avast cannot choose a server for download

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

hi everybody
I am using avast 4.6 home (german)
it worked quite well until the day before yesterday.
I didn’t make any changes (as far as I can remember).
But now I get a red warning-messsage now and then, which tells me, that it can’t choose a server for downloading the newest update. And in brackets: (from 0). Whatever that means.

Does anyone have an idea what I can do?
I am not very familiar with avast, for I am just running it and praying that it wont quit its job. (what it has done now) :wink:

thanks a lot, toby

2

Toby,

it would help us if you could check “About avast” (sorry I do not know that in German) and tell us exactly which version of avast you are using.

3

Apparently I am using
avast! Version 4.6 home edition
Build: Nov2005 (4.6.731)
Xtreme Toolkit Version 1.9.4.0
ActiveSkin Version 4.2.7.3

VPS-file:
date of compilation: 20.11.2005
file-version: 0546-6

I hope that helps… :slight_smile:

4

Toby,

thanks for the update on your version.

You are using the most recent program update of avast (731).

A number of other users have reported problems with the automatic update of VPS files after this program update. The current VPS (as of this posting) is 0547-1 so you might want to try a manual update.

I am sure that the avast team is working hard to overcome this problem and I expect that we will see an update from them soon.

5

thanx for your instant reply. (is that correct english?)

I tried a manual update, but the error was the same.
So I hope, they hurry up with their program-fix.
greetings,
toby

6

Toby,

your ability to communicate in English is excellent (you make me ashamed of my lack of language skills).

The avast team, in my experience, performs well above and beyond the performance of others and I expect them to overcome this problem very soon.

7

thanx for all. :slight_smile:

8

Check the file \Setup\servers.def - is it empty or does it contain some server addresses?

9

nope.
it’s empty.

Do I have to enter any adresses?
But why is it empty? I used the downloadservice untill last Monday or so.

10

Good Heavens!

igor remember I have promised Toby that you guys are the best - I expect you to deliver.

11

;D

12

Download servers.def from here:
http://download1.avast.com/iavs4x/servers.def

Save it to avast4\setup folder, then you can start update.

13

This is an interesting issue …

just as a test I deleted my servers.def file and - as I expected (from previous investigation) - avast simply re-downloaded it when I ran a manual VPS update.

Looking forward to Toby’s response.

14

I still have no clue at all, why the file was empty, nore why it wasn’t replaced automatically as alanrf described it, but replacing it with the downloaded one, did the job.

The update works and that’s all that matters. (even though I am still curious about the -why was the file empty?-)

thanx to all of you, now my pc is safe again. :smiley:
toby

15

Toby,

good to hear that worked for you.

As an extra test I edited the servers.def file, removing all the contents and leaving it as an empty file … avast still re-downloaded the real servers.def file when I did a manual VPS update.

Curious.

16

Hehe, there’s servers.def.lkg (last known good) file, so when the servers.def is damaged, it’s replaced by the backup copy.

It’s strange why there are both empty files, that should not happen. can’t think of any scenario, how that could happen, because servers.def is backup to servers.def.lkg only when it passes thru all the sanity checks.

17

I had the same problem.

Here’s what i did :

i looked at the sercers.def file, i had the file but it was empty.

so i downloaded the file from http://download1.avast.com/iavs4x/servers.def
and it worked

i tried what you guys did, i deleted the servers.def file and manually updated, it redownloaded the file.

I think there was a virus or something that deleted the content of the DEF file, and avast did not download the file because it was there but empty. So when we deleted the file avast could could not detect the file and re-downloaded it automatically. I think someone found this hole in the AVAST system and exploited it.