A volley of problems.

Avast Business Avast Endpoint Protection
1

We’ve been trying to use AVAST EPP in the office.

I’ve used the free version on my personal computer for many years and never had a problem.

On 7 of our 40 clients, Avast installs with no complaints, but after restarting says the computer is not protected.

When trying to re-insert the license file, avast complains about an RPC related error.
When I try to uninstall it also throws an error.
When trying to click resolve all or start to get avast started, the interface freezes, if I am lucky the interface freezes enough so windows can close it, after which I can uninstall, if I am unlucky it just freezes and stays there.
This is happening on different computers, windows 7 and windows 8.
Uninstalling all other antivirus and or firewall related software, uninstalling avast in safe mode, uninstalling using the removal tool, reinstalling after all these scenarios, also reinstalling after two reboots after an uninstall instead of one, all of the above has been tried, with mixed results.

We have multiple clients right now that have the exact same problem, 7 of them, there used to be 10, the other 3 has been resolved after hours and hours and hours of fiddling and reinstalling, there was originally 5 systems that were resolved as such, but two started giving the same problems again the next day, (0 days remaining on subscription, cannot insert license file, cannot uninstall, cannot click resolve all or start)

Currently almost a quarter of our paid office setup is not working, 7 out of 40machines, and I am unable to get them functioning.

Would appreciate any help, I am beginning to regret ever mentioning avast to my clients nevermind insisting on it.

This user experienced the same problem, and the same re-occurances, however there is no resolution:
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=116617.0

2

Also tried complete windows reload, and ran into the same problem after fresh install on Windows 8

3

Did you uninstall all other av’s using their uninstall tools before installing avast ?

4

I would start checking into networking (DNS, authorizations) issues. Check your logs. I had hostname issues with my servers causing issues that avast was seeing both hostname and fqdn for each PC.

5

I believe I have stated already that all other antiviruses were removed on all clients with problems.

Information on the server side indicates that the clients with the problems are still connecting to the server regularly and successfully.

There are no clients configured to use a server host name, they are all configured to use the server ip.

Avast should not be displaying unprotected when you are disconnected from the lan where the server resides, it should not be displaying rpc errors when you try and reinsert the license file or uninstall the app, it should not be displaying 0 days remaining either, none of those matters should have anything to do with reaching the server machine, since the problem is not supposed to happen to even a disconnected client.

As for reaching the server, there are no duplicate host names, the network is in fully working order, many other clients are successfully connecting to avast and not giving any errors, as i have stated in my first post, however, a group of machines are having all the errors I listed, all of them are behaving the same.

If one clicks start or resolve all on avast, it freezes, and if one clicks around in windows a lot it then gives the option to kill the gui, on some occasions windows successfully kills the gui and one can restart avast and it works, license displays 700 days, no rpc error, says protected etc, when that happens one can uninstall it.

If the system restarts, the problem begins afresh.

6

Yes eddy I have, if you had read my post you would have seen I’ve both tried uninstalling all other antiviruses, malware related apps and filewalls on each and every client, before and after having problems and none of them responded.

I have also elaborated that I’ve gone so far as to wipe the operating system in the hopes of getting avast to work, and it had the same problems

7

First of all you need to make sure that the clients are communicating with the console after the installation.

They should be either green/yellow/red or black, but not grey with question mark symbol.

Can you confirm that before troubleshooting further?

8

they are green.

Even though it shouldn’t matter if the server can see them or not, not reaching the server should not prevent avast from knowing that its started on the client machine or not, it should also not affect its ability to uninstall, nor should it affect its ability to see its license file that worked on the previous bootup, they should work when plugged out of the network too.

Anyway, they are plugged in, I’ve stated this several times, they are connected to the network fine, there is no hostname problems either, they can all contact the server via its hostname and or ip, they are not configured to contact EA via the hostname, they use the ip, none of them have trouble reaching EA and the information on the server gets updated form them. They can also detect viruses, even though it says unprotected, the realtime scans are running.

9

If the client could not communicate with the server, it would not get the license file from it.
Without the license, the Avast components will not work.

Can you check if the “avast! Antivirus” service is started? If not please start it and let us know what is the outcome.

10

I have already stated that the console says the clients are reachable, and I have already stated that there is no hostname or networking issues.

In my description of how everything is fine if you manage to make the program freeze and start again should also give you a clear indication that the client does work, however not after system startup, including it displaying the correct amount of time remaining on the license, yet you then reason that if the client cant communicate with the server it cant get a license file and hence won’t work, then why does it work if you simply manage to restart the program? What you’re suggesting makes very little sense to my mind, besides, if any of these clients (which I can confirm on the working machines) step out of the office, avast doesn’t suddenly stop working, so you’re wrong, if it cannot connect with the server, the avast components will still work.

Avast antivirus does display as a running service.

11

Do you happen to have a scheduled Deployment job in your console?

12

I have, on occasion, needed to use computer management remotely and restart the avast! net client service on a greyed PC.

13

You should not schedule a deployment job unless you want to update the program, which by default is not necessary, since the program updates are automatic.