disk usage 99% and multiple instances of fshoster32.exe running

[Shekar]

With regard to the above, please let me know  if this is a problem with f-secure or it is a malware problem.

[Simon]

With the information given, we have no way of knowing. Sometimes, this can be a symptom of having more than one anti-virus program installed, as this can cause conflicts.

If you suspect malware, then a scan with www.Malwarebytes.org may answer that question.  

[Shekar]

I had one and on installing f-secure internet security it automatically uninstalled AVG antivirus and continued installing.....and i see this system degradation as of now....

[Shekar]

Appreciate, if you can lead me in giving more information for further helping me get rid of this situation.....

[Simon]

Download and run AVG Remover from here, then reboot your machine:

http://www.avg.com/gb-en/utilities

If that doesn't fix things, then download and run the F-Secure Uninstall Tool from the link below, reboot, then reinstall F-Secure:

https://www.f-secure.com/en_GB/web/home_gb/support-tools

[Shekar]

Scanned with downloaded free trial version of Malwarebytes and removed most of the malware....you were right...and the disk usage seems to be normal...thanx a ton....should i uninstall malwarebytes program.....

[Simon]

Depends which version of Malwarebytes.  If it's the free one, which I don't think runs in real time, then it will be OK to stay, and you can just run a scan with it periodically.  Malwarebytes 2.02 is fine to run in real time, as it is compatible with F-Secure, but Malwarebytes 3.0 may give you problems, as it did me.

I would still recommend that you run the AVG Remover tool, as the auto-uninstall F-Secure carried out may not have removed all of AVG's components, and this may lead to problems further on.

[Ville · Accepted solution]

Hi @Shekar

When you have multiple fshoster32.exe running (more than 10), that's not malware. We have built a reliability mechanism in our product so that if one component crashes 2 times, it will separate all components into different processes to limit the damage of the crash. This has triggered in your computer. Quite often it is caused by Windows failing to resume from sleep properly and killing and restarting the services.

Our product keeps working normally in this situation and you're protected.

You can recover from this by simply rebooting your Windows and the number of fshoster32.exe processes should return to normal. (If you know how, you can just restart F-Secure Hoster service to have same effect)

Ville

(F-Secure R&D)