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I started noticing my harddrive space was dropping rather rapidly once Webroot came into my life. After a quick search online I see --multiple-- topics talking about database files that are anywhere from a few gig to several tens of gigs in size.



Help me understand why this is? Is this bad garbage collection? Poor programming? The other competing softwares in this domain have a footprint of FAR less than this. My own Webroot which has been installed for about 3 months managed to grow its DB files to a gargantuan 60GB. That is absurd by any metric you measure by.



Go to an IT Enterprise manager and attempt to sell this product to a corporation or business where it is writing gigabytes of files onto a local PC on a daily/weekly basis. Why is this still an issue when I see threads dating back years regarding this EXACT problem. This is 100% not OK and I would have never purchased this software if I had known I would have to 'babysit' its Program Data directory.
This is certainly abnormal, and I did ask support about this, and they are requesting you contact them so we can investigate further and collect logs. Any information you can provide us with will help us troubleshoot and resolve. They can be reached at 1-866-612-4227, or by creating a ticket here.
This is certainly abnormal, and I did ask support about this, and they are requesting you contact them so we can investigate further and collect logs. Any information you can provide us with will help us troubleshoot and resolve. They can be reached at 1-866-612-4227, or by creating a ticket here.



Thank you for the prompt response. I deleted the entire DB file set at this point so I don't have much to provide. 😕 But if this happens again, I will open a support ticket about it for sure. As I said, this appears to happen at least to some users because there were multiple google hits about this exact problem when I searched about it. I will follow up w/ support if I see this behavior again in the next few days.
Yeah I've seen it before but it's rare. Usually it's difficult for us to really dig into it because the user will uninstall or correct it before we can collect logs. But yeah, if it happens again feel free to reach out to me directly via PM or whatever is easiest for you. And yeah, support is the best route, but if you do see it again, notify me so I can keep an eye on it. Would be good to see how it pans out for future use cases.
@Jaylab I hope it was only the db.numbers.db files and not all in the WRData folder?



This is a normal WRData Folder and nice and clean! It's also normal for the db.number.db files if you use not well known programs as WSA will monitor said programs until they get whitelisted in the Webroot Cloud Database so you can do a scan and save a scan log and if you see more than 20 [u] files then it's best to contact Webroot Support and ask them to whitelist your unknown files which will help in keeping the db files at a minimum.



Example [u] means unknown to the Webroot Cloud Database and [g] means known good to the Webroot Cloud Database.



Some legitimate files are not included in this log

[u] E:\Security Programs Folder\VoodooShield Folder\VS V5\InstallVoodooShield500.exe [SHA256: A9E27A98AB5787B5FA8FA2044D063312846B0CD02EF361ED61C71A4715D64C40] [MD5: 67EE5193A37F37FF16143E2BB9FBBCD5] [Flags: 00081001.19159]

[u] C:\Users\Daniel\OneDrive\Files\InstallVoodooShield500.exe [SHA256: A9E27A98AB5787B5FA8FA2044D063312846B0CD02EF361ED61C71A4715D64C40] [MD5: 67EE5193A37F37FF16143E2BB9FBBCD5] [Flags: 00081001.19159]

[u] E:\Security Programs Folder\Sandboxie Folder\SandboxieInstallv5.30.exe [SHA256: 7B131A6B9FCFC8581749EACCD8BD15E9628BCFE94FE9E90F143DAE1416E82D7F] [MD5: 6B13A590F39D7354E04F13706EBB7EF1] [Flags: 00001000.19501]

[u] C:\Users\Daniel\OneDrive\Files\SandboxieInstallv5.30.exe [SHA256: 7B131A6B9FCFC8581749EACCD8BD15E9628BCFE94FE9E90F143DAE1416E82D7F] [MD5: 6B13A590F39D7354E04F13706EBB7EF1] [Flags: 00001000.19501]

[u] E:\Downloaded Programs & Drivers Folder\Howard Desktop Email App Folder\HowardSetupv1.65.exe [SHA256: F3D804EC5AE924A1C2270B7171D1F03F0F35B8CF1FA6F6C74A4BD926A44AA452] [MD5: A7A8D9BAA22173C5567C211A23BF8B4D] [Flags: 00080800.19150]

