Hello this issue applies to following configuration:
Running latest AVAST 4.6.732 while running some application that often logs to a file with a “HTML” extension. For example IBM Access Connections (IBM/Lenovo wireless network helper) has a feature for “debugging” the networking that does log into the html file… The problem is that the log file keeps growing and growing and whenever the file grows avast has to check it with the standard shield. This ends in the endless loop while avast takes all the processor resources and keep scanning the file over and over.
I almost gave up on avast!, but i gave it a second chance and found this “bug”… so u guys should make some check on this - maybe a popup warning window, cuz normal BFU won’t be ever able to catch this =)
i upgraded to the latest (this happened to me with the build from the download section on your page…) - i will try to reproduce the error. will post back.
ok… the latest version still has a problem - adding the file to “don’t check it” works… (that’s what i did of course) - however that’s not a solution that’s just a workaround. Avast should have some built-in intelligence that could detect, that checking the same growing 10meg+ file over and over is not healthy for the system.
Imagine, u boot up and the system is going @ snail speed… u don’t have time to analyze (and most ppl won’t even try to) where’s the problem - maybe later u find out - ashserver is eating up like 99%? WTF? let’s get rid of this avast! that’s the solution, u probably wouldn’t like to see @ alwil right?
so that’s why i am asking for a solution to this =) btw: i am not sure about this, but i am almost certain that the logging feature is enabled for months and this started to happen last week. maybe some bug in some update?
There hasn’t been any program update recently, so it’s hardly an update problem. Maybe the log simply grew quite big?
Anyway, I’d say that excluding the target “log” file using the Standard Shield exclusions is the only good solution. Checking the same file over and over again may not be “healthy for the system”, but what if the last write, ignored by avast! on purpose, writes some malicious code into the file? In my opinion, avast! is just doing its job, it’s up to you to say if you consider the file “safe”.
(Btw, I find it rather stupid to access the log this way - closing and reopening it for every write - but I don’t think bugging IBM for a change has big chances to succeed.)