The icon suddenly stopped appearing in the notification tray of my boyfriend’s computer. He is Italian and doesn’t speak English so I’m writing on his behalf. I went into the customize section to be certain it was checked and it was…I rebooted anyway just to be safe. We’ve uninstalled and reinstalled avast as well as clicked on the repair button. Also…without the icon his monitor appears normal, but if he clicks on the desktop icon for avast the avast window as well as his desktop becomes pixelated (sp?). I’m new to this forum so maybe this isn’t the right place to post this. Also, I am not very computer savvy as far as technical terms, so please if you respond feel free to explain to me as if you would explain to a child. I’m hoping that someone can help me with this since in our town here there is not much technical support.
Is this a recent avast install ? what AV was used prior to avast and how was it removed ? any other security software installed on the system ?
No…he’s been using Avast for over a year now. I’m not very computer savvy but he is even worse and sometimes clicks on things and doesn’t even know he did something. Maybe he did something and didn’t know it, but we’ve tried to resolve this issue now and I’m at a loss what else to do. As I said, he uninstalled it and reinstalled it and it appears in his program files, it’s just that the icon doesn’t appear in the notification tray. Does this mean he is still protected anyway? And there is no other security installed unless something is lingering from a very old virus protection. But, as I said this seems to be something that has suddenly changed. The only thing I can think of is he unknowingly did something to change this. I just want to make certain his computer is protected.
Task Manager will let you know if the avast service is running ( right click the taskbar and click Task Manager )
It maybe better to restore the system to an earlier point before the problem began imo.
I’ve heard other people talking about restoring the system…but I’m afraid to do anything that seems very technical because if something gets really screwed up…we don’t really have the money to try to get help. I just checked his taskbar and under “processes” it doesn’t show up. But under “services” it appears and says it is running. But, still I have the question of the icon not appearing and also the vocal notification that avast is running…are these two necessary for the protection of his computer? And, thanks, btw…for your quick replies and help.
Also, can you direct me to a step-by-step link on how to restore the system? I know his computer could use an overhaul probably…it’s slower than molasses…but everything on his computer is in Italian and my Italian is not so great and non-existent when it comes to computer terminology.
For me on Win7-8 it is control panel/Recovery or action center then recovery then choose your restore point.
Have you tried doing a repair of avast! to see if that fixes the problem ???
Yes…we did the repair and still no icon.
What other security software do they have installed (firewall, anti-spyware, etc.) ?
What Operating System is he using ?
Some have been known to block the avastUI.exe (a user startup item), which places the Icon and acts as the avast! user interface to the program/shield settings.
Whilst the tray icon and interface aren’t directly related to avast protection, it makes you wonder if something else isn’t right. The use of System Restore often screws up avast, so it isn’t an ideal situation; you/he should disable the avast self-defence module before using it, that would be a problem since avastUI.exe isn’t running.
He can find the C:\Program Files\AVAST Software\Avast\AvastUI.exe to manually launch the UI and place the icon in the tray, what happens if he double clicks on this file ?
As I said earlier, I don’t have a lot of technical savvy with computers so I’m a bit nervous about trying this restore. But, your explanation for finding the avastui.exe seems pretty detailed. I will try this and see if it works. He has spybot and malwarebytes to clean malware and I don’t know about the firewall. But, he hasn’t installed anything new so I’m not sure why the icon has suddenly disappeared. I will try your suggestions a little later and see if that works. Thanks for all the advice.
I did ask in my first post if any other security was installed and you said “no” Spybot has been known to cause issues with avast, especially if it is running in real time with tea timer active so I’d try to remove spybot then perform a repair on avast via remove programs, click on avast then click uninstall and when you receive the popup choose repair and reboot when completed.
Well…shows what I know. I thought Spybot was just something to remove malware that slips through the virus protection. In a perfect world I would be rich and just buy a new computer instead of trying to sort through all this. I’ll dedicate my morning tomorrow to try and sort through these suggestions. Thanks for your patience and advice. But one more question…if I remove Spybot can I put it back on after the repair and reboot? It’s been helpful to locate bugs. And what about malwarebytes?
If he has MalwareBytes AntiMalware (MBAM) he doesn’t need Spybot S&D.
What version of Windows is he running? XP is notorious for system tray icon problems. If you go into Avast settings and choose to have it load after other services, that may fix the problem. Click on settings at the top right and then on troubleshooting.
I also would agree that Spybot should be removed, especially since you already have Malwarebytes which is far superior.