Avast definitely has a bug that causes explorer crashes

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Windows explorer keeps crashing, and I found the culprit after doing some things to my system. Avast.

I did updates, sfc, chkdsk and almost contempated a system reset. I can’t rename files or move them and explorer keeps crashing together with apps that rely on it.

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After that first crash I restarted my system, tried to do all kinds of cleanups and tech stuff. Am somewhat good at computers, still nothing worked. I went to reddit, found some users with te same problems, nothing worked.
https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/dhuzma/windows_10_windows_explorer_crashes_when_renaming/

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And lastly, I went ahead and uninstalled all the apps I use one by one, then restarted the system and reinstalled them. When I got to Avast, I uninstalled it and restarted, and now the issue isn’t happening every 10 minutes anymore.

It’s strange that Avast was causing the conflict with Windows Explorer. I even switched from Windows 11 to Windows 10 last week, thinking that would fix it, not realizing Avast was the problem. If you manage to fix it, please let me know, and I’ll retest with the new version. I also have a Windows Explorer dump from when it was crashing—I’m not sure if it would help, but I can provide it if needed.

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I’ve installed Comodo Firewall + AV and Bitdefender Free, and for the past hour, I haven’t had any crashes. Seems like everything’s running smoothly, meaning Avast is indeed the culprit.

2

Installing multiple anti-virus is definitely a bad choice, even if BitDefender is for on-demand scans.It’s always prone to trouble.

3

@NON Note this:

So no Avast only Bitdefender. (EDIT: unless also has Comodo AV? I missed that when first read)

I have also noticed problems with Windows Explorer on Win10, but had not traced to Avast. I have been going to Task Manager and restarting that process to recover.

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Oh ok, so BitDefender after Avast uninstalled. I’m not having any issues of Windows Explorer with Avast installed on any machine I have though.

5

As @NON has mentioned in post #2, it is not a good idea to have more than one resident AV installed (Comodo AV, Bitdefender Free). They may fight each other.

6

I used Comodo and Bitdefender separately for 3 hours each after uninstalling Avast, and there were no issues. I don’t use multiple AVs. The problem is with Avast and how it scans files—especially when renaming and moving them, that’s when the crash happens. Right now, I’m using Windows Defender, and I haven’t had a single crash.

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7

Strange, my old system is on Win10 and I’m not experiencing that.

However I’m still using Avast 24.10 and not 24.11 or the latest 24.12 version yet.

Though I may not be suffering this as I have a win10 off-line installation and no connection to the Microsoft App store which I most certainly don’t use. Though I have many other Apps downloaded from other locations and no issues with them.