I’ve exclusively used Avast Home edition for years now with no problems whatsoever - until now. The on acces scanner will no longer work which also disables the Chest. I followed the instructions in the FAQ link provided by the statement (title of this topic) when I try to access the On Access Scanner control. I have two RPC running in my system services and as I recall this is normal. I used the repair option under add/remove programs to no avail. I uninstalled the product, downloaded a new copy, installed it, updated it, rebooted and boot level scannned my drive. Still no resolution.
Shortly before this problem surfaced, during a thorough scan with archive scan enabled, Avast showed to have the PC-Flu II virus and put it in the chest. After it finished scanning, I immediately ran another scan with same options and it detected Win32:Adware-gen [Adw]. It could not put the second virus in the Chest so I deleted it. I’ve run a thorough scan again and nothing is detected. During the installation of the newly downloaded Home Edition version 4.7 and updated today, 26 Nov, 2007, I noticed something unusual in the parts of the installation listed - The Bat! It is the only thing that was listed without an option not to install.
I am using a Compaq Presario 2200US with a Pentium Celeron M 1.4GHz. with 1GB RAM, 40GB Hitachi Hard Drive running Windows XP Pro. Any advice to resolve my on access scanning issue will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Cliff
Right, I have on demand scanning but no on access protection. I have since tried the uninstall with the aswclear.exe I downloaded to no avail. Upon reinstallation, I still have the same concerns with the red circle and cross in systray.
I started getting exactly the same problem a few days ago. I noticed the red circle on avast! a-ball icon which produced the same error message above when I clicked on it. It also appeared to cause all my Internet Explorer 7 and Outlook Express connections to fail.
The first couple of times it happened, I was able to resolve the problem by doing a system restore to a point a day or so before this all started. I had to do another one late last night, and it was fine up until this afternoon when the familiar “Webpage cannot be found” error recurred, and lo and behold, the dreaded red circle had once more reappeared on the Avast icon. I performed another system restore, and decided to uninstall Avast, then re-install it. Unfortunately, immediately I had completed the uninstall I lost all IE connectivity again so I was unable to connect to the site to access the download. The only thing for it was to do another system restore. However, horror of horrors! this time I was confronted by a message saying that my computer could not be restored to the earlier time.
I started to have nightmares about having to perform a complete Windows re-installation. However I tried logging on using another (non-admin) user account, and although the Avast red circle was still present, I found that I could at least connect to the internet. The next step was to log back in on the admin account and grant the other user account admin rights, then log back in on that and hope it had still had internet access - it did!
I was then able to download and reinstall Avast. I checked that all the startup settings, etc, are on automatic, updated the database, rebooted … but still the red circle is there. I have followed all the instructions in the FAQ link from the error message, including the Repair option in change/remove programs, which stated (wrongly) it had been successful, but I am now without any effective run-time virus protection. The only saving grace is that I still have internet connectivity, although it was still dead on the original admin account I used, so I ended up having to delete that account and create another with the same name and attributes.
Being naturally paranoid about my pc being open to infection from viruses and other nasties, I would very much welcome urgent advice as to how this issue can be resolved.
I ran Trend, AWS & Panda Rootkit detectors on thorough and detected nothing. I also ran Panda thorough scan for viruses, spyware, etc. and it only detected 9 low level spyware cookies. I cleared my cache and all cookies and temp files and still the red crossed circle with Avast on access scan. I am also concerned that Panda showed Windows Defender is both disabled and out of date. According to Defender it is active and up to date. I also use Spybot S&D fully updated with all products unchecked for exclusion (they do have some checked for ignore with the installation.) Neither detects any spyware. I also tried the online Symantec check which detected nothing. : Microsloth’s security alerts keeps prompting me that I have no virus protection. The solution they give is to get a different AV provider. To me, either it is a bug in the software or a virus that hasn’t been removed or discovered and identified correctly. Heuristics scans detect nothing. :
Update: I ran Trend anti-rootkit last night, but that didn’t detect anything either, so I then downloaded and ran Trend HouseCall. It took about an hour and a half (didn’t finish until 00:45am), but it did detect 2 viruses which I deleted (I can’t remember what they were called). I’d previously run a “medium strength” Avast scan which hadn’t revealed anything. The red circle was still present after this operation, but at this point I’d had enough, switched off the pc and went to bed.
