Our harddrive nearly filled up entirely overnight between 8-27-03 and 8-28-03 (74.50GB with 74.09GB used and .041GB free now) and we now receive the message "!Low disk space. You are running out of disk space on local disk (C:)."

We ran McAfee and Symantec virus scans on 8-28-03 and nothing was found.

Please help! Do we have a virus or a worm?

Under task manager, system idle process is using between 90-95% CPU all the time. Is this normal?

Please email gierlach@gierlach.com directly, too, because our system is very slow and access to this board is difficult.

We found a process called McVSEscn.exe writing enormous .tmp files (such as McV13.tmp) and ironically we think it is a McAfee process. We killed the process, uninstalled McAfee and reinstalled and deleted the huge .tmp files. Is this possible that McVSEscn.exe was writing those huge files endlessly????

It is possible that the process was writing the files. This isn't a known virus... might be something new?

Try running an online test at
http://housecall.trendmicro.com

I am running McAfee on the pc I am using now. I also have the network autoupdate program. I searched my harddrive for "McVSEscn.exe" and did not find anything.

I do not think this is a McAfee file.

If you do not want to just delete it, consider changing the extension from .exe to .old.

Definitly visit trendmicro.

someone was having problems sending e-mail
using mcafee, and they called mcafee and the following is part of what was said;;
Here are the steps mcafee
tech support gave me:
Hold down CTRL ALT and DEL
Click on the Processes Tab
Find and highlight the file "mcvsescn.exe"
Click on the "End Process" button
Hopefully, now Outlook will be able to Send and Receive Mail -

so yes it is part of the latest version of mcafee.

Found my problem. Good old McAfee VirusScan. Their latest release, which I
had forgotten I downloaded, has WormStopper and Scriptstopper enabled. Once
I disabled them and killed the WormStopper process- MCVSESCN.exe; all was
well. Doesn't anyone do regression testing anymore.

Nice to find out my company has the latest AV version available!!

Wow, I am so glad to know I'm not the only one with this problem - I was about to tear out my hair trying to figure this one out. Thanks!!!
Karon

I'm having the same problem with something filling my harddrive. I'm using Symantec Internet Security and it has turned up nothing I've also tried Housecall and it only found one of the versions of reg_seeker.c but what ever it is is still writting. I'm still using 98se all the problems seems to have started when I updated Symantec, Windows 98, and IE. With only a 4GB harddrive it's not going to take long. I'm considering doing a reinstall on Windows 98 to see if I can clear the bad file. Does anyone have any clues?

Had same problem. Started 4 days ago. Verified no viri. Talked to Mcafee, no help..they just had me delete the tmp files and would not address causation. Dissabled Mcafee viruscan online, restarted, and problem continued with the process McVsescn.exe creating the big tmp files (hard drive running on and bogging down system..very slow responses). Completely uninstalled ALL Mcafee products and tested. No temp files created, all seemed fine Reinstalled viruscan online and all seems fine now. Dont know why or what but thats sometimes the way it goes.
MP

I subscribe to Kim Komando's tip of the day, and today's tip addressed this issue - I did get an update from McAfee yesterday, and am wondering if it has addressed the problem. I haven't had the problem lately (knock on wood). Here's what Kim had to say:

Q. I have always used McAfee anti-virus software. However, after using
their newest product, my hard drive was filling up. I discovered huge
temporary files on my hard drive. McAfee's technical support said this
was normal and I was responsible for removing the huge files. Could
this be right?

A. I called McAfee about this. The company confirmed that its program
creates large temporary files. But it said customers certainly are
not responsible for clearing them out. The tech support person who
told the customer that was mistaken. The program is supposed to
delete the files automatically.

The McAfee product folks said they had been unable to duplicate
the problem. Nor had they seen it during beta testing. They
are dealing directly with the customer who has the problem.

I would not ordinarily address this problem, since it sounds unique.
But the fact is that many people have problems with anti-virus
programs. There are some good reasons for this. The most important
is the intrusive nature of these programs. They have to search every
file on a computer for dangerous code. Anyone who has used them
for any length of time, regardless of brand, has had to deal with
minor problems.

