Anti-Theft appears to be automatically re-enabling WiFi

Hi,

My Avast! Mobile is automatically switching my WiFi on whenever I try and switch it off. Here are the relevant messages from my “adb logcat” from the point at which I disable WiFi via the drag-down status bar GUI:


07-15 11:10:40.811 D/WifiService( 2478): setWifiEnabled: false pid=3041, uid=1000

07-15 11:10:40.916 D/WifiService( 2478): setWifiEnabled: true pid=6156, uid=10155
07-15 11:10:41.861 D/WifiService( 2478): setWifiEnabled: true pid=6156, uid=10155
07-15 11:10:41.871 D/WifiService( 2478): setWifiEnabled: true pid=6156, uid=10155

…and here are the relevant processes from my process list:

system 3041 1976 532888 61052 ffffffff 00000000 S com.android.systemui
u0_a155 6156 1976 517236 58316 ffffffff 00000000 S com.avast.android.antitheft

As you can see, Avast AntiTheft (pid 6156) is re-enabling my wifi immediately (~100ms) after I switch it off.

My device and version numbers are:

  • Samsung Galaxy Note 2 (GT-N7105)
  • Android v4.1.1
  • Baseband vN7105BVALIG
  • Linux version 3.0.31-240505 (se.infra@SEP-76) (gcc version 4.4.3 (GCC) ) #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Sep 26 21:28:21 KST 2012
  • avast! Anti-Theft 2.0.4838

Is there any way I can stop avast! re-enabling my wifi?

Thanks!

Hello,

the enforced wifi connection is most likely due to your device beeing marked “lost”. If you open Anti-Theft once, the device will be as marked “found” again.

Werner

No - the device is not marked as “lost”. I have opened Anti-Theft on the phone as you suggested, but the app still automatically re-enables WiFi.

I also checked my device status via the web portal - it shows that the device is not marked as “lost”. I sent a “FOUND” command to see if this would change anything, but Anti-Theft is still auto-enabling my WiFi.

I just double checked my logcat and process list and it is similar to my original post (i.e. it seems that com.avast.android.antitheft is forcibly enabling my WiFi).

Thanks for any advice!

Aha! Just found the solution.

When I was testing the web portal, I had enabled “continuous tracking” on my device. As soon as I disabled this (via the web portal) I can now switch my WiFi off. It was not obvious (to me) that continous tracking would imply continuous WiFi.

In any case, it seems that disabling the continuous tracking (via web portal) has solved my problem.

Thanks.

yeah because the tracking enables wifi to check for WIFI IDs.

Can anyone tell me where, for the love of god, I can find ‘continuous tracking’ to turn it off so that it doesn’t turn on wifi and kept on?

I have this same problem with my phone. I can never turn the WiFi off and it says it’s always awake. Even though I lock my phone whenever I’m not using it, the battery history says that it has been awake. My phone being awake and wifi connected causes it to die overnight. Please help us with these issues. :cry:

I found it! To turn “auto-wifi” off, go to the Avast Mobile Security app, Menu, Settings, and then avast! account. Uncheck the “Status reporting” box. :slight_smile: