Avast causes a memory leak

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hello!
We have already discussed this problem in a non-english zone, but I hope that people who can fix this issue will hear us.

In the last few days I noticed that watching videos on YouTube causes the non-paged pool to gradually growing, as well as the memory usage in general. Using Poolmon.exe, I came to the ndis.sys causing the problem. The problem manifests itself in Google Chrome or Opera 55, but not in Microsoft Edge though. I tried to disable NDU, as recommended for this kind of problem, but it did not help. The most interesting part - i noticed that the problem started after updating Avast to 18.6.2349 version, and a person with the same problem said that disabling Avast Web Shield works. And it really does! After disabling Web Shield, the non-paged pool no longer grows. So that’s how we found a culprit.
I also talked with one more person with this problem, but he uses the latest version of AVG, and his problem is solved in exactly the same way. Since AVG is a part of Avast, they can share this issue, i guess. So for now i already know 3 people with the same problem.

There is something in Web Shield that causes memory leak.

I do not want to turn off the protection components to make the system stable, so i hope that developers will see this topic and fix the issue as soon as possible.

2

Is there a reason why you’re repeating it here ??? Avast monitors all languages.
There are also moderators in all languages tha can refer something to Avast if it warrants and isn’t addressed by Avast.

3

I haven’t seen any reports about this on this board yet.

What operating system do you use?
Have you tried a clean install and seen if the issue persists?
Do you have any dumps of the non-paged pool growing?

AVG and Avast use the same engine and the Web Shield component is the same for both versions.

There was changes in v18.6 to introduce support for scanning TLS 1.3 traffic via Web Shield for Chrome and Firefox and this may have caused it.

4

I do not know how it works here, on Avast forum, but usually nobody reads Russian forums. So i started a new topic.

5

Yeah, i saw only one post about this on Russian Avast forum.

I use Windows 10 Home 64-bit 1803 build 17134.228.
No, i did not.
No, do not have any.

Oh forget to mention. It seems that non-paged pool grows only when watching videos, unlike other network activity.

6

Hi.
The main question for now is, do you use another AV or similar product as a “second layer” of the protection. It can be interop problem between twosimmilar products.

Thank you for the reply

7

Hello! No, i use Avast Free Antivirus only.

8

Raena.exml, what was the pooltag, please? I don’t seem to repro it here. Thanks. Lukas

9

Do you mean Poolmon? It was NDnd tag.

10

Thanks.

11

Same problem. When I watch a video on YouTube, Vimeo a non-paged pool is growing.
I turned off the web shield in avast and the problem disappeared. When I turn on, the problem again appears.

Windows 10 x64 pro 17134.254
Avast 18.6.2349
Opera 55.0.2994.44 or Opera 56 beta
I use only avast, there are no other antivirus programs.

Sorry my english is not perfect

12

Hallo

I have discovered reason of the leak. Fix is ready and is going to be tested by QA. We will release update with the fix in horizon of the several days.

Sorry for inconvenience.

13

Oh, that’s great news! I will be waiting for the fix.

14

Hello,

Update fixing the issue was released yesterday.
The update will be delivered automatically and applied with next system (PC) restart.

Filip

15

Great! I have not received an update yet but i’m looking forward to it.

16

It’s been a week, but I still have not received an update :frowning:

17

Is the system on-line ??? if so, have you restarted (rebooted) the computer ???
Once done, the update would have been completed.

18

Of course it is. Rebooted it a couple of times in the last week, still have 18.6.2349 version. I also can not find any newer version above 2349 on the internet. Maybe i understand something wrong?

19

https://screencast-o-matic.com/screenshots/u/Lh/1537538615681-4348.png

Do you have the latest build. Updates happen other than actual program or version updates.
If you have the latest build. then, as stated by Avast, the fix has been applied.

20

That is the latest regular program release, the only thing higher than that if the current avast beta version, https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=179943.0.

If you aren’t averse to testing beta versions, that topic has a download location of the new/latest beta version.