Microsoft Security Client\ and that is all. It would probably be good if you could find out where the Security Essentials temp folder is and exclude that from Sentinel scans as well. The temp folder is used to contain some signatures while the AV is scanning and once-in-a-while, another AV will recoginze a signature is infected because it has the same signature! Since ClamWin is not a real-time scanner, I do not exclude any Security Essentials folders from ClamWin scans.

Basically, you want to exclude the AV program folders, data folders, signature folders, quarantine folders and temp folders from each other. ClamWin's data folder contains its quarantine and signature folders. Secjurity Essentials seems to have a lot of folders.

Regards,

Guitar Bob,
Good to hear from you! Happy Holidays to you and your family! I am still using Clam AVl on my old XP computer but I haven't been using the Clam Sentinel since I ran into the problems. I have been manually scanning the machine's memory on a regular basis since, as I told you, I have such a small amount of RAM on this machine. It is so slow LOL! I know how to install more memory; I just haven't gotten around to purchasing any yet! So I scan with Clam AV for viruses and spyware and Malwarebytes for spyware. My machine has been clean for quite awhile now but when I first began to use it in 2009 (it was my son's), it had quite a bit of spyware. I used MBAM, Ad Aware and another spyware program I can't recall and cleaned it up. I also used that Panda AV and other AV's and made sure I didn't have any virus problems. For now, I use Clam AV manually and I am very careful about where I go and what I download on this particular machine. I have my laptops that have real time scanners to be a little more daring!!

I could not find a list of error messages and what they mean, either in the Clamwin manual, nor on the clamwin site.

I have now twice in the course of an hour gotten, presumably from ClamSentinel, that reads: Range check error. What does it mean, and what can I do about any problem the error message is pointing to. I can click the OK button on the dialogue box, but I imagine that does nothing but remove the error message from my screen.

What is going on when you get the error--are you scanning anything--either manually or doing a scheduled scan? Inserting a USB drive? If you are not scanning with ClamWin when the error happens or if you are inserting/removing a USB drive, then it is probalby a Clam Sentinel error. For detailed help with that, you will need to access the Clam Sentinel web site because it is a separate project from ClamWin.

It might help to know what kind of system you have. You might also be able to get a screenshot of the error message and insert it in a post. There are also some logs in the ClamWin\Data folder--for ClamWin and Clam Sentinel that might provide some information.

Regards,