[u] C:\Users\Daniel\OneDrive\Files\HowardSetupv1.65.exe [SHA256: F3D804EC5AE924A1C2270B7171D1F03F0F35B8CF1FA6F6C74A4BD926A44AA452] [MD5: A7A8D9BAA22173C5567C211A23BF8B4D] [Flags: 00080800.19150]

[u] E:\Security Programs Folder\AOMEI Backupper Pro Folder\ABProv4.6.3.exe [SHA256: 19F818A6A9646EA3D70543295ED71C7DE18E0BD18006C8BC0E9A9BFB877932BA] [MD5: 1D07D6DE2170A0CDBE845D7031938D29] [Flags: 00001000.19256]

[u] C:\Users\Daniel\OneDrive\Files\ABProv4.6.3.exe [SHA256: 19F818A6A9646EA3D70543295ED71C7DE18E0BD18006C8BC0E9A9BFB877932BA] [MD5: 1D07D6DE2170A0CDBE845D7031938D29] [Flags: 00001000.19256]



I haven't noticed the DB file issue specifically. However, I have noticed that Webroot has a house cleaning problem in several areas. I talked to support and posted about it in the thread below. So far I haven't seen any improvement, but they could still be working on it. @Jaylab, you might want to post a link to this thread on my thread, so they know to add it to the list to fix. Thanks for the updates @LLiddell!



Webroot House Cleaning



Good Luck!
I checked my local folder and this is what I found. I know there are endpoints across our organization that are in worse shape.



It's been going on for many years: https://community.webroot.com/webroot-secureanywhere-complete-14/controlling-wrdata-folder-size-help-needed-69357



And it was supposed to cleanup after itself over time: https://community.webroot.com/home-product-releases-27/pc-release-notes-8-0-4-42-71323#M349



Even more info: https://community.webroot.com/webroot-secureanywhere-internet-security-plus-13/wrdata-folder-778#post1206
Informed Product about this thread and they are investigating this. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.
I checked my local folder and this is what I found. I know there are endpoints across our organization that are in worse shape.









EXACTLY!! This is how mine looked but the .db files were absolutely massive Some were in the gigabyte range and most were dozens or hundred of megs. 😕 Not sure what causes that but like I said I was a bit shocked at having a 60GB install footprint for an AV/Security program. :-)



p.s. I was a little gruff in my OP, but overall, I actually really like this software. Memory wise it isn't very hungry and it has caught some sketchy apps time & again. It is simple and straightforward so only the massive file sizes were my concern.
Informed Product about this thread and they are investigating this. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

@LLiddell

Lara, it's not as if it's new. People have been complaining about this (lack of house-cleaning) problem for ages. The same answer as above keeps coming back. Monotonously so. Then...nothing happens. We've got rather used to this.

Fortunately it doesn't affect me as I don't currently use little known apps.



@Jaylab

This is a bad weakness of Webroot and yet, at the same time (believe it or not!), a function of its superiority as an AV. Read this post I wrote a couple of years ago, which explains how this is so (read particularly paragraph 1 from sentence 3 onwards).

I just wish the developers would find a way to getting round to sorting out this house-cleaning problem.
This is my WR data directory stats. Not too bad but that's going wayyyy back



Thanks for passing this on to the product team @LLiddell! Hopefully they'll release a version that solves this issue sooner rather than later. It's an issue for me due to Webroot running on some older hardware that has smaller hard drives. For those PCs I need as small a foot print as possible, so house cleaning is an important thing.



Thanks,
I'm aware it's been going on for a long time, thanks, Muddy.
Just adding another voice to this; I work at an MSP and we have experienced this problem on multiple machines. I've seen WRData taking up over 100GB on multiple occasions.



It's even worse on machines used by software developers, due to the constantly changing executables & dlls they are using and (trying) to test. I did speak to Webroot support who provided a solution but in practice it's a massive waste of time; surely Webroot should just be cleaning up after itself better to prevent this problem occuring in the first place? Especially as the problem has existed for literally years.

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