Avast CHOKING down memory - machine at a crawl

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
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So, all of the sudden, Avast is choking my machine down… jumps up to 2+gb of memory usage, then drops down to 150M…it is causing RIDICULOUS file swapping between ram and the hard drive…I mean the hard drive has been running NON-STOP for 5 hours now…so I updated the virus definitions, as well as the engine, and now still have the same problem. I have run a couple third party greyware/adware removers and found some minor issues - not TSR’s, but it is absolutely crushing my computer’s performance…

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Info about my version of Avast:

Windows 7 Pro 64 bit
I7 quad 2.8ghz
6gb ram
1366FSB

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The avast installation, installs a bunch of items in addition to the main a/v protection, the shields.
If you do a custom installation, you can pick exactly what gets installed.

If you do the basic installation (advised less and less as time goes on) everything gets installed.

Which install did you do ?

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I did the install a couple years ago - all I did recently was update… that being said, I have turned off a bunch of the crapware that is now bundled with it… I will post image once I have machine up and running this am.

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So I boot up this morning - right off the bat I get a message that says, “Avast needs to reboot your computer”…so I do…

This time, it comes back up, and things are running quite smoothly - so as per my previous post, I go into the settings to see what is turned on and off and I notice something VERY peculiar…

Yesterday, when I went to the page that is in the attached image, there were all kinds of additional options, including some password tool (which is the only one i can remember right now) - but more significantly, you had to scroll down to get to all the options, so there were at LEAST 5 more options available. Now they are gone???

Did Avast figure out the problem here? That there is just too much CRAP in the program and they should just stick to doing what they do best - being the low-bloat antivirus?? Also - why is Avast Emergency Update running now???

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What is this “emergency update”? And why is it all of the sudden running…

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i think this might be related to known bug and fix is worked on (

to be sure if it’s same bug
could you please view number of HANDLES of the avastsvc.exe process (when the memory usage is high) and tell us the number ?
(e.g. in the Task Manager (need to add such column first) or use Process Explorer (Sysinternals) or Process Hacker etc.)

  • my temporary suggestion (this is only workaround)
    just restart Avast! service (avastsvc.exe) once in 6-12-24 hours
    the interval depends on how often you use the computer each day
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Thr last time it happened, using the resource manager and Daphne there were 8 or 9 threads opened. I finally had to kill Avast to be able to work!! Here is what I dont understand - i have 12 machines - all now running the same version - 4 running windows 10, 5 running windows 7 (including the one in question), and three installed on individual VMs for use in a TS environment. The windows 10 machines are trucking along just fine…2 windows 7 machines are exhibiting the same behaviour, and one of the win7 vms (but not the other two - which is odd because they are clones -and yes they all have individual licenses) also has the same issue.

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Threads aren’t Handles … so the q still remain

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it toggles between 626 and 628 - but I have had it disabled for a while, and just restarted the service…

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ok if the count isn’t rising to thousands/tens thousand then you probably encountered different bug than me

please make sure you report it to avast!
https://support.avast.com/support/tickets/new?_ga=1.201993105.1685699921.1446218229

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Ok so maybe I was wrong…

After a reboot I ran into the attached…

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And now I see that the AvastSvc in the services container is the culprit…

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I submitted a trouble ticket. …curious though…does anyone have any options they have found (outside of disabling the service until this is fixed…)
By the way…I certainly plan to plan to ask for a credit for all the time this was down.

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Finally got a response:

First of all, please repair and update your Avast antivirus: Click on Start > Control Panel > Uninstall a Program (Programs and Features, Add or Remove Programs) > Avast installation > Click on "Uninstall/Change" > Repair.

After that please disable a few additional Avast features (those are extras and unless you use them intentionally, you should not notice any difference except for lower load on your PC resources; the core system protection will not be affected):
Go to Start > Control Panel > Uninstall a program (Programs and Features, Add or Remove Programs)
Select Avast and click on Uninstall/Change.
In the Avast window that appears click on “Modify” > Continue > under “Tools” you can safely uncheck the following:

  • Browser protection (unless you use the Online Security plugin)
  • Avast SecureLine (unless you have a license for that tool and use it)
  • Secure Virtual Machines (if present)
  • Secure DNS (if present)
    After that click “Continue” and when moditification of the product is completed, restart the PC.

Finally, adjust the Avast Web Shields settings as follows:
Open Avast and go to > SETTINGS > Active Protection > Web shield - Customize > Main settings.
There, you can uncheck the following settings:

  • Use intelligent stream scanning
  • Enable HTTPS scanning
  • Script scanning
    Restart your computer again.
    That should help.

It didn’t help…as a matter of fact, after the repair, I can’t shut down the Avast service (not even using Processhacker)…took 4 reboots to finally get it to shut down…
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I would suggest to try new beta 11.2.2262 from the Beta section of forum to see if it helps
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=15.0

and then definitely hit the Support that theirs solution isn’t working

some brainstorming :
1.
can you go into Process Hacker, select avastsvc.exe and then “properties” then select "modules tab
and in the columns enable “file size” and sort by modules size ?
just to be sure it’s not some huge library file (for w/e reason)

similar, goto the memory tab and enable all colums and try check by sizes what is the biggest mapped region etc.

btw. use the latest Process Hacker as it fixed some AV incompatibilities

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They have given me a follow up set of instructions…basically, used avastclear to uninstall (again) and then reinstall…and if that doesn’t work, then to try setting up a support program with another program they have sent me…

I will post after I get done with this process…if the issue is still the same, I will certainly take a look at those items in processhacker and post.

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Well the uninstall/reinstall SEEMS to have worked (still a bit hesitant to say it is fixed just yet…) But at least now my hard drive isn’t smacked solid writing back and forth to the swapfile.

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This was the support solution:

Download avastClear.exe uninstall utility to your desktop (or other convenient location) from this address: http://files.avast.com/iavs9x/avastclear.exe Run it, let it restart the computer to the Safe mode OR Restart the computer and load the Safe mode manually, then run the utility. Follow the instructions of the utility, locate your Avast version and click on REMOVE. Reboot your computer back into the normal mode (it should load automatically). This procedure is also described here: https://www.avast.com/faq.php?article=AVKB10#artTitle

Then install Avast again running the newest version - download the installer, double-click to launch it and follow the onscreen prompts or instructions in the articles mentioned below.
The installation file can be retrieved here:
http://files.avast.com/iavs9x/avast_internet_security_setup.exe
Avast Internet Security

I am also sending you your license file in attachment, you can apply it to the program directly during installation or after it was already installed. [REMOVED FROM POST OBVIOUSLY]
Doing so, you can follow these instructions: https://www.avast.com/faq.php?article=AVKB1#articleContent (during installation)
and/or http://www.avast.com/faq.php?article=AVKB7#articleContent (activation of the already (re)installed program)
Upon reinstall, reboot and see how the system behaves after that.

If this does not help and the initial problem reappears, please create a support package.
For this download the Support package generator from http://utils.support.tools.avast.com/tools/support/utils/avastsupport.exe and run the tool
Click on Generate now button, let the program run and collect all the data and then send me the generated *.zip file (it can be found by simply clicking on the address and name of the resulting support package in the Support package generator interface) in attachment to your reply.

The biggest problem was that the hard drive was going bonkers writing back and forth to the swapfile…the program “worked” fine with respect to filtering data…and this seems to have solved the issue (for now…)

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wish you looked on that I posted before and got the screens of that

I could give clue on what, where and help fix it for good

already got several people with such issue and every single one uninstalled avast! so nothing to trace