Furthermore, the virus threat is growing on the Internet. Things like
broadband and the growing tendency to network computers increase
vulnerabilities. New viruses, worms and Trojan horses appear with
startling speed. The people at the anti-virus companies are under
incredible pressure to stay up. Most now offer daily updates of
their virus definitions. Without that, the programs would be much
less effective. But that pressure can lead to mistakes.

McAfee could not explain why the customer was told that the problem
was his. But we all know that the support area also is under pressure.
The anti-virus business is incredibly competitive. And companies cut
costs wherever possible. At least McAfee offers live support. Many
firms only deal with customers via e-mail.

The Internet is too dangerous without anti-virus software. If you have
a problem with yours, and the help you receive is unsatisfactory, there
are three things you should do: complain, complain, complain! If
customer service people ignore you, send a letter to the CEO. The
address is usually on the company's Web site. Copy the Better
Business Bureau. Also copy your state attorney general's office,
if it has a consumer fraud division. Probably, you just need to
get the attention of people who are higher up. The people who
develop these programs want to know about problems.

See you tomorrow!
Kim :)

Perfection is unachievable. I think Mcafee is a good company that sells good products. They will identify and fix the .tmp file problem eventually. Probably the bigger issue is that my wifes computer is 3 years old in that a newer faster computer would maybe not exhibit the bogging slow behavior that hers did and had her computer been equipped with a bigger drive the extra .tmp files may never come to my attention. I have disabled the wormstopper parts of the program just in case and am still having no problems. Have instead started using Firetrust's "Benign" program that strips any dangerous code from email and attachments as they are recieved. This in conjuntion with "Mailwasher" which cuts down on my spam, and Mcafee online viruscan are I think in combination a good package.
MP

In a strange twist I've uninstalled Symantec Internet Secutrity and my problem has stopped. When it first started I was watching the rate at System Tools \ System Monitor under File System Bytes Written\Second. It had started at 5K and had reached 125k. I've had about 1.5GB's added to my harddrive. I've tried to contact Symantec about the problem and the last thing I've heard by e-mail was that I was allowing my Temp Internet Files to get to large and I replyed that I keep the files deleted along with cookies and history files. If I find out anything else from Symantec I'll post the info.

Werlin

I've had this problem since last Thursday evening. God, what a relief to read this and find out that I probably haven't been taken over as a spam relay station ( a programmer suggested that to me). I deleted McV47.tmp today to the tune of 7.5 gigs. Tried to delete McV4E.tmp when it had 10 gigs in it. My system wouldn't allow me to because it said the file was in use by another application. However, I had all applications closed down (except, McAfee I guess). I watched that temp file frow from 10 gigs to 14.5 gigs in the space of 5 minutes. I shut down my computer to stop it before it overloaded me. Re-started the computer and got it deleted before it could begin growing again. I use Frontpage to run a commercial website and McAfee must need to work overtime to do surveillance on "save" operations in Frontpage. This ruined my life for five days and cost me a lot of money. Sorry to hear that Symantec does it too. Think of all the people going crazy with this problem who will never find this page!

I have this problem.

I find that it occurs when I am receiving e-mail. I am being bombarded with the sobig virus e-mails.

As these come in, I will, on occasion notice my CPU "take off" or get a "server not responding" messase.

I had already narrowed my problem to McAfee.

I am in the 49th position now - started at 113 2 hours ago.

Please help anyone out there

Norton Antivirus software 2002 is getting more frustrated.

I installed the above and when I updated the virus definitions ........ it takes ages for the folders and directories on MyComputer to show up.

Further, i find my hard disk space reducing! (when i run Norton Antivirus) ..... Please help

It seems that Norton Antivirus causes this problem where NAVW32.exe is writing to a c:/windows/temp folder

If anyone has a solution to this problem ........ let me know (pleassssseeeeeeeee)

Thanks in advance

Have you tried using Disk Cleanup in System Tools? Path in Windows 98 yours may be different Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Disk Cleanup. You can delete .tmp files clean up Tempory Internet Files, Cookies, and I even keep History Files set to 1 days files websites change so most of these files are useless. Some things that are in the temp folder should go away when a normal system shut down is done.
Symantec has a site that will run a system check and you can do a search at the bottom of the page you might find an article on any problem you may have.
http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/support_options.html

I had the same problems, low disk space, mcvsescn running all the time...

