Avast On-Access Protect Stops

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hello, I’ve been having some trouble with Avast On-Access Protection. Every time my screensaver comes up or I put the computer into standby On-Access protection stops. I tried to start it by right clicking the system tray icon and selecting “Start On-Access Protection”, but to no avail. However, being the curious person that I am, I opened up services.msc and checked and sure enough the avast! Antivirus service had stopped running unlike trying to start it from the system tray I could start the service from the services.msc window.

Now, I had run into this problem before. I tried repairing the install which did not work, the only thing that worked was uninstalling and reinstalling the software, however as this problem has cropped up again I was hoping to come up with an alternate solution. Does anyone have any idea why this is happening and how to fix it? ??? Thanks in advance.

2

Have (or did) you another AV installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?

Conflicts with other security software could cause avast to shutdown.

It would be worth checking to see if you don’t have some malware on your system responsible for this.

If you haven’t already got this software (freeware), download, install, update and run it and report the findings (it should product a log file).

Don’t worry about reported tracking cookies they are a minor issue and not one of security, allow SAS to deal with them though. - See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie.

3

I ran the Malwarebytes’ scan and it didn’t help at all here is the log

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.41
Database version: 2933
Windows 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3

10/10/2009 12:22:21 AM
mbam-log-2009-10-10 (00-22-21).txt

Scan type: Full Scan (C:\|G:\|H:\|I:\|K:\|P:\|X:\|)
Objects scanned: 700888
Time elapsed: 1 hour(s), 35 minute(s), 23 second(s)

Memory Processes Infected: 0
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 0
Registry Values Infected: 0
Registry Data Items Infected: 0
Folders Infected: 0
Files Infected: 4

Memory Processes Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Memory Modules Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Keys Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Values Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Data Items Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Folders Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Files Infected:
G:\K66T6's Documents\ZangoInstaller.exe (Adware.Seekmo) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
H:\Downloads\asx-p8-ds2\asx-p8-ds2.exe (Malware.Packer) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
I:\K66T6's Documents\ZangoInstaller.exe (Adware.Seekmo) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
X:\Downloads\asx-p8-ds2\asx-p8-ds2.exe (Malware.Packer) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

Any other ideas?

4

What do you mean it didn’t help, that log is 15 days old and it detected 4 files.

Did you not run avast after that scan ?
I also don’t see an SAS scan log, didn’t you run that also ?

Win XP SP3 has been out for over a year and is a recommended upgrade.
I would also suggest a visit to this site, which scans your system for out of date programs that have patches to close vulnerabilities, http://secunia.com/software_inspector/.

5

I have SP3, and I ran a second scan recently that found nothing. I did not run SAS. I will try the update software site.

6

Sorry, I thought the quoted MBAM log said SP2, guess I need to use a larger font ;D

Have (or did) you another Anti-Virus installed in this system, if so what was it and how did you get rid of it ?

7

I 'd have to check the original specs on the computer, I think I opted out of the free Mcaffee/Norton antivirus trial when I customized my new computer off of Dell, I knew I was going to put avast on it from the get go but I don’t remember. If I had anything installed on this computer besides avast it was one of those 2 but only when I first got the computer about a little under a year ago, and this is a fairly recent problem.

8

Opting out may not be enough as they normally have it installed and running. Conflicts don’t have any time-line so it could happen immediately or lie dormant.

I don’t really know what AV they usually had pre-installed.

You can try these:
A link worth looking at, which is a program removal tool that can remove the remnants of a number of different Norton Programs:
Removing your Norton program using SymNRT
Or ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/removal_tools/Norton_Removal_Tool.exe

Here are the various removal tools:

2007 version - http://download.mcafee.com/products/licensed/cust_support_patches/MCPR.exe

Also see - How do I uninstall SecurityCenter? http://ts.mcafeehelp.com/faq3.asp?docid=71525

If that doesn’t have any effect, all I can suggest is a clean reinstall, I know you said you uninstalled and reinstalled, but there is another step. You could try this first possibly less onerous option before the others.

Download the latest version of avast http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html and save it to your HDD, somewhere you can find it again. Use that when you reinstall. Ensure that you scroll down and select the avast direct download link for the English version and not Cnet as that is for an on-line installation (not what you want to do). - Direct download for avast Home, English version, http://files.avast.com/iavs4pro/setupeng.exe.

Download the avast! Uninstall Utility, find it here and save it to your HDD.

    1. Now uninstall (using add remove programs, if you can’t do that start from the next step), reboot.- 2. run the avast! Uninstall Utility, reboot. If step 1 failed it may be necessary to run this from safe mode, once complete reboot into normal mode.- 3. install the latest version, reboot.