Fsecure Total scan gets stuck at F:\System Volume Information\WPSettings.dat

Kummastelija

Time and time again. If you hit pause and resume, it will resume and gets stuck again, but this time at 99%.

Ran an offline scanner included in Windows 11 on F-drive which did not report anything.

Can not access or even list content of that system folder, not even as admin. Apparently you need to grant extra privileges for your admin account to access it, but should it be done and what is happening?

Tried running scan twice as regular user and once with admin account - same result, except with admin account it goes to 99% and only then realizes, hey there is an F-drive too and then gets stuck at that same file again.

I did a total reinstall on this system maybe a month ago, cleared all drives but instead of installing from a USB stick, allowed Windows to reinstall itself.

Ukko

Hello,

Could you provide a bit more information about:

What is your current F-Secure version (instruction for F-Secure Total / Windows: Where can I find version information of the product)?

How long did you try to wait at 99% stuck? Minutes? Hours?

Tried running scan twice as regular user and once with admin account - same result, except with admin account it goes to 99% and only then realizes, hey there is an F-drive too and then gets stuck at that same file again.

Have you tried scanning only F-drive by mouse rightclicking it → "Virus scan" in the context menu that opens (Scanning in Windows Explorer)? Is the result the same (as, I suppose, when trying to run Brief or Full scan)?

Can you try excluding that drive (Excluding files or folders from scanning) and running a full scan (Running a virus scan manually)? Is the scan complete then?

Thanks.

TVC15

Hi @Kummastelija

I went through the same thing on my Windows 11 laptops, in just doing a C: drive full scan it would get stuck at 99%

At the time I was on v25.3 and was told in a support PM, that v25.4 may resolve it, which it did.

Make sure you're on that version, and as @Ukko mentioned, scan the drives one at a time, separately. It may hang at 99% for 5 - 10 minutes, but see if it eventually gets past that point to complete the scan (scanning while online).

On my fresh reset of Windows 10, the Full scan went quickly and smoothly.

Kummastelija

https://community.f-secure.com/en/discussion/comment/141331#Comment_141331

Version is 25.4 (at least this morning, not sure if it was updated after last time)

I waited maybe something like fifteen minutes. CPU was not doing anything anymore, basically idling.

This time, unlike previously, scanner goes through F-drive without getting stuck, but weirdly hundreds of gigs of files are seen as maybe 50% and then the last 50% is just WPSettings.dat which scanner goes through quickly.

Also drives D and E had no issues

But… This time, unlike earlier when C-drive had no issues, scanner gets stuck at 87% to a CineR23 file called Zone.Identifier. Stopped the scan after waiting a while, restarted computer with chkdsk /F running at startup, and after booting running scan again and… Stuck at 87%. I'll wait longer this time so see if it goes through.

To add: The CineR23 folder is in Downloads and the problem is at …\fontawesome\…\Zone.Identifier

Kummastelija

https://community.f-secure.com/en/discussion/comment/141338#Comment_141338

Scan went through after being stuck at that one file for over thirty minutes.

Ukko

Hello,

Thanks for your feedback!

Sorry for my further 'thoughts', especially when the situation seemed to have been resolved successfully (the scan ended after over thirty minutes of unclear 'delay'; and, generally, went through after a while).

I waited maybe something like fifteen minutes. CPU was not doing anything anymore, basically idling.

Sometimes scanning can take an indefinitely long time. This can be due to specific settings or system configuration, or the item being scanned. I think, less than hour is a bit 'normal' for such unusual cases. And the load can most likely be transferred to other resources.

I hardly run full scans lately, because on my system and my settings (I do choose "scan inside archive" and I do uncheck "scan only known file types that are most susceptible to infection") for example, it takes many hours (at one point it was over 24hrs). But still with F-Secure - this is the most speedy one in my system (taking into account - equivalent scanning capabilities).

but weirdly hundreds of gigs of files are seen as maybe 50% and then the last 50% is just WPSettings.dat which scanner goes through quickly.

I think, some points which may affect visual experience are:

• I am not sure, but most likely the scanning is multi-threaded (like some different files and directories at the same time; although something specific may be displayed, the scanning could already be stuck or progressing on something else);
• cache is used to speed up the scanning process if the files to be analyzed have already been checked before and have not changed (or some other reasons). That's why they are skipped, although they were originally planned. Thus, there can be a sudden jump from 50% to the end.
• probably files which are not belong to 'logged' user are not shown in Scan Wizard, but scanned too. Generally, they should be just generic "…." (or something) instead in listing - but maybe if it is brief one occurrence, it just shown with 'previous' item in scan.
• perhaps, at the end of scanning - there are some post-processing things. So, percentage or stage is not changing while doing it.
• while scanning one file - it contains some resources inside, which depends on its format can be a heavier thing to scan (like a lot of small items). So, "CineR23 folder" or downloaded executable/container is scanned inside (its resources) and "…\fontawesome\…" may indicate many different items being scanned there.

Thanks and sorry for my English.