Avast failure

Just turned on computer and my avast icon in the traybar had a red x going through it. I then had a message that said " UI failed to load, this is really embarrassing, AV service is not responding." Under that message was a box with exit written in it and next to that it said restart service. I have trid doing that with no results. Today we had cable men change over the connections, could this possibly have anything to do with it? Version is 17.5.2303. This is an old computer I use mainly for playing games, it is an xp version…I KNOW it’s really old!!! Thanks for any help I can get.

There seems to be a few reports of this as late https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=205860.0 all reports started after the release of 17.5.2303 so Avast might have a bug to deal with :-\

That link refers to windows !0 installs and was solved with a clean install.
This user is running Windows XP.
XP must be SP3 and support SSE2.

Bob, it is SP3, thank you all for your replys.

I have been using this computer for a long time with the free avast and have never had this problem before

Does it also support SSE2 ??? See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE2
If not, this may help:
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=164936.msg1322691#msg1322691

If you check my signature below my post you will see one of the systems that I’m using is winXP Pro SP3 and I have the latest avast free version 17.5.2303 and no Issue with the avastUI loading.

Check that you have Terminal Services running, open the Windows Services - Windows key + R - now type services.msc and enter. Now you should be able to check the Services for Terminal Services running.

Whilst mine is set to Manual it is running - if yours isn’t running and set to manual - try setting it to Automatic and restart your computer.

Thank you David, although I can’t check now, I will definitely do this tomorrow. Thank you

Also, thank you Bob for your input!

You’re welcome.

You’re welcome.

David, I tried what you told me to do yesterday, and because I am not computer literate, wasn’t really sure what I was looking at or even what to do. I’m one of those people who needs step by step directions. What I did see was that avast was “started” and set at “automatic”. I have no idea where to go from here

It isn’t the avast service that you should be looking for, I didn’t say that (check my Reply #6 post again). Avast ‘needs’ the ‘Terminal Services’ to be running, it would issues a command to Start the service (as in my attached images). So for whatever reason the Terminal Services isn’t being started.

This is why the suggestion to change it to start Automatically, it should then be available for avast to use.

Tried that David but it didn’t work, but thank you anyway. Just wondering, could I delete the current avast and sign up for another one?

Clean Install of Avast:
https://goo.gl/4Ptzkf
If you need additional help with the Clean Install, watch this:
https://youtu.be/p-h3myRD51A

You’re welcome, give Bob’s suggestion a shot.
I would have to say I’m not entirely sure if this might work or not, if Terminal Services isn’t running, I don’t know if this would change that.

Did you reboot after setting Terminal Services to Automatic ?
It should show it is still set to Automatic and running. I don’t know if you were using a user account with Admin privileges or if that admin permission is required.

Cursory examination of Bob’s advice seems to leave out one key requirement:

  • XP SP3 will require an internet connection when running the full offline installer
  • Vista will also require an internet connection when running the full offline installer

Internet connection will provide additional code needed by both XP SP3 and Vista to run avast properly when installation is complete.

Thanks for all your help everyone, not good enough to be trying to fix my own computer! I’m done

Hi Rommy320,

I feel your pain and i am fairly confident around computers. Despite your recent issue i would not recommend looking for a different software package as i believe avast is one of the best on the market. all software will have issues at some point. From skimming over the thread i assume avast did work at one point and has only recently stopped working? one thing to try, which is what i did, was to use the avast clear utility to completely clear your computer of avast and then reinstall however when reinstalling choosing customise ( under the green install button) and then the minimal protection option in the drop down box. if avast runs fine with the minimal protection option, then add additional features one by one. In my case i found the ransomware shield was the one causing me problems and by not having that installed my problems went away. hope things work out for you or you find a product that better fits your needs.

I have Xp and got this on an old computer, a restart usually cleared the problem, but the next time I started the computer would sometimes appear again, it is not always a problem, however, I uninstalled Avast, removing all traces using Revo and re-installed it. So far I have had no problems. The old computer does have it does have Sp3 on it, so try a clean Install.

I also got it once with Windows 8.1 but a restart solved it and I have had no more problems.

I am fully up to date with Avast and MS updates, though I see some waiting for 8.1 today :-[
Away to get them into that computer now.