Glad to know that I am not alone....

I had the same problem last night and delete mcvsescn. Question how can I find all the latest files loaded on my harddrive? The large temp file may just be a decoy to hide something even more damaging.
Thanks

With McAfee, the tmp files are being written to your c:\Documents and Settings\[your id]\Local Settings\Temp directory, with a prefix of McVS*. Remove them after stopping the process. ONE INTERESTING THING was that I renamed the McVSEcsn.exe to .bak, and in one week, the next update installed a new version of that "virus"(I mean, program)... I wonder if a virus attaches itself to anti-virus software, because Norton seems to have a disk filling feature as well... I check my PC every day, and when it slows down, I automatically look for this - oh, and by the way, my PC is only 7 months old and it still shows this...

I have a simple solution for all of you with Norton & McAfee problems. Uninstall it & replace it with AVG from Grisoft. It's free and causes no interference with Windows. I have been using it for over a year and installing it on all my customers machines with not one complaint. For those on broadband, it updates at any chosen interval. The program runs a full scan daily.

From my expierence over the years working with computers and servicing computers Ive found that McAfee is one of the worst AV scanners available. I ran it until 1998 when it didnt catch a virus (and yes it was up to date) I suffered a a complete loss of data. To this day I trust only Norton AV. I dont use their other tools. But I do trust and love their AV. It has never let me down nor has it ever given me a problem. Trust me when I say Norton is the way to go. Its well worth the money. The company I work for now uses it on all their Windows Servers and their Windows workstations. Trust me go ahead and switch. Plus AOL is now pushing McAfee so you know its gotta suck.

Having been through this situation twice this week, I'm curious to learn how you can avoid McVSEcsn.exe from running at all. McAfee did have an update this a.m. so perhaps there's a fix for it. Yesterday I just shut down McVSEcsn.exe using program manager, and I had no problems. Today I'm running it for a bit to see what happens. So far so good.

I am using XP, McAfee VirusScan and Zone Alarm.

I was using McAfee Spamkiller when I first noticed the problem.

When I booted yesterday morning, spamkiller worked normally on my first 3 adelphia addresses, but hung up a long time on wjd, so I closed it.

Next I had a popup warning that diskspace was low on my 30 gig harddrive.

I ran VirusScan and it worked normally but hung up on a large file in C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Local Settings\Temp.

I closed the scan, went to the folder and found 3 or 4 huge .tmp files, all starting with McV followed by a number.(e.g. McV1a.tmp. I now believe the multiple files were due to several restarts I performed.

I deleted the files, then had 17.3 gigs empty on C: drive.

By trial and error, I found each time I allowed spamkiller to access wjd@adelphia.net or tried to d/l email for that address into NS 7.1 mail, a new file was created or the file got bigger, depending on whether I rebooted or not. I was able to d/l my mail for that address into an external mail account I have with IWON without any problem.

I removed spamkiller from my computer, but continued to have the same problem with d/l to NS 7.1.

I ran several virusscans after deleting the McV*.tmp files, and no viruses were found.

I removed the wjd@adelphia.net from my NS 7.1 mail program, but can still d/l for that address using IWON.com.

As long as I don't use spamkiller or d/l mail for that address directly from Adelphia, I have no problem. I can d/l my mail for the other 3 addresses normally and my wjd address as an external account in IWON.

Bill Doyle

This is just a quick message to the person that mentioned AVG - I tried that a while back and thought I was all good to go, but ended up with a Trojan that it DID NOT detect. It'd previously detected a minor, virtually harmless joke virus, but not the one I NEEDED it to find! . . . I'd gotten updated virus definitions, scanned my system (before realizing it was, in fact, a trojan), and it did come up with anything. But I was infected which I found out later only using a trial evaluation of Norton AV - which I've loved ever since. I've seen McAfee, AVG (which is great, but somewhat pointless if it won't detect), and TrendMicro (here at the office). I love Norton and TrendMicro seems great too. By the way - a definite plus with Norton is that, even if you have an old version of Norton you can still have updated virus definitions & such. With McAfee - if your version's too old you have to upgrade entirely. >:O

I too had problems with McAfee -- in fact, I was unable to get any of my email for almost an entire day because of it.