This morning after I’d booted up, no red circle! It seems to have done the trick. ;D Many thanks for the rapid responses and suggestions.
It would be very helpful if you check down the name and the path of these infected files and submit them to avast team for analysis. This help them to increase detection and improve your security
I’ve managed to track down the location of the HouseCall folders. There are various log files, some of which are to do with the software download and installation. There are 3 others that do appear to relate to the pc scan, however they are obtuse to say the least and I can find nothing specific relating to the two viruses that were identified and deleted. All I know is that they were located in the directory path C:\Documents and Settings\Christopher\My Documents\ImTOO.3GP.Video.Converter.v3.1.8.0720b.WinALL-CHiCNCREAM, and the only two files referenced by the log with that path are \cncita4c\cncita4.r01 and \cncita4c.zip, so I assume they are the likely culprits. If you give me the contact address I can email the log files to you for examination. Note that the dates and times in the logs are completely wrong.
Yes, I use 1CLick ClockSync which regulates my pc date/time using an atomic clock reference. The dates in the log files start at May 16 2007 13:39 BST, so I assume it’s getting those from the parent site.
I’ve emailed the log files to the address you gave.
Well, I’ve almost completely resolved my concern. While I was having it I did notice one other thing that I hadn’t mentioned. While hovering over the systray icon for Avast, I was getting no providers, now I’m back to getting 7 total with 6 running.
I finally gave up. There comes a point when I find I’m pissing in the wind. I disconnected all my external drives and formatted my C:\ drive. I’ve reinstalled Windows XP Pro up to SP2, installed the only update they’ll give me without having to call Microsloth in Pakistan to activate WinXP to explain the fact that I had to do so again with my completely legal retail copy of XP. Now, I’ll have to listen to some guy speaking Arab/English giving me twenty-seven alpha-numeric symbols I’ll have to guess at what he said or call back and hold for another hour to try for a Chinese person. Why don’t they have Mexicans? I speak Spanish fluently. Or Texans? I’ve got that language down pat - heck! 8)
Then, I’ll have to download 87 security fixes one at a time to find out which one screwed up the Avast software. :
Portillas, I know reinstall is painful… but we can learn.
Better if you have a full partition backup to restore your computer to the original (updated) situation, something like Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image Backup.
If you need help, we’ll be here.
Thanks, I think this has somehow infected my entire data files. I can’t seem to find a lot of what the PC-Flu II does. But, my first symptoms were CRC errors on all my hard drives. I have four external drives with a combined terabyte of data - including a complete system backup. While trying to recover those drives, the CRC errors started appearing on my 40GB hard drive in the computer. I disconnected all external drives to attempt to resolve the CRC problem. SpinRite worked for my 40GB drive but won’t see the other external drives. I suspected it to be viral, and ran numerous scans without any detection at all. After updating Avast three days before I started this thread, I ran the scan and it found the two viruses I mentioned. After putting on in the Chest and deleting the other due to the chest becoming unavailable, I installed a couple of updates from Auto updates at Microsoft. After restarting, Avast was down with the RPC error. It is running fine now, but I am still updating after talking to Pakistan to gettin the 36 numbers to activate XP because I’ve done this numerous times over the years. I just bought another terabyte of external hard drives that after I get what I can recovered, I’ll back up on them and leave them offline. Geeze, I’ve been using computers since 1969! You’d have thought I would know the importance of good backup after over 35 years of using these infernal machines! :
Microsloth’s security alerts keeps prompting me that I have no virus protection. The solution they give is to get a different AV provider. To me, either it is a bug in the software or a virus that hasn’t been removed or discovered and identified correctly. Heuristics scans detect nothing. :