Device performance slows down during updates and update checks
Hello,
I noticed a few topics from the last 1-2 years on this forum by people asking why their computers are lagging or slowing down while updates are being handled in F-Secure. None of these threads have been answered by a Moderator, Community Manager or anyone from F-Secure. At the same time, the threads are closed, even though unanswered (issues not solved).
I am experiencing the same problem - I am using F-Secure, currently version 19.6 on Windows 11 Pro, CPU Core i7 12 cores 32GB RAM and SSD drive. Hardware is good enough, it can't be causing issues. I am experiencing the "lags during updates" problem for several months already and at first I thought it was my BitLocker encryption causing the problem, because I know it may slow down the SSD performance sometimes. And I've turned it off. Also, I tried optimizing some apps. No change.
And then, today I noticed something really strange in F-Secure. This morning the lags were almost permanent. Usually the device is only lagging while a new update (for example, the Capricorn Engine) is being installed. Or if F-Secure is checking for new updates. This morning it started lagging too much and I opened the update history window. Guess what - it was checking for updates every single minute! Even though it says "next update check" usually in one hour, a minute later I see it is starting to check again. I decided to restart the device and see what will happen then. The update checks continued, not so often, but still at every 5-10 minutes, not in one hour as noted in the "next update check". Even though there is nothing new to install, each of these update checks is downloading and processing data and I can see in the Task Manager both memory and CPU usage to be increased a lot during this process.
I have already read about the reasons why security and antivirus programs are doing regular updates on their engines during the day - it should be ensuring that we are always well protected even if a new thread has just been discovered, it will be added to our local software protection. I don't know how the F-Secure software has been developed to maintain this process, but I haven't heard about such lagging on any other antivirus software. And I think there is something wrong in the way they are using the device resources during the process. It doesn't make any sense to experience lagging when the software is checking for updates, not installing a new update. Also, it doesn't make any sense to keep checking for updates every 1-5-10 minutes.
I hope this thread will get at least a note from someone who can actually say more than just "this is how it works" or "it must be your Windows causing the problem".
Answers
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When the app checks for updates from the server, it asks for a diff to previous update that is has. This way it only needs to download the changes, which are usually less than 1MB instead of the entire database, which is 300MB. Sometimes the server has not yet time to generate the diff. In this case it gives the app special error code indicating that it's generating the diff and app should try again soon (it usually just takes a couple of minutes). This is what causes the fast update checks. It does not actually download and apply anything, it just asks server is the diff is ready yet and it should not cause high CPU usage. Also, it should not last for more than a couple of minutes typically, 10 minutes sounds quite long but possible.
Another rare reason for fast checks would be that update server is temporarily unavailable and app is trying to connect to it in a faster cycle but this would result in failure being shown in the last update attempt.
Ville
F-Secure R&D, Desktop products
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Thank you for your reply, @Ville. You have answered to the question why there are checks for updates so often, it sounds reasonable. However, this doesn't give an answer to the question why update checks and software updates (installing updates) are slowing down the device performance. No matter what app I am currently using (a browser, text editor, Word, whatever), I can "feel" when F-Secure is checking for updates or installing a new update. Even moving my mouse or typing on the keyboard is lagging! And it doesn't make any sense requests to the server for reading the diff to cause this. But it does. On a machine with high-performance hardware.
You are right, it doesn't last for too long, if it's just for reading the diff and there is nothing to download and install, it only lasts for a minute or two. Yet it is annoying, because it happens too many times during the day while I am working, not playing Solitaire. And when it is installing the new Capricorn engine a few times every day, this takes a lot more time. I am a programmer and I am sure you can understand how it feels when you are trying to write your code and you see that typing doesn't result on anything on screen, then at some point everything you've written starts appearing letter by letter. CPU usage has increased by at least 15-20% on i7-1270P. So, please, tell me what is wrong here?
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I believe you but it's not something that I can explain. It would need to be investigated more closely by looking at the logs and exactly what processes are using CPU. We are using the app on our development computers and we would feel the slowness as well if it was common. I'm personally also running the product on my gaming computer without issues.
Capricorn once downloaded needs to be unpacked and the diff needs to be patched - this will take 1-2 minutes depending on hardware. This can be noticeable and it happens several times per day due to how often the updates come. In normal circumstances it should not happen more than once per hour. When gaming, this is temporarily postponed by up to 8 hours.
Ville
F-Secure R&D, Desktop products
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@Ville , I will spend some more time trying to investigate and collect more information. It is strange that the lags don't happen every time the software is checking for updates or installing patches. Today, for example, the is still no lag, but at the same time both Capricorn and Hydra engines have been updated (along with 4-5 checks). And indeed it doesn't happen every day. My guess thus far would be that it happens when something in the process (doing checks or installing updates) is also related to another currently running software which is using one of the tools in F-Secure. I am just speculating, because I don't know how all parts of this software work. For example, while I am developing, I am using two instances of FireFox - regular one for usual browsing and a Development Edition. Both browsers have the Browsing Protection extension installed, along with Password Manager. What if F-Security is performing the update while these browsers are running and browsing - what happens to the extensions, is there something that would eventually misbehave during the updating procedure? The same with any other software which is using Internet and F-Secure is following its traffic. What if this relation between software parts is interrupted by the updating procedure? Would it cause problems or lags?
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Hello,
just as a feedback / statistics.
From my experience using F-Secure solutions, I can say that I also often encounter "lags during updates" and I can usually "feel" when an update is in progress (especially or to a greater extent, this applies to the current F-Secure Capricorn Engine; or any other 'main AV database engine' with a huge piece of updates; sometimes it is lighter portion or just a generic tweak, even if via capricorn engine). In my case, this is not something new or just appearing only in the last year or two.
Basically always (on the current laptop for the last 12 or 13 years, I think). The situation was better on a very old-old device with only 512MB RAM and a not very cool processor :) (when F-Secure still supported processors without SSE2 support), where the load was felt, but not so often that it paralyzed the ability to continue to use the system (or noticeably feel it).
I relate my situation to the HDD (this laptop does not have an SSD). And because I see/start to feel the load when disk resources are heavily consumed (based on Task Manager information).
Signs of problems include - I start to hear the "hard drive" (or something else clicking); most often I play music in audio player which reads it directly from the disk - thus, the song starts to stutter. and if it's not mp3, but .wav, then even stronger; if something like watching 'streamed' video (like Youtube) - then it may begin to slow down (my Internet is also not very fast). Usually less than a minute (or no more than two).
probably - the greater the load on the system, the more noticeable the database update (for me)
Just checking for updates never really turned up any problems (for me). I haven't encountered very often situations where the F-Secure application itself requests an update at short intervals and does it for a long time (while downloading something). But I remember several cases when this happened with the described failure response.. and "unable to resolve host" is often quite recently.
Otherwise, it is usually checks before downloading a huge update (like upgrade to another build) - marked as successful, but downloading is not proceeded by whatever reason. In my situations, it worked out in a short time or stopped trying to check further. Or I just tried to hit check updates manually.
Once, perhaps, there was something similar to what is described in this thread. I do not remember the outcome.
