Avast causing massive delays when opening files.

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I’ve been having this weird issue where files would take forever to load when using certain programs, but fine with others. 7zip would need several seconds to open a file that windows explorer would open instantly, same with Irfanview and images and VLC and videos. Exe files also loaded much slower than they should’ve. I did a wide variety of attempted fixes, which you can read about here

http://www.tenforums.com/performance-maintenance/16099-hard-drive-speed-plummets-no-reason.html

but nothing really showed much improvement until I tried disabling the avast shields…and then everything worked perfectly. Files loaded right away, everything was acting as it should. I uninstalled and reinstalled avast, and was able to recreate the issues perfectly. Avast shields on, everything loads slow…Avast shields off, everything runs great.

Has anyone else had this issue yet? I’m running Windows 10. The last thing I’ll try is reinstalling Avast to a new drive, but if that doesn’t work, I’ll try a different Antivirus and see if that fixes the issue. I really do like Avast though, and want to keep using it…but the loading speeds just become unbearably slow. Still, once the program is loaded, it works just fine…but still.

2
  • Which Avast…? (Free/Pro/IS/Premier)
  • Which version…?
  • OS…? (32/64 Bit…? - which SP…?)
  • Other security related software installed…?
  • Which AV(s) did you use before Avast…?
3
OS..? (32/64 Bit..? - which SP..?)
Win10 :D .... yea i know Asyn, it was probably a standard copy and paste question you have for quick access
4

32/64 Bit…? :wink:

5

I was running the most current free version of Avast.

My OS is Windows 10 64bit

Nothing else security related installed, and I’ve been using Avast free exclusively for years.

Also, I just removed Avast and installed AVG and everything is running like it should. I do prefer Avast though, so I’d like to be able to use it again.

6

Intriguing as I am using Avast on windows 10 and it feels lighter than it did on 8.1

No delays apparent at all

7

First, be sure to get rid of all remnants of your prior installed AV(s)…!!
→ https://www.avast.com/faq.php?article=AVKB11#artTitle

Then:

  1. Download Avast Free Antivirus: https://files.avast.com/iavs9x/avast_free_antivirus_setup.exe
  2. Follow instructions: https://www.avast.com/uninstall-utility (Run this tool for all prior installed Avast versions…!!)
  3. Reinstall Avast with the downloaded installer from point 1.
  4. Reboot.
8

Completely cleaned out Avast and AVG, reinstalled Avast, same problem happened.

9

Follow instructions: https://www.avast.com/faq.php?article=AVKB33#artTitle

10

Yes, for the last few days as well as just a few minutes ago - Seems a little intermittent in that it doesn’t ALWAYS happen however it is very real when it does happen - and it is relatively new behavior.

I’m running 64bit 8.1 Pro. The symptoms are as you described.

Post-post addendum: Others on this forum are reporting similar symptoms: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=175249.0