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SupportAssist will not scan hardware
I have tried scanning hardware several times today, rebooted, and also did a cold power start. The scan starts and jumps to 100% almost immediately. I have run this scan before many times, and it does take about 10 minutes, as stated. The History shows this: "Hardware Scan Result (Manual) - Default scan - Test Not Started - February 1, 2020 1:51:30 PM" . SupportAssist itself is showing no errors: it just goes to completion in a few seconds and states "Passed".
I wanted to run this scan because my monitor suddenly blanked out, complaining of no signal. I did a cold-power start and reseated all of the cables (none were loose), and the problem went away, at least for now.
The computer is a new Dell (October 2019) XPS 8930 Special Edition, running Windows 10 Pro x64, Build 1909, fully updated as of yesterday.
Any suggestions appreciated. Have a great day.
Regards,
-Phil
16 people also have this problem
Responses (39)
Solutions (0)
Cliff:
You are very welcome. Malwarebytes has opened a ticket on this and are working on a solution. I provided them with ProcMon files tracing the event. I added both Dell SA folders because there were two of them. I did not try to determine which SA folder/process was triggering Malwarebytes. Thank you for the information.
Have a great day.
Regards,
-Phil
I see that two other people have this issue. I did receive a response from a Dell rep, via PM, and they told me to run the pre-boot diagnostics (F12). I did and everything passed. Then I never heard anything more from Dell. It is clearly a SupportAssist issue that Dell is not addressing adequately, in my opinion. I am running the latest version: 3.4.1.
Some assistance to resolve the issue would be appreciated. Why is SupportAssist telling me, in History:
Hardware Scan Result (Manual) - Default scan - Test Not Started - February 12, 2020 3:33:16 PM
Thank you and have a great day.
Regards.
-Phil
Thank you for this, been trying to solve this for weeks now and on my own and with Dell Tech Help, to no avail, and saw your post. All I needed to do was add one folder (C:\Program Files\Dell\SupportAssistAgent), into the Malwarebytes Premium "allow list", rebooted and the Support Assist hardware scan worked.
Regards
Cliff
We have seen some customers experiencing this issue in v3.4.1.49 with HW Scan going from 0-100 really fast and the results\history show Test not Started.
According to the PCDr team, the binaries to call HW Test are being blocked by some anti-virus software like McAfee LiveSafe and in some versions of Malwarebytes. Teams are investigating the issue.
I’ve tested the following workaround
Steps
1. Quit the Malwarebytes (right click and quit) or other type of Anti-virus
2. Open up Services and restart Dell Hardware Support
4. Launch SA and run Scan
5. After scan completes, open Malwarebytesjbilinski:
I can't speak to the McAfee issue, but with Malwarebytes, there is no need to quit Malwarebytes and leave your computer vulnerable to a malware infection. All you have to do is add the folder C:\Program Files\Dell\SupportAssistAgent to the "Allow List" in Malwarebytes, under "Settings" and then the "Scan Hardware" component will work properly.
I visit the Malwarebytes Forums daily and have reported the issue to them, and they are working on a fix. This is just a temporary solution.
Have a great day.
Regards,
-Phil
Thanks @garioch7, I saw your response on the Malwarebytes forum and noted the workaround and have also communicated this with the SupportAssist and PC-Doctor teams. I see Malwarebytes has logged a defect but I’m trying to find out if any actions need to be made on SA\PCDr side.
From what I understand, Malwarebytes is treating this as a defect on their side. If you check my topic over on their Forums, they are asking me to keep them informed of any information I might gather from my topic here in the Dell SAC Forum. I will update my Malwarebytes for Windows Support Forum topic with your post.
I will respond to your PM next with the requested information. Thank you and have a great day.
Regards,
-Phil
@jbilinski wrote:
...According to the PCDr team, the binaries to call HW Test are being blocked by some anti-virus software like McAfee LiveSafe and in some versions of Malwarebytes. Teams are investigating the issue....
I have an Inspiron 15 5584 running Support Assist v3.4.1 that came bundled with a one-year subscription for McAfee LiveSafe. I've removed McAfee from my system with the McAfee Removal Tool MCPR.exe and I don't have my Malwarebytes Premium license activated on this this laptop , but I'm sure there are many other users who have purchased a Dell home computer in the past year who are using McAfee LiveSafe as their primary antivirus.
If this issue also affects users who don't use Malwarebytes Premium v.4.x as their primary antivirus (i.e., with Settings | Security | Windows Security Center | Always register Malwarebytes in the Windows Security Center | OFF) I would assume the PC-Doctor team should be taking the lead on finding the fix, regardless of whether Malwarebytes is currently treating this as a defect on their side.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v1909 build 18363.592 * Firefox ESR v68.5.0 * Windows Defender v4.18.2001.7 * Malwarebytes Free v3.8.3
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U@1.60/1.80 GHz, 8 GB RAM, Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620

garioch7
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Posted February 16th, 2020 02:00
Update
I am running a Dell XPS 8930 Special Edition, purchased in October 2019, with Windows 10 Pro, x64, Build 1909, fully updated, including February Windows 10 updates. I was intrigued by boheap's reply, in this topic here because I also run Malwarebytes Premium 4.04 (fully updated). Malwarebytes was not throwing any errors when I tried to run Scan Hardware with SupportAssist 3.4.1.49, nor was the SupportAssist program itself.
Rather than disable my Malwarebytes Premium (MBP), I decided to add the following folders to the MBP "Allow List" before testing whether disabling MBP had any effect. I "allowed" the following folders to be exempt from any MBP protection:
C:\Program Files\Dell\SARemediation
C:\Program Files\Dell\SupportAssistAgent
I rebooted my computer, and now Scan Hardware works just fine and passed. Also, under Troubleshoot, I can now see my hardware components, whereas before no hardware components would show even after I clicked on "Refresh".
I will be posting my experience on the Malwarebytes Forums in the Malwarebytes for Windows Support Forum later. I hope that Dell and Malwarebytes will get together and address this issue, since users have no way of knowing that Malwarebytes is preventing certain components of Dell SupportAssist from working properly, since no errors and "blocking" is reported by MBP. I will be posting there under my usual user name "garioch7".
I hope that this helps someone else, and I extend my gratitude to boheap for his reply which got me motivated to do some testing with MBP.
Have a great day.
Regards,
-Phil