avast! doesn't load at startup

Hi everybody. I have been using avast! for about a month and it always worked fine; but three hours ago I rebooted my machine and after the resident protection doesn’t load anymore ???. Well, it loads, but I need to wait 10 minutes for that :-, and that is very annoying.

Also it’s very strange because I haven’t installed anything on my PC on the last days. And more weird is that I uninstalled avast!, cleaned the Windows registry, rebooted to reinstall but the problem persists :'(.

I really don’t what can be causing this behaviour, so please give me a hand because I don’t want to leave avast! :-[

Best regards and sorry for my english, Lito.

P.S: this happens on a PIII with Windows Me, IE6 SP1 and 360 Mb of RAM.

Strange, indeed. So you’re saying it takes avast 10 minutes to start? :o

Something has to be braking it badly - it’s got to be waiting for something to initialize, I guess… Are you sure this happened just like that - with no changes to your HW/SW configuration? Or an unclean reboot or something… anything?

I am confused. :-\

Vlk

Lito, the system wait 10 minutes to boot or avast! to load after boot?
How did you cleaned your Registry?
Windows Me has know errors handling the Registry… :cry:

Yes, it happened just like that ???. My mom told me: “Marcel I need the phone” So, because I didn’t have anything to do while my mother was talking I just said: “Let’s make a reboot” :stuck_out_tongue:

After that, avast! wait a very long time to load after startup.

Thank you Vlk, I hope that you could help me. Bye.

It’s avast that waits about 10 min to load after boot :-, Windows seems to boot normally, the firewall and the Windows components load fast.

I cleaned the registry with JV16 PowerTools searching for strings corresponding to avast and alwil. But I only clean the registry after the problem appears :'(.

Thanks for your answer Technical. Cheers, Lito.

Please check the avast logs (accessible by right-clicking the avast tray icon). Is there anything in the Error category?

Hi again Vlk, the error category is empty :-\

Bye, Lito.

Can you try changing the storage from ODBC to XML? For instructions on how to do this please see e.g. http://www.avast.com/forum/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=222;start=msg970#msg970

Thanks
Vlk

Hi Vlk, I did that and it didn’t work either :(. I also noticed that is not only a startup problem because if I kill the avast! process and run manually ashserv.exe I need to wait about 10 min again. ???

Any other idea?

Thank you for your help, Lito.

How do you kill the process? I assume you have some process listing program, then. If you do, it’d be quite interesting to tell me how many threads are there in the ashServ.exe process when it is in the hung state (i.e. before it starts properly)… it will give me a rough idea of how far it has got in the initialization code.

Thanks

OK, please try replacing the file ashServ.exe with this one

http://cat.asw.cz/~vlk/ashServ.exe

(first back up the original version, to be sure). The new version should work the same, except that it will create the file c:_aswServ.log on startup. I’d need you to send me the contents of this file (after starting the new version).

Thanks,
Vlk

Hi again Vlk, I sent to you the ashserv log and also some text files with the process threads :).

Cheers, Lito.

Hi Lito, please try to do “Repair” of the avast installation.
Go to the Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, avast! Antivirus, and select Change. Then select Repair.

Seems to me that certain files do not have correct versions (I suppose you have the latest version, 4.1.268)

Thanks
Vlk

I did that the first time I had the error :-, but, anyway, I’ll do it again.

Thank you Vlk.

I didn’t work :'(. Also I try to make again a fresh installation of avast!, but this time using the installer for version 4.1.268 (spanish) instead of the one for version 4.1.260 that I had before. Sadly I got the same result ???, and if I see the threads again some components still show old version numbers :-\

I don’t know what to do next ???.

Regards, Lito.

Hmm, Vlk…
How many problems with avast! startup appeared last few days :o :o I´m curious what is happening…

Sorry, Lito, I do not use Windows Me and could not figure what is going on into your system. Maybe you can post a list of Startup links and the itens on Run key of Registry… 8)

Btw, in XP avast! works perfectly. In a Windows Me of a friend of mine too :-\

Vlk and Technical, please go to the dictionary and search the word “stupid”. You see a picture? Well, that’s my picture
http://www.wackyb.co.nz/msn/embaressed_smile.gif
.

As I told by email to Vlk, I forgot an important detail, I read on a security site that rpcss.exe could be a security hole and it wasn’t necessary on Win 98_* Lito so I renamed it. After that avast! doesn’t work right again but I really forgot that detail._

I’m writing this again just to let people know that it wasn’t an avast! problem, it’s was my fault. And also I want to say thank you to Vlk for all his patience and his support ;). I’ll give you another karma ;D.

Best regards, Lito.

Ok, commmitte mistakkes is umuan ;D
Why don´t you give me a karma too ;D

Yeah, you’re right. I always read your post and they are all useful, also the ones from minacross. I’ll give you a karma to you 8)