Even though I had all of the email scanning features turned off, McAfee was still interfering with Outlook's ability to download my msgs and I was getting a 'timed out while waiting for response from pop server' error. The only way that I could get my email to download was by ctrl-alt-del'ing and killing the process for McVSEcsn.exe. Of course, every time I rebooted my PC it would reload McVSEcsn.exe and I eventually got so fed up with it that I uninstalled McAfee VirusScan from my computer entirely.

Now that I've read through this thread I went and checked for the huge tmp files (b/c my hard drive had filled up, too) and turns out there are 2.13 gb worth of files of the form McV*.tmp (about all my PC had room for...). That's just great. Boy am I glad that I uninstalled this pile of crap! How can we protect our PCs when the most popular AV software out there causes more problems than the viruses they are supposed to protect against???

I have the same problem.
Did a search and found loads of McV*.tmp files totaling 20 gig. I then did a search on Google and found this thread.
I've also had problems with my CPU running at 100% because of the McVSEscn.exe program.
Surely McAfee should have done something about it by now as it's been 18 days since this thread was started!!!

Mcafee has a temporary hotfix for this problem on their website until their next build is released.

I dl'ed this 'hotfix'and the app that's supposed to move the app to the 'correct location' on my HD and it has had No effect on my system and I still have to manually end the app every bootup.

Who Designed this?????

Thank goodness for this thread.. I was going crazy wasting so much time. McAfee you need to get your act together it seems. I guess boot ups will take a little longer until it is fixed. Ctrl-Alt-Del and terminate Process McVSEscn.exe.
Thanks to everyone who replied here .. there has to be 100's of thousands of man (and woman) hours lost because of this. As if the economy was not bad enough.

by any chance had anyone happened to notice the _Scan for Viruses_ option now listed once any icon is right clicked!? i hadn't noticed it there before this mcafee 'major update'.. anyway i have no problems with random mcafee .tmp files hijacking my hardrive space & my mcafee is up-to-date, plus i've never run norton on my machine either. my advice & like people have done would be to temporarily disable the process (McVSEscn.exe) until another update/fix comes out for it! since with all the security issues/worms around lately more updates are most needed.

I am having the same problems you guys are having. I am relieved that I decided to do a search on that particular program and found this site.

My question though is this. I can not find any of the McV*.tmp files when I do a search.

I am running Windows ME. Someone suggested looking here: c:\Documents and Settings\[your id]\Local Settings\Temp directory, with a prefix of McVS*. but I dont have a Documents and Settings. Could someone who knows anything about Windows ME tell me where I should look?

Thanks

We have had some phone calls from Computer Weekly readers who were affected by this problem. I'd be interested to hear how any business users (small or large) were affected by it and how you managed to resolve it.

Kind regards

Bill Goodwin
Bill.Goodwin.RBI.Co.UK
Chief Reporter

I am having the same periodic problem where McVSEscn (presumably, Virus Scan for e-mail) goes crazy and creates huge files in the temp directory. This hangs up my email program (Outlook running on XP), and generally slows everything to low snail gear.

I am a subcriber to the McAfee services, on-line. I have Personal Firewall, Privacy Service, and Virus Scan, and the McAfee Security Center.

If I reinstall Virus Scan, it clears the problem. But this is very frustrating, and the fix is only temporary.

I have just finished communicating with McAfee Tech Support, using their on-line chat feature. After waiting for almost two hours to get in contact with a live person, there was no new knowledge available from McAfee. Their solution was to terminate the McVSEscn process after EACH reboot.

This would not necessarily be an issue, except that reboots are a weekly requirement, anymore. It is difficult to expect my non-technical spouse to remember to open Task Manager and Kill a process when she boots up the PC. (Why is this the user's responsibility?) It took long enough to get the family to start up firewalls, privacy service, virus scan, etc, and to monitor for recommended updates.

McAfee Tech Support could not tell me what the process, McVSEscn, does. I specifically asked whether I would still have e-mail virus protection, if I terminated what I presume is an e-mail virus scan program. The tech's answer was that e-mail virus protection would still be active. I wonder ...?

The tech said that there is a fix, "in the works". McAfee's knowledge base seems weak on a problem that must be driving users crazy (How many hours have been lost?).

I will now look here first!!!!!

Maybe this is where the McAfee tech came for support?