What to do when PC freezes up when trying to download?

  • 10 January 2015
  • 1 reply
  • 13 views

When trying to download the free E-Sword bible program, My Pc stops and does not begin to download the program.
Control is lost to close the program, or open or close internet explorer, or to open webroot, or windows defender.
No application can be opened, not even to shut down windows properly. The only way to shut down is to punch
the "on" button and hold it in for a few seconds, then upon restarting after it goes through the un-proper shut down sequence it seems to work fine and control is gained back. I don't know if any of the e-sword downloads are safe or not, since the same
thing happened to me twice by two different download sites. I scanned my PC with Webroot and Windows defender each
time and found no virus or problems.

1 reply

Userlevel 7
Hi Cephas-boy
 
Welcome to the Community Forums.
 
It sounds like WSA may be detecting the presence of issues with the download (more on that in a second) but even in that case I have never heard of it causing the sort of reaction that you are describing.  So if what I am going to suggest does not help then you best bet will be to Open a Support Ticket so that the Support Team can investigate for you.
 
Now, back to what WSA may be doing.  It is just possible that WSA may be detecting, in the download, the presence of a non-malware program we commonly refer to as a PUA or Potentially Unwanted Application, and reacting to that...though as I said before I have never seen that sort of reaction before.
 
PUAs are very annoying at best in that they cause pop-us, redirect your browser home page, and other behaviour that may slow down the computer and direct ads your way, but they are not actually doing anything bad like damaging files or stealing information. Often they are installed intentionally by you the user as browser add-ons for various tasks such as quick search tools. But they also come with the result of added annoying pop-ups and ads. Other times they 'piggy back' with other software that you installed, or try to 'sneak' onto your system entirely.
 
The reason for mentioningt he above is to highlight the importance of downloading apps from the author's website or recommended sites and avoiding 3rd party one if at all possible.
 
So if you have tried from a 3rd party site please try again but from the author's website and see if the downlaod from their has the same effect.
 
If it does have the same effect then please open the aforementioned Support Ticket.
 
Please do let us know how you get on.
 
Regards, Baldrick

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