Avast 6 stopped, won't restart

I’m running Avast 6 in Windows XP. When I started up my computer today, I noticed Avast had the little “x” icon beside it. I pulled it up, and it showed as unprotected. It showed as “stopped, or in an inconsistent state”. Neither the fix button nor the start program buttons worked. When I tried to start the Web Shield, it came up as “Shield unreachable”. I ran Malwarebytes to check for viruses (I assume if one could compromise Avast, Avast wouldn’t find it) and came up with nothing. Restarting the computer was also ineffective. What do I do?

Was this the first time you restarted your computer since installing Avast 6? If so, you might have the problem described in http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=72158.msg608390 .